A book of dovecotes

A BOOK OF
DOVECOTES
By A.O.COOokKe

1
1

om

Ke

From the Personal
Reference Library of

PAUL IVES

ALBERT R. MANN
LIBRARY

NEw York STATE COLLEGES
OF
AGRICULTURE AND HOME ECONOMICS

AT

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

THE GIFT OF
PAUL POMEROY IVES 2D
IN MEMORY OF
PAUL POMEROY IvES

Cornell University Library

SF 472.0772

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mann

Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu3 1924000125868

A BOOK OF DOVECOTES

eof
My |e
a

SOUTH BANTASKINE, FALKIRK

A BOOK OF
DOVECOTES

BY ARTHUR O. COOKE

AUTHOR OF “THE FOREST OF DEAN”

T. N. FOULIS, PUBLISHER
LONDON, EDINBURGH, & BOSTON

-This work is published by
T. N. FOULIS

LONDON : 9o1 Great Russell Street, W.C.
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(Le Roy Phillips, Agent)
And may also be ordered through the following agencies,
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Published in November
Nineteen Hundred and
Twenty

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CP ie

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Printed in Scotland by
R. & R. CLark, Ltp. Edinburgh.

grey-wing'd doves
Around the mossy dovecotes fly.

WILLIAM BARNES.

PREFACE

For one apology at least the author of A Book
of Dovecotes has no need; he is not called upon |
to find excuses for producing “yet another
volume” on the subject chosen for his pen. No
such work has yet been published, and, with
the exception of one or two magazine articles,
none of them of very recent date, the enquirer
must turn to the Transactions or Proceedings
of certain local antiquarian societies; public-
ations which, accurate, interesting,and valuable
as their contents may be, are not too readily
accessible to the general reader. Moreover,
suchsources ofinformation cover lessthanhalf-
a-dozen English counties.

What is the special interest of the subject?
“Are not all dovecotes pretty much alike?” it
may be asked. The answer to this question is
emphatically “No.” It would be difficultto find
two dovecotes quite identical in every detail,
architectural style, shape, size, design of door-
way, means of entrance for the inmates, num-
‘ber and arrangement of the nests. For these
old structures, built in field or fold-yard, park
or garden, date from long ago. They were

designed and built by craftsmen gifted with
vii

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

imagination, who, thoughthey worked to some
extent upon a pattern, loved to leave their in-
dividual mark upon the thing they fashioned
with their hands.

Our British dovecotes, too, are growing
fewer every year. Many have vanished alto-
gether, some by wanton demolition, others by
neglect. The time has surely come at which
to chronicle a few of those that still remain; to
draw attention to their frequent beauty; call
to mind the interest which attaches to them;
plead for their more careful preservation, and
—not altogether needlessly—make clear the
reason why they came to occupy their places
in our land.

Something personal is due from the writer;
on one hand to the reader of this volume, on
the other to the many who have lent their aid
in its production. Born in Herefordshire, a
county in which dovecotes are both numerous
and beautiful, I had often felt surprise and dis-
appointment at the lack of printed information
regarding these delightful buildings; and I
have at length ventured to attempt something,

however little and however imperfectly, which
Vili

PREFACE

may perhaps serve, in legal phrase, to ‘‘open
the case.”

The book is very far from being exhaustive;
many counties have perforce been left entirely
untouched, though an effort has been made to
deal with most districts of England, and to
some extent with Scotland and Wales. The
story of the Roman columbarium, as of the
French co/omézer, hasbeen lightly sketched; so
also with the laws concerning dovecotes, both
in Britain and in France. What is here offered
is,in short,a Zors-d’ w@uvre rather than aserious
course, far less a solid meal.

So much as an apology for imperfections;
gratitude remains to be expressed. A certain
number of the dovecotes marshalled for in-
spection in the following pages are well known
to me, some being old familiar friends. Fora
knowledge of others I am largely indebted
to the late Chancellor Ferguson’s ‘Pigeon-
Houses in Cumberland,” a paper published
in the 7yvansactions of the Cumberland and
Westmorland Antiquarian and Archzolog-
ical Society, vol. ix., 1887-88; to ““The Dove-

cotes of Worcestershire,” an exhaustive, de-
ix

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

lightful, and well illustrated account by the
Honourable Mrs. Berkeley, printed in the Re-
ports and Papers of the Architectural Societ-
ies, vol. xxviii., 1905-6; to articles by Alfred
Watkins, Esq., J.P., who has dealt with Here-
fordshire and other dovecotes in the Z7aus-
actions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field
Club for 1890, and elsewhere; and to the care-
ful and detailed accounts of Northamptonshire
examples by Major C. A. Markham, now ap-
pearing from time to timein Vorthamptonshire
Notes and Queries. To the two last-named
gentlemen, as also to Mr. H. E. Forrest of
Shrewsbury, I owe much for kindly help in
other ways.

But personal knowledge, even with this aid,
would have gone but a short way to fill the
present volume. Doubtless the ideal method
for the dovecote-hunter is to sling a rucksack
on his shoulder, take a walking-stick,a camera,
and thick-soled boots, and go a-foot through
all the by-ways of the land in quest of his
peculiar prey. Failing the possibility of such
a tempting course, I am indebted to all those

who, upon receipt of a portentous list of ques-
xX

PREFACE

tions, spared no pains to give the details of
some dovecote which they either owned or
knew. In a few cases only was the inform-
ation asked for tacitly refused.

All over Britain, from Caithness to Corn-
wall, there have risen up to help me those who,
total strangers when the post presented at
their heads a blunderbuss of questions, now,
in many cases, seem to occupy the place of
kindly friends, so heartily have they assisted,
and so generous the encouragement and inter-
est which they offered to the work. Clergy
have left their studies, farmers snatched an
hour fromthe busy fieldsof spring; landowners,
ladies—terms no doubt at times synonymous,
—with army officers and naval men, have gone
out into yard or field or garden, there to photo-
graph or sketch, to measure walls and windows,
note the number and the shape of nest-holes,
so that they might send so clear and full a
verbal picture of their dovecote that it seem-
ed to stand before my eyes. To name a few
would be invidious, and to speak of all im-
possible. They must be fully conscious of the

lavish measure of their kindness toa stranger,
xi

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

and, I hope, will not feel altogether unre-
warded by the very grateful thanks he offers
to them here.

ARTHUR O. COOKE.

38 DusBLiIn STREET,
EDINBURGH, Jay 1920.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

PREFACE

. THE ROMAN COLUMBARIUM .
. THE FRENCH COLOMBIER

. THE ENGLISH DOVECOTE

. HEREFORDSHIRE

. SHROPSHIRE

. WORCESTER AND WARWICK .

. NORTHAMPTON, BUCKINGHAM,

AND HUNTINGDON

. PIGEONS OF THE CHURCH

. LANCASHIRE, WESTMORLAND,

AND CUMBERLAND

. YORKSHIRE
. ESSEX AND SUFFOLK

. DOVECOTES NEAR LONDON .

page vii
3

17

33

43

SUSSEX, HAMPSHIRE, AND WILT-

SHIRE
GLOUCESTER AND OXFORD

MONMOUTHSHIRE AND WALES

195

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

DEVON AND CORNWALL. . page 209

XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX,
XX.

XXII,

SOMERSET AND DORSET

THE SCOTTISH “DOOCOT”

IN AND AROUND EDINBURGH
HADDINGTONSHIRE .
ELSEWHERE IN SCOTLAND

INDEX OF DOVECOTES DESCRIBED
OR MENTIONED

219
235
243
257
275

289

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SOUTH BANTASKINE, FALKIRK . ‘ Frontispiece
From a pastel by Miss M. G. W. Wilson.

COLOMBIER, DU MANOIR D’ANGO A VARENGEVILLE age 16

From “Manuel darchéologie frangaise.” By kind permis-
sion of Messrs. Alphonse Picard et fils, Paris.

DOVECOTE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE . 2 . ‘ 28
” ” ” * * ™ * 32
MUCH MARCLE, HEREFORDSHIRE . . 40

Fron ‘Formal Gardens ua England and Scotland.” By kind
permission of Messrs. B. T. Batsford, Lid.

BUTT HOUSE, HEREFORDSHIRE si iS p face 48 i
From a water-colour drawing

GARWAY, HEREFORDSHIRE , Fi 7 . ” 56

BUTT HOUSE, HEREFORDSHIRE "i a : ” 56

COURT FARM, RICHARD’S CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE ,, 58

ANGLE HALL, PEMBROKESHIRE ‘ % . ” 538

OLD SUFTON, HEREFORDSHIRE ‘ . 64

From “Formal Gardens of England and Scotland,” By kind
permission of Messrs. B. T, Batsford, Lid,

WHITEHALL, SHREWSBURY . . face 72
By kind permission of the Publishers of “ ra iat Life.”
DORMSTONE, WORCESTERSHIRE ‘ r 80

From “Formal Gardens of England and Scotland.” By ind
_ permission of Messrs. B. T. Batsford, Ltd.
ODDINGLEY, WORCESTERSHIRE . ‘ 5 82

From “ Formal Gardens of England and Scotland.” By kind
permission of Messrs. B. 1. Batsford, Ltd.

