may have rendered such an act-however much to be regretted— absolutely necessary. As I have before stated, the great charm attached to the little Church which I have attempted to delineate, rests chiefly in its ancient bell turret, and as it is the earliest known example of its class, we may perhaps be allowed to digress for a moment to enquire briefly into their origin.

Previous to the erection of the Church of St. Nicholas at Biddeston, there existed at the other end of the village a Church dedicated to St. Peter. It was taken down about ten or twelve years since, but before its destruction most complete drawings and measurements were taken, from which we learn that it contained scarcely one stone upon another of a date antecedent to the 15th century; in other words, that the building presumed to have been founded in the early ages of the Saxon Heptarchy, having perhaps weathered the storms of 500 winters, became matter of history, and that somewhere about the year 1430 the Church of St. Peter was rebuilt. This building consisted at the time of its final demolition of a Nave and South Porch, with a turret on the west wall. A blocked-up arch in the east wall of the Nave, and another in the north wall, with a piscina attached to the latter, proved the former existence of a Chancel and Chantry Chapel. The Chapel had been destroyed when the Church was rebuilt, for under the blocked-up arch a three light window had been inserted of the same date as the other "Perpendicular" work. This Chapel arch and its piscina were of the 13th century. Now in an illumination of the Saxon MS. of the "Benedictionale of St. Ethelwold" there is a representation of a kind of Tower Turret (in which are hung 5 bells), and the form of the open part in which the bells are suspended is by no means unlike that of Biddeston. Again it will be seen that although "that of St. Nicholas is in point of style much older than that of St. Peter" there is nevertheless such a close similarity, as to induce the opinion that the one was copied from the other. But the peculiar characteristics of these turrets as well as those in the neighbourhood differing so much from what we know of Norman work, imply an earlier origin, and "that they must be referred to the fashion of a time and not of a

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locality, and that time must be the Saxon." We infer therefore that the turret of St. Nicholas is simply a copy of the original Saxon design, which was executed in the old Church of St. Peter. To Mr. Pugin's "Examples of Gothic Architecture" I am mainly indebted for the information concerning the destroyed Church of St. Peter. EDWARD W. GODWIN.

Colerne, August 16th, 1855.

Biddeston is in the Diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, Archdeaconry of Bristol, and Deanery of Malmsbury.

AN ACCOUNT OF

Ditchridge Church, Wilts.

By E. W. GODWIN, Esq., Architect.

ITCHRIDGE is a small village near Box, in the county of Wilts, diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, and lower division of the Deanery of Malmsbury.

Comparatively speaking perhaps no Church in the Deanery presents greater attractions to the archeologist than the little Church at Ditchridge. It consists of a Nave, Chancel, and South Porch, and has a bell gable over the Chancel arch.

The Nave is "Norman" with the usual complement of later additions and alterations, a square headed "Perpendicular" window at the west end; a doorway of the same date on the north side, (now partially blocked up;) a two-light "Decorated" square-headed window on the same side with a roll hood-moulding, and a pointed "Decorated" two-light window in very bad repair; some late buttresses, a "Decorated" Porch, and a modern two-light window on the south side.1

The Chancel, Chancel arch, and bell gable were built in the 13th century, but the windows are insertions of the 15th century.

The inner doorway of the Porch is shown in elevation Plate I. A description would therefore be unnecessary. We may remark, however, the sculpture on the west impost (the dragon with long intertwined tail, with a pearled line along the whole length), as 1 The buttresses on the north side are modern.