Visited by the Society in 1890. 



271 



facility for procuring stone is accountable for the existence of north, 

 and south porches at the Bradford Church it is impossible to say, 

 but there is no trace of porches at Manningford, though it is by no 

 means improbable that they once existed here as at Bradford; although 

 of wood, which was the usual building material of the period, and 

 was doubtless abundant in this immediate neighbourhood. 



The adoption of the circular form of the apse, in preference to 

 the more English form of the square end, as at Bradford (the only 

 other difference in the plan of the two Churches), might have been 

 partially due to the lack of stone for quoins (many early towers 

 were built round for no other reason than this), though as the 

 vertical courses at the commencement of the apse take the same 

 quantity of freestone, this can hardly have been the sole cause. 



Now to proceed to a more particular description of Manningford 

 Church. The first thing which strikes a person looking for Saxon 

 work here is the absence of long-and-short work in the quoins — all 

 the quoins being of the later flat-bedded type ; but I do not attach 

 much importance to this circumstance, considering the difficulty of 

 procuring long stones here, and that long-and-short work does not 

 invariably occur in other Saxon buildings {e.g., Steyning, Sussex) , 

 although it is the more usual kind of quoin. 



It will be noticed that the flint-work is laid in diagonal courses 

 alternately sloping in opposite directions — called " herring-bone " 

 work. Although this is found in Boman masonry, it is not of itself 

 evidence of very early work, for I have met with it (as at Great 

 Cheverell) down to the thirteenth century. I consider that this 

 form of masonry was adopted more for convenience (to enable stones 

 of irregular length and thickness to be laid in courses without 

 cutting) than for ornament, and there can be no doubt that this 

 Church — as was almost invariably the case in Saxon work — was 

 plastered on the outside, and the axe marks to hold the plaster are 

 still discernible on the quoins and windows. 



The total absence of the buttress is a definite mark of the early date- 

 of this Church. A further early characteristic is the absence of an east 

 window. In a valuable paper on the Church by the late Dr. Baron, 

 contributed to vol. xx. of the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine, lie 