COMPTON WYNYATES, WARWICKSHIRE . . face 96
From a photograph by Miss E. A. Knight.

CLATTERCOTE PRIORY, OXFORDSHIRE . . » 96
From a photograph by Miss E. A. Knight.

NEWTON-IN-THE-WILLOWS, NORTHANTS . a 9 104
From “Northamptonshire Notes and Queries.”

HARLESTON, NORTHANTS ‘ . > , » 12
From “Northamptonshire Notes and Queries.”

DOVECOTE INTERIOR, SHOWING POTENCE e « Al4

TWO PIGEONS ON A ROOF. . : . face 120

From awater-colour drawing by J. Crawhall.

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

LITTLE BURLEES, YORKSHIRE * 7 F face 152
Fron a photograph by H. P. Kendall, Esq.

LADYE PLACE, HURLEY, BERKSHIRE : 168

By permission of Messrs. Welbourne & Simpson, Ltd., " Mariow,

MILCOMBE, OXFORDSHIRE. é ‘ » 176
From a photograph by Miss E, A. Knight,

BASING HOUSE, HAMPSHIRE . $ ‘ j » 176

MINSTER LOVEL, OXFORDSHIRE . 184

From “Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds.”
By permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

DAGLINGWORTH, GLOUCESTERSHIRE ‘ . 192
From “Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds. ag
By permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE . . - 92
From “Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds.”
By permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

BINGHAM’S MELCOMBE, DORSET. : . face 228

DRYLAW, EAST LINTON . ‘ ? : » 262
From a painting by Robert Hope, A.R.S.A.

SPOTT, HADDINGTONSHIRE . ‘ : » 264
PHANTASSIE, HADDINGTONSHIRE . ¥ ‘ » 264
LUFFNESS HOUSE, HADDINGTONSHIRE » 264
GILMERTON HOUSE, HADDINGTONSHIRE . » 264
ATHELSTANEFORD, HADDINGTONSHIRE . : %. 270
DUNBAR, HADDINGTONSHIRE é 9 27O
DIRLETON CASTLE, HADDINGTONSHIRE . yy «6270
TANTALLON CASTLE, HADDINGTONSHIRE ‘ 41 270
MEGGINCH CASTLE, PERTHSHIRE . - 274
STROMA ISLAND, CAITHNESS . F . face 276
Reproduced from ‘‘Reports” of the Royal Conettiission on Ancient
and Historical Mc ts, By permission of H.M. Station

ery Office.

ILLUSTRATIONS

FORSE HOUSE, CAITHNESS. ‘ . face 276
Reproduced from Reports” of the Royal Commission on Ancient
and Historical Mi ts. By permission of H.M. Station-
ery Office.
PITTENCRIEFF GLEN, FIFESHIRE . i . » 280
DOUGALSTON, MILNGAVIE, DUMBARTONSHIRE. 3 280
ROSYTH CASTLE, FIFESHIRE . ‘ a é » 280
CORSTORPHINE, EDINBURGH . ‘ ’ 7 280
MERTOUN HOUSE, BERWICKSHIRE . i » 284
Reproduced from Reports" of the Royal Commission on Ai ncient
and Historical Me ts. By permission of HM. Station-

ery Office.

CHAPTER ONE
THE ROMAN
COLUMBARIUM

CHAPTER ONE
THE ROMAN
, COLUMBARIUM

Ina book so limited in size and scope as the
present volume, a learned disquisition on the
pigeon, on its placein former ages and in many
lands, with an excursus on the subject of its
prehistoric ancestry, will hardly be expected,
and assuredly will not be given. We are con-
cerned chiefly with the dovecotes of England
and Scotland; and though some enthusiastic
owner of an ancient pigeon-house may claim
that it descends from Saxon times, it will
hardly be seriously disputed that the keeping
of pigeons in Great Britain, with the construc-
tion of dovecotes in which to house them, had
its beginning in, and came from, although in-
directly, Rome. A word or two on Roman
pigeon-keeping, then, will not be altogether
out of place; and happily our knowledge of the
subject has its bases soundly fixed on such re-
liable authorities as Pliny the Elder and Varro,

with some useful support from Columella.
Pliny, after noticing the fidelity and com-
bativeness of the dove, reminds us that dur-
3

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

ing the siege of Mutina, Decimus Brutus de-
spatched to the Consuls a message fastened
to the foot of a pigeon; the modern method,
it may here be mentioned, is to tie the letter
underneath a wing. The use of pigeons as
letter-carriers during thesiege of Paris in1870
may well be known to many who are unaware
that the Germans attempted to destroy such
messengers by means of hawks. Pigeons, too,
played their part as message-bearers in the
recent war.

Pliny goes on to speak of the “ mania” for
pigeons, which, in his day, existed to such an
extent in Rome that veritable “towns” were
sometimes built upon the roofs of houses for
their use; and finally sets down, no doubt in
all good faith, a few beliefs which, current
in his time, will hardly survive collision with
modern science. He states, for example, that
if the body of a ¢zmnunculus—by which Cuvier
believed him to have meant the kestrel—were
buried underneath each corner of the pigeon-
house, its occupants would not desert the place.
He also speaks of a peculiar venom in the
teeth of human beings, which not only tar-
4

COLUMBARIUM

nished the brightness of metal mirrors, but
proved fatal to young unfledged pigeons, which
we now call “squabs.” Allusion is also made to
the special fondness of pigeons for the mixed
grain called by the Romans farrago, a word
which has descended to us with a different
sense,

Much interesting information as to Roman
pigeon-keeping will be found in the proper
section of Varro’s Rerum Rusticarum. Two
different breeds were chiefly kept. One was
the wild rock pigeon, agrveste, of a mixed or
dappled colour; shy in its habits, keeping to
house gables or high towers, feeding in the
distant fields. The other, clementtus, was a
white bird; very common, and quite tame
enough to feed about the doorstep, but not
greatly in request with pigeon-keepers, for the
reason that its snowy plumage made it a con-
spicuous prey for hawks. The birds most
largely bred for table were a cross (#zsce//um)
of these two, and were usually housed in what
was sometimes called a perzsteron or peristero-
trophion, which might hold as many as five
thousand birds.

5

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

The Roman columbarium was usually round,
the vaulted roof being generally of stone,
though tiles were sometimes used. The en-
trance was small, and the windows either lat-
ticed or covered with a double trellis to ensure
the birds against the invasion of snakes and
other vermin. The interior surface of the walls
was covered with a smoothly worked cement
made from ground marble, while the outer
face immediately around the windows was
often similarly treated, so that no foothold
might be offered to small climbing animals.
The nest-holes, very similar to those that we
may see to-day in many an English dovecote,
lined the walls from floor to roof; the entrance
to each being only large enough to admit the
bird, but the whole expanding inwards to the
breadth of a foot. Sometimes the nests appear
to have been circular, and in some instances
they were constructed of a kind of porcelain.
Before each row of nests there was a shelf
eight inches broad, to serve as an alighting-
place and promenade.

There was one detail in the construction

of a Roman pigeon-house which, though it
6

COLUMBARIUM

may possibly have found its way to France,
seems never to have reached Britain. This
was an arrangement by which the birds could
be fed from the exterior of the house through
an elaborate system of pipes and troughs.
The troughs were placed all round the tiers
of nest-holes, while the pipes communicating
with them had their orifice outside the walls.
The most perfect nicety of adjustment must
have been required, since the pipes were
called on to convey, not smoothly flowing
water, but a great variety of grain, such as
peas, beans, millet, refuse wheat, and vetches.
It may perhaps be fairly doubted whether
so complicated an arrangement was in very
general use.

Varro seems to recommend that water, not
only for drinking but for washing purposes,
should flow into the house, and one authority
suggests the provision of a fairly large bath-
ing-basin in the centre of the floor, a hint we
shall in due course find followed in an ancient
English dovecote. Columella, on the contrary,
favoured the use of small drinking-vessels
which would admit the pigeon’s head and neck

7

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

alone, on the ground that bathing was bad for
the eggs on which hen birds might be sitting.
Pigeons being very cleanly birds the keeper
of the columbarium was to sweep the house
out several times a month, and that for the ad-
ditional reason that the manure yielded was
of the highest quality. The present use of this
manure as a tanning agent for certain classes
of skins is not alluded to.

Varro goes on to speak of the desirability of
the window or windows admitting plenty of
sunlight, and of the necessity of a netted-off
chamber for the sitting hens; also that these
should have a due amount of exercise and air,
lest, ‘saddened by the slavery of continued
confinement,” they might lose their health.

