220 



The Churches of Devizes. 



THE TOWER. 



The peculiarity of the tower consists in its being, not square, but 

 of an oblong form, measuring twenty-three-and-a-half feet from 

 north to south, by fourteen feet from east to west, and seventy-three 

 feet in height. It rests on four arches. Two of these, the east 

 and west, owing to the greater width of those sides, are semicircular. 

 The arches on the north and south are pointed, but of the same 

 height and age as the former. Each of the four arches springs, 

 on either side, from a cluster of three shafts, and is worked into 

 three rolls corresponding with them ; two of these forming a re- 

 ceding or sub-arch. The capitals of the shafts are of the cushion 

 form, and the abacus square and heavy, with the lower edge cham- 

 fered off, and ornamented with rows of the " triangular indented" 

 moulding. 



On the face of each of the arches is a variety of the "chevron" 



moulding, and on that of the western arch there was (until removed 



c. 1820) a curious ornament introduced in the hollow between the 



present " chevron" and " beaded" mouldings. It is thus described 



by Mr. Britton 1 :— 



' ' On the great arch connecting the tower with the nave is an ornament which 

 I have never seen elsewhere, that is, a series of about forty-eight basso-relievo- 

 figures, representing a peculiar sort of bottle running round the arch ; and in 

 the centre is a key stone with an angel's head and thistles sculptured on it." 



Above these arches, at the height of a few feet, is the remaining 



portion of an intersecting 

 arcade, which formerly ran 

 round the whole of the four 

 inner walls, but is now un- 

 fortunately much mutilated 

 on two of its sides. On the 

 north, south, and west walls 

 each arch in this arcade con- 

 tained, in the centre, one 

 additional shaft only, from 



1 Architectural Antiquities, ii., 5. 



