NOTES ON MOORLAND CHURCHES. 187 
NOTES ON MOORLAND CHURCHES. 
Part II. 
BY JAMES HINE, We ieka tse 
(Read November 12th, 1874.) 
Tue notes I have now to lay before the Society are chiefly on 
churches on the eastern border of Dartmoor, those of North Bovey, 
Manaton, Chagford, Buckland, and Widecombe-in-the-Moor. In 
many of their leading characteristics they are not unlike the 
southern and western moorland churches which I have already 
described, but are not without local and special peculiarities. 
At first sight it would seem remarkable that, not only through- 
out a district or county of England, but throughout the British 
Islands, and throughout the whole of northern and western Europe, 
the same styles of architecture prevailed in the middle ages, only 
varied by certain local or national marks, and that throughout this 
large portion of the civilized world the same changes and transi- 
tions in style occurred at much the same periods. This will appear, 
however, the less remarkable if we remember that the Church—the 
foster-mother of architecture, and from whom art drew her chief 
inspiration—was then universally acknowledged. The people of 
civilized Europe, fully believing in one Catholic Church, and know- 
ing no other, could well be satisfied with one style of architecture ; 
one, and yet magnificent in ever-varied forms and details. 
It is the variety and beauty of the idioms, if they may so be called, 
of this medixval architecture,—so varied and so beautiful that no 
two churches are alike, and every church, however humble, has some 
individual interest,—which make miscalled Gothic architecture so 
attractive to the mind and the imagination, rendering the study of 
it a pleasurable enjoyment in this unromantic and prosaic age. 
I have now to speak of some of the idioms and peculiarities of 
these churches on the eastern border of Dartmoor. 
The cathedral at Exeter was, of course, the great glory of the 
diocese and county, and from the erection of its Norman towers 
down to the fifteenth century, the best available talent was 
employed on its construction; and painters and sculptors, not 