It seems that the occupants of a pigeon-
house were expected to draw others of their
kind to swell the owner’s colony; for the
pigeon-keeper is reminded that if his birds are
anointed with myrrh, or if a little cummin or
old wine be added to their usual food, the
pigeons of the neighbourhood, attracted by
the sweetness of their breath, would follow

them. This recipe, or something very like it,
8

COLUMBARIUM

long survived, and even crossed the sea to us.
In John Moore’s Columbarium, or the Pigeon
Ffouse, first published in 1735, occurs the fol-
lowing passage:

‘‘ Being thus entered on the head of diet, it
leads us necessarily to consider a certain com-
position called by the fanciers a Salt Cat, so
named, I suppose, from a certain fabulous oral
tradition of baking acat . . . with cummin seed,
and some other ingredients, as a decoy for your
neighbour’s pigeons; this, though handed
down by some authors as the only method for
this purpose, is generally laughed at by the
gentlemen of the fancy, and never practised.”

Moore then gives the ingredients of this
mixture, which include sand, lime rubble, with
cummin seed and saltpetre, both the last-
named items being much relished by pigeons.
Whether, however, the genuine “salt cat” was
always altogether absent from the composi-
tion seems doubtful. In the accounts of Jesus
College, Cambridge, for the year 1651-2 may
be read the following suggestive entry:

“For a roasted dog and comin seed,
00:02 :00;”

9

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

while a boiled goat’s head forms a prominent
feature of another prescription for the same
purpose.

It is melancholy to observe that the im-
morality of any attempt to “decoy your neigh-
bour’s pigeons” to your own dovecote does
not seem to occur to either Roman or British
writer.

Hawks were a frequent menace to the
pigeons of Rome. A method of snaring them
was to take two twigs, lime them, and bend
them towards each other till they formed an
arch, below which could be placed as bait the
carcass of some favourite prey.

Young birds intended for speedy fattening
were separated from their elders as soon as
covered with down. They were then fed, or
rather “crammed,” to use the modern poultry-
keeper’s phrase, with white bread already
half chewed by men specially hired for the
work. These men were highly paid, as one
would fancy they deserved to be; indeed it
was a question with experts whether the game
was worth the candle, the wages of the chew-

ers eating up the extra value of the squabs.
10

COLUMBARIUM

Young pigeons are, as will be known to many,
fed by their parents upon half-digested food.
The English farmer’s wife who wishes to
fatten quickly a clutch of young ducklings is
careful to give them no opportunity of swim-
ming, but confines them in a narrow pen and
doles out water only with their food. The
Roman pigeon-keeper had more drastic me-
thods with hissquabs; he broke theirlegs, todo
away with all excess of exercise. Columella, al-
most as though he had an eyeupon the modern
British reader and inspectors of the S.P.C.A.,
hastens to add that the pain caused by the op-
eration disappearedintwo, or at the most three
days. It may have been so; but one cannot
help recalling the remark of Sydney Smith,
who, when a man recounted how he had been
‘bitten without any provocation by a dog, re-
plied, while sympathising, that he ‘‘wouldhave
liked to have the dog’s account of the affair.”

But Roman pigeons were not kept ex-
clusively for satisfaction of the grosser and
material appetites. There are signs of a com-
mencement of a‘“‘fancy,” for people werein the

habit of taking favourite birds with,them to the
II

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

theatre, which, it must be remembered, was
open to the sky, and there releasing them, that
they might show their “homing” powers.

The prices sometimes asked and paid for
pigeons also points to this. For a handsome
pair of well-bred birds, free from all blemish,
and of a popular colour or mixture of colours,
asmuchastwohundred sesterces—about thirty
shillings—was a common price; even a thous-
and sesterces was occasionally demanded, and
a caseis cited where sixteen hundred had been
offered and refused. Persons took up pigeon-
breeding asa trade or an amusement, or a
blend of both, and might possess a house, ap-
pliances, and birds to the value of one hundred
thousandsesterces, say eight hundred pounds.
Varro, in oneof those imaginary conversations
in which he liked to impart his agricultural
knowledge, strongly advises a friendto master
in Rome the technicalities of the business, as
he there would have before him many ex-
amples, and might then establish his breeding-
place in the country. He goes on to offer the
truly alluring return of fifty per cent Jer diem/
but, unfortunately, thisrosy prospectisnot sup-
12

COLUMBARIUM

ported by any statement of figures likely to
pass the scrutiny of a modern accountant.

Having thus given a view of co/umbaria as
they were in ancient Rome, we move north-
westward; but, before entering Britain, it is
well to make a halt in France. For not only
is it practically certain that the first builders of
the dovecote in England were the Normans;
but in France we find examples which, while
very similar in some respects to those of
Britain, yet display in many instances a rich-
ness of ornament which we cannot equal.
Many a French dovecote is, as compared to
those of our own country, what such Renais-
sance chateaux as Blois, Chenonceaux, and
Azay-le-Rideau are to the rugged ruins of
English castle keeps. At least a few French
dovecotes therefore claim to be described, to-
gether with some mention of the laws concern-
ing them.

CHAPTER TWO
THE FRENCH
COLOMBIER

COLOMBIER DU MANOIR D’ANGO A VARENGEVILLE (SEINE-
INFERIEURE), XVIe SIECLE

From Manuel d archéologie frangaise

CHAPTER TWO
THE FRENCH
COLOMBIER

Ir does not appear that any restrictions
governed the possession of a Roman colwm-
barium; but, leaving Italy for France, we
come tolegislation on the subject—legislation
which was at once intricate and oppressive in
its nature, but upon which we, whose withers
are unwrung, can look back with interest,
Varro remarks that the feeding of pigeons was
not a matter of great cost, the birds enjoying
freedom and “fending” for themselves during
some tenmonths out of twelve. That was,and
still is, perfectly true, so far as the birds’
owners were concerned; but it is to be re-
membered that the pigeons picked up their
living largely at the cost of others, feeding in
the cultivated fields, and doing great damage
' to the crops. This was the case in medieval
France,as it had been in thevicinity of Rome;
and the depredations of a great man’s pigeons
may be wellincluded inthat list of wrongs from
which the peasantry of France had suffered

through the centuries, and as an item by no
c 17

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

means negligible among the many causes of
the Revolution.

For in France the right to erect and main-
tain a colombier was rigidly restricted; as in
England it was a privilege longconfinedto the
lord of a manor, so across the Channel it was
the exclusive right of three classes of landed
proprietors—gvrandsjusticters, sergneurs de fief,
and seagneursdecensive. Thisishardlytheplace
in which toexplainatlengththedistinctionsbe-
tween these three classes, but it is of interest
to note that, excepting in Brittany, there was
nodistinction withregardtobirth; the right be-
longed to any member of one of the above-
named classes,whether he were of the zoddesse
oramere voturter. But it is doubtful whether
this would be any great consolation to the
peasant, who, viewing the havoc wrought
among his cropsby the lord’s birds, would pro-
bably fail to observe any serious difference be-
tween the appetites of pigeons kept by a
gentleman of ancient lineage, and of those
whose owner came of humble stock.

The privilege in question applied merely to

a colombier & pred—that is, to a substantial
18

FRENCH COLOMBIER

building with foundations firmly planted in the
ground, and with itsnests, called doudzns, cover-
ing the interior of the walls from floor to roof.
The law did not concern itself with the mere
Sure or voltére, both of which were of the nature
of the wooden structures often seen attached
to English stable-walls and gable-ends.

Standing apparently on a somewhat de-
batable ground between these two extremes
was the colombzer sur piliers, built upon stone
pillars, or sometimes on wooden posts. Gener-
ally such a structure was held to be exempt
from restrictions, but in Brittany, as also in
Touraine, it ranked as a colombier a pied.

Too numerous to be mentioned are the
many local variations of this general law. In
some districts a member of the privileged
orders could, were he of the xod/esse, erect
his dovecote with no questions asked; as a
voturter he must first obtain permission from
authority. The evil of numerous dovecotes
was not long in being felt; and from time to
time various measures were taken to minimise
the wrong. In some parts of France a dove-
cote could not be maintained, even by those

19

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

qualified as above, unless its owner possessed
at least fifty avfents of land. Other steps in
the same direction regulated the number of
nest-holes permitted, proportioning them to
the size of the domain; called for proofs of
immemorial possession, or for the production
of good title-deeds; or insisted that the dove-
cote should stand in the centre of its owner’s
land, in order that his crops should be the first
to feel the pinch. But even these ameliora-
tions of an undoubted wrong failed to cure the
evil, and in 1789 all France’sdovecotes shared
—figuratively speaking—in the general fall.
But happily their fabric, in some cases, still
survives, and a few specially beautiful or in-
teresting examples call for notice.

It is hardly necessary to say that, during the
days in which the dovecote flourished undis-
turbed in France, it was often the property
of some ecclesiastical establishment—abbey,
or priory, or a dependency of such; and it is in
the neighbourhood of these that we shall look,
not unsuccessfully, for some of the choicest
surviving examples.

The French dovecote was frequently white-
20

FRENCH COLOMBIER

washed externally, with a view to making it
conspicuous to its inmates on their homeward
flight. Charles Waterton, who usually knew
what he was talking about, says that this prac-
tice was forbidden in England in his father’s
time, as being likely to attract a neighbour's
birds. ,

The argument seems hardly sound; but cer-
tainly a whitewashed English dovecote is not
often seen.

It isin France that we first hear of,and may
often find, an important adjunct of the dove-
cote which seems not to have been generally
in use in Rome. This was the Jotence, a piece
of mechanism used for gaining easy access to
the upper tiers ofnests. The vital portion was
a massive beam or avéve, securedin an upright
position in the centre of the dovecote by being
pivoted into socket-holes placed in the floor
and roof respectively. In these socket-holes
the beam revolved freely at a touch. Jutting
horizontally from the beam were several arms,
technically knownas the otencesor “ gallows,”
though the term gradually came to mean the
mechanism as a whole. These arms were not

21

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

in the same vertical‘plane, but placed in such
a position with regard to each other that the
ladder they supported had a gentle slope.
This ladder, beingat theends farthest from the
central beam, allowed a person standing on it
to search the upper nests for the young birds.
Without descending he could, by gripping the
tiers of nests, cause the beam and ladder to
revolve, and so move round the house.

Sometimes one ladder only was employed ;
but not infrequently the arms projected on
either side of the beam, each end carrying a
ladder. This seems a questionable advantage;
it allowed two persons to work together, but
unless their rateof progress coincided thetime
saved must have been small.

It is easily understood that a potence was
most useful in a circular or octagonal dovecote,
where the ladder would, as it revolved, be
equidistant from the walls atfevery point. In
a square dovecote it would be of much less
service, giving access indeed to nests in the
middle of each wall, but leaving those placed
in and near the corners out of reach. Yet, in

some cases in England, and quite frequently
0

FRENCH COLOMBIER

in Scotland, we may find a potence placed in a
square pigeon-house.

Sometimes, especially in Auvergne, the
dovecote wasconstructed inthedwelling-house
to which it was attached. An example occurs
at Montpazier, in the department of Dordogne,
where a gable is pierced bya series of entrance-
holes for the birds. A similar arrangement is
found in many English houses, more especially
in Yorkshire.

Some of the earliest of French dovecotes,
massive circular buildings resembling the Ro-
man columbarium in their general form, had
very little actual roof, a large part of the dome
being open to the sky. This practice does not
seem to have been followed later than the four-
teenth century. Subsequent erections, many
built about the sixteenth century, were either
round, octagonal or square. The dovecote at
St.Ouen, Rouen, wascruciform; avery unusual
shape, of which a fine example was formerly
extant in England. In cases where the whole
of the building was not devoted to pigeons the
lower story was put to various uses; it might
form an open shed, a fowl-house, stable, cellar,

23

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

entrance-gate—a frequent case in Auvergne.
In one instance at least the pigeon-house sur-
mounted a well.

French pigeon-keepers, like their Roman
brethren, found their flocks extremely subject
to attacks from vermin, and took various pre-
cautions to defeat the pest. Hence probably
the form of dovecote known as the colombier
@ pred, already alluded to; raised on four, or
sometimes eight pillars, there being nothing
but an open shed or Zangar underneath. Each
pillar capital had a /avmzer or coping over it,
which it was almost impossible for rats or
similarinvaders to surmount. Anothermethod
was to insert in the external surface of the walls
acourse or two of highly polished bricks ortiles,
which formed all round. the house a band too
slippery for feet and claws to grip. This method,
not without value as an ornament, was fre-
quently employed in Languedoc. Still more
common was the application of a broad string-
course to the wall.

The circular dovecote was long popular, hav-
ing among other advantages that of adapting
itself to the introduction of the potence, so
24

FRENCH COLOMBIER

convenient as a means of easy access to the
nests,

Of such circular pigeon-houses a very fine
example will be found in the courtyard of the
Manoir d’Ango, at Varengeville, near Dieppe,
not Varangeville, as it is sometimes incor-
rectly spelled, owing to confusion with a place
so named in Meurthe-et- Moselle. The maxozr,
now a farm, is, like its former owner, worthy
of a passing word.

Jean Ango, or Angot, who flourished ex-
ceedingly in the first half of the sixteenth cen-
tury, came of a wealthy Dieppe family; they
were shipowners of enterprise, and their flag
flew in many quarters of the world. Jean wasa
manofmeans. During aprogressmade through
Normandy by Francois I., he entertained that
joyous monarch with a lavish hospitality; the
reward was his appointment as the governor
of Dieppe.

In his new office he was very zealous for the
town. A Dieppe vessel having been attacked
and pillaged by the Portugueseintimeof peace,
the warlike governor fitted out a fleet, sailed
toand up the Tagus, and then spread such fear

25

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

in Lisbon that the King of Portugal was glad
to compromise the matter by the payment of
a large indemnity to the French town.

Ango paid dearly for the favour of the King
of France, advancing heavy loans to his royal
patron, and dying poor at last. His manor of
Varengeville is now a farm; but—perhaps all
we care about to-day—his dovecote stands,

It is a large circular building constructed
entirely of black and red bricks, arranged in
striking geometrical designs. The domed roof,
terminating at the apex in a pointed pinnacle,
is broken just above the eaves by three dormer
windows.

Of smaller size, but even more ornate, is the
dovecote at Boos, a village lying a few miles
east of Rouen, on the Paris road. It is an
octagonal building, surmounted by a pointed
roof with a circular cornice. The material is
mainly brick, stone being used for the cornice,
the base, and the angles of the walls, as for
the string-course half-way up.

Below this string-course each of the eight
sides presents a surface of plain brick; above

there is elaborate ornament. This is effected
26

FRENCH COLOMBIER

by the use of bricks of several colours; they in-
clude red, in two distinct shades; with yellow,
green and purple, the three last being glazed.
These are arranged in great variety of pattern.
Further, there is a row of glazed tiles, on
the white ground of each being a profile head
or other ornament. This dovecote probably
dates from the early portion of the sixteenth
century, the house towhich it is attached being
older still.
In southern France it was necessary for the
_ pigeon-keeper to take careful thought for his
birds, particularly with regard to the icy blast
of the mistral. They needed air and sun, but
must be sheltered from the wind.
Consequently, in the neighbourhood of such
places as Toulouse and Montauban, we find
high dovecotes of square form, having a lean-to
roof the slope of which was towards the south.
The highest wall and the two side walls rise
above this roof for several feet, and it thus
forms a sheltered place on which the birds can
sun themselves at ease. Small pinnacles may
frequently be placed at each of the four corners,
sometimes with projecting perches forthe birds.
27

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Theentrance-holesare placed beneath the well-
projecting eaves,

It is impossible to study a French dovecote
of this shape, and note the similarity exhibited
by many Scottish ‘‘doo-cots,” without recalling
the long and close intimacy which existed be-
tween Franceand Scotland—an intimacy from
which England was altogether excluded. It is
easy to believe that, at a time when Scots were
constantlyin France,and Frenchmen occasion-
ally in Scotland, observation or suggestion
would bring about the adoption in the northern
kingdom of forms and methods current with
its southern friend.

Also tobeseen in southern France are dove-
cotes of a different plan. They are of brick and
circular, with a domed roof, and two string-
courses placed high up the walls. Such roof,
if left unmodified, would give the pigeons no
protection from the wind. To obviate this
defect, upon the side from which the mistral
blows, the wall has been continued well above
the roof and carries three small turrets, which
are not merely ornamental butafford additional

shelter.
28

FRENCH COLOMBIER

Such then are some, though a few only, of
the very interesting dovecotes once existing or
still found in France. It is now time to give
attention to those nearer home.

DOVECOTE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE

CHAPTER THREE
THE ENGLISH
DOVECOTE

DOVECOTE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE

CHAPTER THREE
THE ENGLISH
DOVECOTE

BEFORE going on to the main purpose of this
book, the description, namely, of a few of the
most interesting dovecotes still surviving in
England, Wales, and Scotland, it will be well
to spend a page or two in treating of them as
a whole. It may be asked, for-instance, why
these buildings, formerly so common, have in
many cases disappeared; why those still stand-
ing are, with some exceptions, silent and un-
tenanted, or turned to uses other than the
purpose which their builders had in view. If
they were needed in old days, then why not
now?

It will be neither jest nor paradoxto say that
dovecotes were in a great measure doomed
when first the turnip and the swede were in-
troduced to British agriculture, early in the
eighteenth century. For these useful veget-
ables, with assistance later from oil-cake and
other feeding-stuffs, solved a problem which
had long baffled the British farmer; that of
maintaining sheep and cattle through the win-

D 33

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

ter months. The agriculturist of Norman and
much later days, not having these resources,
had but one course to pursue. Hefed his flocks
and herds through spring and summer upon
grass; then, when the grass grew scant in au-
tumn, there was a universal slaughter, all save
a few breeding animals being killed and salted
down for winter food. November in Old
German was called Slagtmonat, or slaughter
month, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent being
Blodmonath or blood-month. On pillars in
Carlisle cathedral are seen:carvings which dis-
play the various occupations of the months,
That for December shows a man, a poleaxe,
and an ox about to die.

With this elimination of fresh beef and mut-
ton from the winter bill of fare, we understand
how welcome would be any smaller creatures
which would live through the lean months and
yield a never-failing stock of appetising food.
Such a place was filled to perfection by the
pigeon, a bird needing little space for the ac-
commodation of several hundreds; exceed-
ingly prolific ; and, moreover, capable of pro-
curing its food over a wide range of country

34

ENGLISH DOVECOTE

and at little cost.

With the introduction of “roots” and the re-
sulting possibility of winter-feeding stock, the
need for dovecotes naturally decreased; while
there gradually arose a more positive reason
for their falling into desuetude. The peasant
agriculturist of Normandayshadseen, no doubt
with pain, but certainly with little thought of re-
monstrance, still less of rebellion, the pigeons
of the lord, the abbot, or the parson, battening
daily on his scanty crops. It was a privilege
which it would hardly occur to him to dispute;
he looked upon itasthe natural course of things
that he should labour to raise crops from which
the birds of his superiors took a heavy toll, and
he was doubtless thankful for the little left for
his own use.

But with the gradual disappearance of op-
pressive privileges these pacific sentiments
wouldno longer obtain. Thedovecote, whence
there issued with the dawn hundreds of birds
who found their living in the farmers’ fields,
would be among those objects upon ‘which re-
formers turned their eyes. Nor had they far to
look. We have it on the word of Samuel Hart-

35

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

lib, Milton’s friend, that towards the middle of
the seventeenth century the number of Eng-
lish dovecotes was estimated at twenty-six
thousand. If we allow five hundred pairs of
pigeons to each cote—a fairly modest com-
putation, many dovecotes having upwards of
one thousand nests—and then remember that
a pair of pigeons will consume annually four
bushels of corn, the enormous loss of grain to
farmers will be seen.

It is to be understood that for many cen-
turies the right to erect and maintain one of
these structures was strictly limited. Those so
favoured by the Norman laws were the lords of
manors, a class which included not only a vast
number of landowning laymen, but alsoabbots
and other ecclesiastics, the parson of a parish
being frequently among the number. As to
this last-named class there will be something
more to say, especially with reference to the
kind of dovecote which they sometimes used.

This feudal privilege is generally stated to
have been abolished during the reign of Eliza-
beth. It is certain that during the sixteenth

andseventeenthcenturies there wasa largead-
36

ENGLISH DOVECOTE

dition to the number of our English dovecotes,
many being built; but restrictions still existed
till much later times. In 1577, for example, a
tenant who had erected a dovecote on a royal
manor was ordered by the Courtof Exchequer
to demolish it. Ten years later, in another case
of the same kind, it was stillheldthatnone save
the lord of the manor might build a dovecote;
but two out of the three judges decided that
there was no ground for prosecution before the
Manor Court, the great man’s only remedy
being a civil action. This decision seems to
have been reaffirmed in the days of James I.,
the lord of the manor’s sole right to a dovecote
being still expressly upheld. The law upon the
point appears to have been still unchanged as
late as the first quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury.

The dovecote introduced into this country
by the Norman conquerors was of one univer-
sal type; a circular and very massive building,
having walls three feet or even more in thick-
ness, and a low-domed vaulted roof. This last
was, at first, most often open in the centre, a
round hole admitting not the pigeons only, but

37

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

both light and air. Inside, the nest-holes, well
designed and accurately built, usually covered
the entire surface of the walls.

The “potence” we have seen in France,
and are to findagainin many Englishinstances,
as well as north of Tweed. But it was often
absent from the earlier Norman specimens,
The open centre'to the roof would render diffi-
cult the placing of a socket for the upper pivot
of the beam, and it is doubtful whether the al-
ternative framework of powerful cross-timbers
to support the upright was made use of until
later times.

Gradually the circular dovecote was tosome
extent displaced by the lighter and more orna-
mental style of the octagonal form, or by the
more easily built square or oblong pigeon-
house. Six-sided dovecotes, though compara-
tively rare, are not unknown, while atleast one
English example was pentagonal. The walls,
too, come to be less massive; windows, either
in the walls or in the form of dormers in the
roof were introduced; while a cupola, lantern,
or “glover,” crowned the whole.

Stone was of course the first material, brick
38

ENGLISH DOVECOTE

not coming into use till later days, and even
then only in certain districts. But there were
local substitutes. In Sussex chalk or rubble is
not uncommon, while in Somersetshire use
was sometimes madeof clay or “cob,” thatideal
fabric for house-walls, which, cool in summer,
warm in winter, is just now again enjoying its
former high repute. And in the wooded coun-
ties of the March and Borderland of Wales,
where“ black-and-white” half-timbered houses,
with the interstices of their wooden framing
filled with ‘wattle and daub,” add so much
beauty to the countryside, half-timbered dove-
cotes of great eleganceof form and often richly
decorated may be seen.

It is to this Welsh Border country that the
pilgrim who would go in quest of dovecotes
shall forthwith be led.

ll i ll MU ares aecu

MUCH MARCLE, HEREFORDSHIRE

CHAPTER FOUR
HEREFORDSHIRE

CHAPTER FOUR
HEREFORDSHIRE

Tue reader may quite possibly feel some
surprise at finding himself called on to com-
mence a “survey” of our English dovecotes
in a county which is both remote and little
known. For this the author would perhaps
venture to put forward grounds of personal
predilection were he not provided with more
satisfactory excuse. Herefordshire is not only
rich in dovecotes of a great variety of age and
form, but claims a further pre-eminence by
possessing an example which is one of the
oldest and finest in England, and which can
point, in proof of its antiquity, not only to its
architectural style, but to the quite indisput-
able date the builder graved upon its stone.
It is to this most interesting of Herefordshire
dovecotes that we will first turn.

More than one route offers by which to
reach the secluded and extensive parish of
Garway, lying on the south-west border of
the county; but most to be recommended to
the pedestrian, both for beauty of scenery
and interest of association, is that which leads

43

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

him from Pontrilas station, twelve miles south
of Hereford; follows the valley for about two
miles to Kentchurch Court, where the adjoin-
ing churchdisputes with Monnington-on-Wye
the claim to be the burial-placeof Owen Glen-
dower(Glyndwr, Mr. Bradley tells us it should
be)—a claim which it is to be feared historycan
allow to neither place; and climbs the steep
slope of Kentchurchdeer-park, toemergeupon
the breezy height of Garway Hill, an elevation
of twelve hundred feet. Here, on clear days,
the eye can wander from the Bristol Channel
far up into Central Wales. Then, follow-
ing the hill south, breast-high in bracken, and
with soundless steps upon the sheep-cropped
turf, we shall come presently to sunny Garway
Rocks, and, by a winding road, with here and
there a solitary farm at which to ask the way,
arrive at last in sight of Garway church, which
stands upon a slope above the brawling Mon-
now, here the county boundary.

The church itself might easily detain us
long. Its tower, standing at an angle to the
building, and connected with it only bya short
passage; its curiously carved chancel arch; the
44

HEREFORDSHIRE

early English arcade which screens the south
chapel; these, with still other features, bid us
pause. But we must content ourselves with
the knowledge that, originally a preceptory of
the Knights Templars, it passed, in or shortly
after 1308, the year in which disaster overtook
that order, into the possession of the Hospi-
tallers. It is to the latter that we owe the
grand old dovecote at the farm close by.

It stands partly in the foldyard, partly ina
sloping field. The door giving access to the
yard is a comparatively modern innovation,
the only original entrance being the one which
opens on the field. The archway of this door-
way has two upright stones to form the “key”;
below them, filling in the arch and resting on
thejamb-heads of the doorway, is a tympanum
bearing an inscription. This, now barely leg-
ible, was deciphered some eighty years ago
by that learned and capable local antiquary
and historian, the Reverend John Webb.
Dispensing with the abbreviations employed
by the dovecote’s builder, and accepting the
almost certain correctness of the italicised
words supplied by Mr: Webb from the con-

45

‘

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

text, we have the inscription as follows:
Anno Domini millesimo trecentesimo
vicesimo sexto factum fuit istud co-
lumbare per fratrem Ricardum.

or “In the year 1326 this dovecote was built

by brother Richard.”

And well and truly did this brother Richard
carry out his work, with the result that it alone,
of all domestic buildings of the Garway house,
survives to-day; the church and dovecote—
they are all that nowremain. Not only is this
now the case; it has been so for centuries.
In a lease granted about 1520, while the
“priest’s chamber,” stable, ‘‘cowheus,” water-
mill are all described as, valde ruinosa et ad
terram ... prostrata—wholly ruined and pro-
strate on the ground—the co/umbarium alone
is spoken of as dene et sufficienter reparatum
—well and sufficiently repaired.

In the case of a circular dovecote such as
we admire here, this survival after other build-
ings of greater size and more importancehave
perished is perhaps not altogether difficult to
be accounted for. It may well have owed its
escape fromdestruction to the difficulty which
46

HEREFORDSHIRE

would-be despoilers—‘ squatters” eager for
good building-stone, and others of like kind—
would find in the selection ofa fitting point on
whichto maketheir firstattack. Ina neglected
building of rectangular form decay would not
be long in setting in at the junction of walls,
at doorways and around windows ; and what
the elements and time began, man could com-
plete. But wherewill you strike firstat a round,
windowless building, with but one strong and
narrow doorway in a wall three feet ten inches
thick? The additional fact that a dovecote
would yield but a small store of stone as com-
pared with the long lofty walls of cloister or
refectory, is also to be borne in mind; but it
seems probable that the great Garway dove-
cote, like some others of its class, owes its
immunity from spoliation to its shape and
massive build. And we are duly thankful such
should be the case.

Shortly before the clergyman already men-
tioned published his account, the building
had advanced some distance down the easy
road to ruin, imperilled by a more insidious
and slow-moving foe than any stone-stealer.

47

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

A seedling oak, with a young ash for its com-
panion, had attained a goodly size upon the
summit of the walls; the roots, descending
towards the ground, were working deadly

havoc in the masonry. But happily the land- .

lord’s agent sawthe danger, and the trees have
now been long removed. One crack thus
opened in the wall is still seen on the right,
above the door.

And this is perhaps a fitting moment to be-
seech all dovecote-owners not to suffer an
excess of greenery upon the treasure they
possess; above all to set their faces against ivy,
that most dangerous foe of masonry. To turn
the dovecote into a green bower may be pic-

poo 4

turesque, but means disaster intheend. More- _

over the full architectural form, the frequent
beauty, of such buildings isnot seenif they are
smothered with a mass of leaves. A fruit-tree
trained against the wall will do but little dam-
age, and will amply serve to break bare spaces;
nothing more should be allowed.

The masonry at Garway is sandstone in
rubble work, plastered outside, while the in-

terior facingis of wrought ashlar. Theinternal ©

48

Sees

23>

HEREFORDSHIRE

diameter is seventeen feet three inches; the
height from the floor, which was paved, to the
spring of the vaulting, sixteen feet.

The interior presents many points of excep-

tional interest. Windows are entirely lacking,
light and air being, like the former occupants,
admitted through a circular opening two feet
two inches in diameter placed in the middle
of the vaulted roof. In the centre of the floor
was a Circular stone basin, six inches deep and
five feet in diameter. To this was connected a
-draintosupply water from outside, with another
to draw off excess.

A bathing-basin is a most unusual feature,
if not quite unique, in English dovecotes; one
would like to know if it was upon special erter
or his own initiative that brother Richard
placed it here. He did not hold, apparently,
with thoseauthorities who, as we saw in speak-
ing of the Roman columbarium, disapproved
of a cold bath for sitting birds.

Look now at the nesting arrangements,
which could hardly have been brought to
greater perfection. The numberof the holes—

_ six hundred and sixty-six—has been suggested

E 49

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

to imply some mystic meaning, a point which
shall be left untouched. They are arranged in
twenty tiers of thirty-three nests each, alight-
ing-ledges being provided to alternate tiers.

The holes are of that L shape usually seen
inthe ‘‘best” English dovecotes. The entrance
to each is seven inches square, and the hole,
after extending into the thickness of the wall
for seventeen inches, turns at a right angle; all
the nests in one tier turn in the same direction,
thosein the tierimmediately above itand below
it being reversed. This shape, seldom seen in
Scotland, afforded the birds greater seclusion
and more space. The whole of the internal
masonry work is of the most elaborate and ac-
curately fitting description.

Moreover brother Richard did not limit his
inscriptions to the date and statement carved
above the door. Just opposite the entrance,
fourteen nest-tiers from the floor, he graved
the name “Gilbertus.” Who was Gilbertus?
We now ask in vain. Perhaps the superior of
the commandery, possibly a workman who as-
sisted Richard at his task,

Some rather boastful and exulting symbols,

50

HEREFORDSHIRE

too, he placed upon his walls. A graved cross
patee, overset and lying prostrate, typifies the
Templars’ fall; while to its left is seen the cross-
let of the Hospitallers, placed upright. Some
crudely executed figures, possibly crescents,
seem identical with those in London’s Temple
Church.

There is no potence here. The open centre
tothe roof, the bathing-basin on the floor, would
have necessitated special arrangements which
the builder evidently did not care to make.

This Garway dovecote is described with a
minuteness which will not often be repeated
in the book, but which is surely deserved bythe
present example on account of its undoubted
age, the excellence ofits very typical workman-
ship, the good state of preservation in which it
remains, and the unusual provision of a bath-
ing-basin.

If Garway, for the dovecote-hunter, be the
boast of Herefordshire, Bosbury, lying four
miles from Ledbury on the county’s eastern
border, is its shame. At this village therestood,
in the time of Bishop Cantilupe and of his chap-
lain and subsequent successor, Richard Swin-

51

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

field, one of the episcopal residences of the dio-
cese. Its church is one of several in the county
in which the tower stands detached—in this in-
stance almost certainly with a view to defence.
A farmhouse on the site of a former Templar
preceptory retains the name of Temple Court;
and at Old Court a gateway of the palace, with
a cider cellar, once the episcopal refectory, re-
mains. But whatdoes zofreinainisthe olddove-
cote, wilfully destroyed in 1884.

In a few cases only will dovecotes no longer
surviving be spoken of in this volume; but that
of Bosbury is particularly worthy of exemption
from this rule. In the Roll of the Household
Expenses of Bishop Swin field, edited by Webb,
we have a minutely detailed and extremely
interesting account of the Bishop’s itinerary,
disbursements, etc. , during a progress through
his diocese in the autumn and winter months
of 1289-90. Mention is there made of pigeons
being taken—and paid for—from the dovecote
at Bosbury on three successive days during the
stay of Swinfield and his suite. Taking this re-
cord, together with Mr. Webb’s statement that
the dovecote, which he had seen, resembled
52

HEREFORDSHIRE

that at Garway, there can be little doubt that,
but foran act ofunpardonable vandalism, Here-
fordshire would still possess a dovecote at the
very least thirty or forty years older than the
one we have just seen.

Great size and age, solidity, absence of orna-
ment, simplicity of form—such are the leading
features of the first Herefordshire dovecote
viewed. Foran entire contrast Jet us seek the
village of King’s Pyon, or rather a secluded
outlying farm in that parish; the Butt House,
or ‘‘Buttas,” lying some seven miles north-west
of Hereford, in a rich grazing district where
large herdsof thered-coated, white-faced cattle
of the county feed in the deep pastures, backed
‘by hills and woods. The place can well be
reached by going by road to Canon Pyon and
then turning to the left; or it is pleasant to
alight at Credenhill, the first station on the
Hayand Brecon line; pass through the village,
underneath the hill on which is Credenhill
Camp; inquire for Brinsop, cross the old and
jittle-travelled Hereford to Weobley road,and
take the shady lane which leads to Wormesley
Grange. There, turning to the right, we cross

53

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

a field or two and see the Butt House high
upon a bank. The dovecote stands outside a
yard immediately behind the dwelling, in aspot
which makes it a good picture for the artist
and photographer.

It stands, backed by the wooded hill beyond
the field just crossed, a perfect specimen in
miniature of that exquisite “black-and-white”
half-timbered architecture which is one of the
chief beauties of the Welsh Border district.
The upper portion has a slight overhang; the
walls are ornamented with a diamond pattern,
and the beams and panels richly carved. On the
north side is the date 1632, with the initials

K
G.
Elizabeth Karver. As to the very probable de-
signer of this lovely little building there will
later on be more to say.

There are three stories, only the upper one
being fitted with nest-holes. It has been called
the Falconry, and the suggestion made that
the middle chamber of the three was intended
to be occupied by hawks. It seems a somewhat
sinister arrangement, that of placing hawks

04

E , standing for the names of George and

HEREFORDSHIRE

and pigeons side by side—like caging lambs
and lions cheek by jowl. But, always provided
that the intervening floor was strong, the gen-
tler occupants might in time grow fearless of
their foes.

The size is small; twelve by eleven feet. A
still smaller specimen of this style of dovecote
stands in thegarden ofa house at Mansel Lacy,
a pretty village not far distant, on the Hereford
to Kington road. In this, the smallest dove-
cote of the county, the size is nine feet square.
Close to the Mansel Lacy dovecote, in the
gable of the dwelling-house, are pigeon-holes.
The little building is much overgrown and in
no little danger of decay and ruin.

The Butt House dovecote, kept in excellent
condition, is four-gabled, and without a cupola
or lantern on the roof. Luntley Court, a fine
black and white farmhouse of the late seven-
teenth century, somewhat defaced by modern
additions, stands in the not very distant parish
of Dilwyn; and here we have a dovecote which,
whilelessrichly decorated than the Butt House
example, has a four-gabled lantern on the roof.
Though not entitled to minute description, it

55

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

has one peculiarity which calls for mention. Its
date is 1673, that on the houseitself being 1674.

This might be taken as mere careless error;
but the case of Luntley does not stand alone,
there being other instancesof such discrepancy
of date. The following explanation may per-
haps be suggested as acceptable. It is possible
thata man about to build himself ahouse might
prudently reflect that the work would take
several months, even a year or more, while the
erection of a dovecote might be easily accom-
plished in the course of a few weeks. A large
portion of his food supply would necessarily be
of home production; and he might very well
decide to get the dovecote ready in advance,
so that its occupants could settle down in their
new home before he needed them.

The main road through Canon Pyon will in
timebring us to Eardisland, adelightful village
on the little river Arrow; here are some of the
best half-timbered houses in the district, a not-
ableexample being the Staick House, immedi-
ately at the east end of Arrow Bridge. Across
the stream, in a farmyard beside the wat
stands a dovecote differing much in style from
56

08 J any

AMIHSGYOdANAH
ASQOH Lad AVALV9

HEREFORDSHIRE

those yet seen.

It is a square brick building, two-storied,
with wallstwenty feetin length. Itsfour-gabled
roof is topped by a lantern of the same form, on
the crown of which is a weather-vane in the
shape of a fish—appropriate for a building on
the bank of so well-known an angler’s stream.
The lower chamber is supplied with windows,
nest-holes being found only in the loft above.
Thisdovecote is particularly charming from the
beauty of its situation and the mellow colour
of its old brick walls.

The fish which forms its weather-vane re-
minds us of the great diversity displayed by
these useful terminals. The arrow and the
cock are both comparatively rare. A dragon,
shield with coat-of-arms, two-headed eagle, fox,
and claw, are known. Inthe absence of a vane
the lantern is frequently surmounted by a pole
and ball.

The shape of the Eardisland dovecote, and
both shape and size in the Butt House speci-
men, preclude the probability of their contain-
ing a potence; “possibility” it is not safe to say,
for potences are sometimes found in square

57:

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

English dovecotes, still more frequently in
Scottish specimens. We shall, however, be
justified, and not disappointed, in looking for
one in the example next upon our list; that at
Richard’s Castle, a village close to the Shrop-
shire border and best reached from Woofferton
Junction, on the Hereford and Shrewsbury
line. The westernmost and least frequented
of the two roads running between Leominster
and Ludlow must be crossed, a turn uphill be-
ing taken at the village inn.

Nearly at the top of the hill we should come
to the church; with yet another of Hereford-
shire’s detached towers; and then, still higher,
find the castle after which the place is named;
a wooded mound, knee-deep in nettles, over-
grown with brambles, but still showing traces
of a ditch and walls. This Border fortress was
erected by, and took its name from, Richard
Fitz Scrob, a Norman of the days of Edward
the Confessor; and it shares with Ewyas, far in
the south-west of the county, the distinction
of being a pre-Conquest stronghold.

But to discover the dovecote we need climb

the hill as far as neither church nor castle, On
58

oe)

SY von

UNTHSa Nod Nad HUlHSadyoddvaH
“LIVH WIONY “ATLLSVO S.GUVHOIN CNUVA LYNOO

HEREFORDSHIRE

the left hand as we ascend, and full in view, we
find it standing in the garden ofa picturesque
farmhouse. It is a circular building of stone,
its roof not only crowned by a three-gabled
lantern, but broken by a trio of dormer win-
dows. These three dormers, a detail unique
in Herefordshire but matched in a beautiful
Worcestershire dovecote, add greatly to the
attraction of this charming old building. Few
dovecotes are more pleasing to the eye.
Inside, as we have said, there is a potence;
also six hundred and thirty nests. The walls
are three feet eleven inches thick, exceeding
those at Garway by an inch, though the build-
ing can hardly pretend to rival our first
specimen in age. In truth it lacks some of
the austere aloofness which we may have felt
about the Garway cote. This is a snug, warm,
comfortable-looking building, not too old and
too remote to take its share in rural life to-day.
Following the main road south for some six
miles we come to Leominster, not far distant
from which town the Arrow joins the Lugg.
If we elect to take as guide the larger stream,
in its now somewhat sluggish course to seek

59

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

the Wye, we shall wind round the wooded
height of Dinmore Hill; pass one of Here-
fordshire’s finest country-houses, Hampton
Court; and presently arrive at Bodenham and
its bridge. Here, hardly a stone’s-throw from
the river, stands a dovecote built of brick, octa-
gonal in shape. This, too, is an attractive little
building—in a farmhouse garden, and beside a
flowing stream.

At Mordiford, four miles east of Hereford,
the waters of the Lugg join those of Wye.
The village, one of the most charming in the
county, lies upon our route to-day; for on the
slope behind it is Old Sufton, where there is a
dovecote which, although brick-faced, is built
of stone. It is circular, but—a rather unusual
feature—is topped by an octagonal lantern. On
the weather-vane, a double-headed eagle, are
the initials I. M., with the date 1764; the cote
itself is very obviously of greater age. There
is nopotence, and the nest-holes are found only
in the upper part.

Away to the east, some distance behind
Mordiford, let us seek out Much Marcle, where,

at the house called Hellens, once the home of
60

HEREFORDSHIRE

a well-known Herefordshireauthority on fruit-
growing and cider-making, is an octagonal
brickdovecote, largely adapted tomodernuses.
There are some nest-holes left. Its octagonal
lantern carries a flag as weather-vane; on it
are the initials E. W., with the date 1753. The
building itself is dated in large letters 1641
with the initials a , whose owners were
Ffoulkes and Margaret Walwyn.

It seems as though the county’s rivers might
be taken as our guides. The Wye would, after
many windings, bring us down to Ross; not
far from Ross is Weston, where, at Bollitree
~Dairy Farm, there is—or was, for recent in-
formation has proved unobtainable—a dove-
cote which presents at least one interesting
feature. It isa rectangular stone building, and
at each corner was placed a guard against
attacks from rats, in a form which, though re-
commended by the early eighteenth century
Sportsman's Dictionary, is seldom seen. The
safeguard was an iron angle-plate on which a
climbing animal would slip and fall. Thewriter
of the work just mentioned, adds, that they

61

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

should fall on iron spikes placed upright in the
ground; but at the Dairy Farm these spikes,
if ever they existed, have now disappeared;
removed, quite possibly, by some humane pro-
prietor of ‘pigeons, who, while anxious to pro-
tecthis birds, was yet unwilling topush matters
to extremes against the rats.

In giving to the dovecotes of this county all
the space that can be spared, we have but
skimmed the cream, and that with a light hand.
Of more than seventy or eighty still surviving
in the county, many others well deserve to be
recorded, though passed over here. The brief-
est mention must be made, however, of the
specimen at Cowarne Court, near Bromyard,
This, although now covered by a cone-shaped
roof of gentle slope, exhibits clear internal
evidence of having once been vaulted like the
Garway specimen. Its walls, too, are three feet
nine inches thick, good proof of ripe old age.

At Foxley, a fine house in Yazor parish, on
the broad road running west from Hereford to
Hay, is the sole remnantof the former mansion
of redbrick, adovecote which, while presenting

few other features of interest, is the only Here-
62

HEREFORDSHIRE

fordshire example to be hexagonal, a form
which we shall rarely find in any part.

Reluctantly, and conscious that we leave full
many a gem behind, we cross the county’s
northern border into Shropshire, a land rich in
ancient houses, wooded hills and charming
streams.

eam

“WON tye,
" ae Mike oe '

TALL eda

her,
ve lun

OLD SUFTON, HEREFORDSHIRE

CHAPTER FIVE
SHROPSHIRE

CHAPTER FIVE
SHROPSHIRE

Even our cousins from America, flying travel-
lers though they be, intent on seeing the cream
of Europe in a month and England in a week,
may yet take back with them across the sea the
picture of a Shropshire pigeon-house. Let
them, upon their way to Chester, callat Shrews-
bury for anhour or two; and, having admired to
the fullthat fineold Bordertown,where youmay
listen to Welsh sermons on a Sunday, hear
Welsh spoken freely in the streets on market-
days,—then let them ask to be directed to
Whitehall, a sixteenth-century mansion of the
suburbs, lying a little way across the English
Bridge and close beside the Abbey Church.
Here they will find as fair a dovecote as the
county has to show,—and that is saying much.

Just as these words are being written the old
house is undergoing conversion into an hotel.
Its builder and first owner, Richard Prince, a
“proud Salopian” of Elizabethan days, thought
little,as hereared his stately dwelling wherethe
Abbey grange had stood, that it would one day

harbour the chance guest, who comes and calls
67

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

forcheer,and pays his bill and goes his way with
little further thought for house or host. And
indeed the visitor whose luck may bring him
to Whitehall, though he may give but little
thought to either Richard Prince or present
host, is hardly likely altogether to neglect the
house. Forhewill take his ease amid ideal sur-
roundings; the perfection of Elizabethanarchi-
tecture, filled internally with furniture and tap-
estries and pictures, all in keeping with the set-
ting they adorn. In the old garden stands the
dovecote, one of the most interesting that
Shropshire owns.

Within the last century it has indeed been
shorn of the full charm of its former surround-
ings; for a fine group of larches that stood near
it, said to have been the earliest planted in the
county, has now disappeared. Gone, too, the
grandold walnut-tree,with trunk that measured -
sixteen feet in girth, and boughs that spread
their shade for twenty yards around. We will
not grudge them; for the dovecote still adorns
the junction of two tile-topped garden walls.
And where, indeed, could it be better placed?

Has not Trigg included dovecotes, and most
68

SHROPSHIRE

rightly, among “garden ornaments”?

The building is of brick, octagonal; inside are
some five hundred nests, with potence and its
ladder still in good repair. The tiled roof, also
octagonal, is crowned by a high cupola, and
small rectangular windows are set high in the
walls. Between these windows and the eaves
we find a feature which, while a welcome orna-
ment, forms subject of discussion and dispute;
avery beautiful arched corbel-table made in
moulded brick.

The dovecote is generally referred to the
same period as the mansion, which was built by
the aforesaid Richard Prince, betweenthe years
1578 and 1582, onthesiteof the grange belong-
ing tothe Benedictine abbey, dissolvedin 1539.
The Abbey Church, as has been said, still
stands, and the refectory pulpit may be seen in
an adjacent yard. It has been urged by archi-
tectural experts that a corbel-table such as this
was an unusual feature of Elizabethan times,
and one unlikely to have been produced byany
architect employed by Prince.

A possible explanation of this feature,a great
addition to the beauty of the pigeon-house, is

69

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

to be found byan examination of the lower por-
tion of the walls and of the foundations upon
which they stand. These are of stone and are
octagonal. It seems possible, therefore, that
the monksof the Abbey hadan octagonal dove-
cote of stone on this same spot; that Richard
Prince’s builder pulled it down, and rebuilt it
in brick, being careful to reproduce a former
corbel-table. The point is one on which we
may well hesitate to dogmatise, preferring to
fall back upon the placid prudence of George
Eliot’s Old Letsure,—“happy in his inability to
know thecauses of things, preferring thethings
themselves.” And certainly between enjoyment
of this corbel-table and a learned explanation
of its presence few would hesitate to make
their choice.

The lower portion of the wall to which the
dovecote joinsis old, with manyold bricks built
intotheupper part. Closebyisthe monks’ barn,
much modernised, but happily still covered by
its ancient roof of stone.

Only some few degrees less charming than
the Whitehall dovecote is the excellent ex-
ample tobe foundat Henley Hall,near Ludlow,
7O

SHROPSHIRE

lying south of Shrewsbury by some twenty
miles. It is of about the same period as that at
Whitehall, or perhaps somewhat later, Itlacks
the corbel-table, and is rather broader in pro-
portion toitsheight; but the wide-eaved lantern
hasavery pleasing effect; andtheroof, although
its tiles are comparatively modern, isagreeably
broken by four dormer windows, one in each
alternate section of the octagon. The length
of each of the eight walls is ten feet; height to
the eaves about fifteen.

The potenceinside is in good working order,
while of the nests, nearly six hundred in num-
ber,some are still occupied by pigeons, and the
building has a cheerful, thriving, well-kept air.
With regard to the nests it is interesting to
note that the inner arm of the L turns to the
left in every tier; a rather unusual variation
from the more general practice by which, when
the direction does not change with each tier,
the turn is to the right. Such are the little
differences for which the dovecote-lover early
learns to look.

The doorway is quite noticeably narrow, be-
ing two feet two inches wide, though nearly

71

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

five feet high; while for a brick dovecote of this _
period the walls are unusually thick—thirty-
four inches.

Similar, both in shape and material, to those
already described is the dovecote standing in
a field at Chetwynd House, near Newport. Its
history, prior to the present ownership, which
dates from 1808, remains a blank. It is smaller
than the one at Henley Hall, the total wall-
length being nomore than sixty feet. The roof,
its tiling modern, has a lantern with glass win-
dows, and a weather-vane above; there is also
a trap for catching the birds. The potence still
exists, and the six hundred nest-holes are L-
shaped. The building is not only in good re-
pair, but is still applied to its original purpose.

A dovecote existed until comparatively late-
ly in the park at Tong Castle, but was pulled
down on account of its “dangerous” condition;
though whether the park wasa public thorough-
fare and the safety of wayfarers affected, and
what insurmountable difficulties rendered its
repair and preservation impossible, are points
on which no information can be given. In-
volved in similardarkness are the causes which
re

URY

REWSB

WHITEHALL, SHI

Face p. 72-

SHROPSHIRE

brought about the destruction of the old dove-
cote formerly standing near the rectory at
Llanymynech, a village close to the Mont-
gomeryshire border. This was demolished by
the rector; not—be it noted well—the present
rector, who, with the villagers, deplores the
loss.

Most probably of sixteenth-century work is
the circular brick dovecote at the Lynches, an
old house which stands not far from Yockleton,
a stationon the Shrewsbury to Welshpool line.
Comparatively small, it is only fifty-three feet
in circumference, and is re-roofed with modern
slates. Its walls are thick, its doorway small,
its potence still in place. The nest-holes, plain
rectangular recesses, are still occupied.

“Cannot this vaunted Shropshire show us
dovecotes dating from a period prior to Eliza-
bethan times?” exclaims some reader, eager
for the hoary stones of Norman work. The
Whitehall dovecote, beautiful in form and dec-
oration, easily accessible to visitors to Shrews-
bury who are pressed for time, was chosen for
our early notice upon that account, and it has
led the way to others of its age and ‘style. But

73

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

there are far older dovecotes to be found in
Shropshire; and in quest of one of these we
may betake ourselvesto the most pleasant gar-
den of the White House, Aston Munslow, a
place lying north-east of that important local
junction, Craven Arms.

The White House dovecote is a round stone
building, very obviously of Norman date; fairly
large, with a circumference of seventy-five feet
anda height to the eaves of fifteen feet. One of
its points of greatest interest is the thickness
of the walls—four feet, while those at Garway,
it will be recalled, are but three feet ten inches,
The entrance is a very narrow one.

There is no potence now remaining, but we
can still see the socket-hole in which the lower
end was placed; also a remnant of the beam
itself. The nest-holes, numbering about five
hundred, are L-shaped. Thereisastring-course
placed unusually low down—some two feet
only from the ground.

Unhappily, during the owner’s temporary
absence from the property, the roof fell in; but
some of the stone tiles which covered it have
been preserved, together with the wooden pegs
74

SHROPSHIRE

that held them in their place. These tiles were
of a small size on the upper portion of the roof,
becoming larger towards the eaves.

The fall of the roof was, unfortunately, fol-
lowed by disaster to asection of the walls them-
selves; an accident not very frequent ina dove-
cote of this shape and massive build, which
usually proves capable of standing not a little
buffeting from time and weather without giv-
ing way. It would be a very serious loss to
Shropshire if this dovecote were allowed todis-
appear, since, judging from the thickness of
its walls and other signs, it can be little later
in its date than that at Garway. But happily
the owner of White House is now the occupier
also, keen to check all chance of further harm.

Not differing greatly in regard to style, nor
probably in age, is the fine dovecote standing
in the grounds of one of the most charming of
old Shropshire mansions, Shipton Hall, in the
Much Wenlock district. Shipton itself, once a
seat of the Myttons, isa fine Elizabethan house,
restored—and well restored—in George the
Second’s reign.

Disaster has been busy with the dovecote

15

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

here. The roof, which bore a cupola, has fallen
in. The walls still stand—four feet in thick-
ness, with a doorway which, though wide, is
little more than four feet high.

Inside is a potence, and, still more inter-
esting, about four hundred nest-holes, thirteen
inches deep, and vounded at the back, a form
but seldom seen. Surely such shape, though
doubtless giving extra trouble to the builder,
meant additional comfort to the birds. These
rounded nests alone would be enough to date
this dovecote from a long-past day, when time
and trouble were nothing as compared with the
result desired.

Also in this district, in the garden of the
rectory at Harley, is a square brick dovecote,
from the loft of which the nests have been re-
moved. A trap-door in the roof of the lower
story gives access to this loft, the ascent hav-
ing formerly been made by pegs driven into
the wall as a foothold. The little building is of
no great antiquity or importance, but a dove-
cote in a garden is not willingly passed by.

At Bourton Hall, another house of interest

near Wenlock, is a solidly built square dove-
76

SHROPSHIRE

coteofstone. Thelength ofeach walliseighteen
feet, and the height to the eaves twenty. The
building has been turned into a storehouseand
all trace of nests has disappeared.

In the garden of Thonglands, a farmhouse
partly of Elizabethan timber-workand partly of
still older date, lying in one of the most charm-
ing of all Shropshire’s charming districts—the
secluded valley of Corvedale—there is a cir-
cular stone dovecote. The roof has fallen in,
and the walls, burdened with a weight of ivy,
are upon the way to follow suit. Inside is the
comparatively small number of two hundred
and fifty nests, arranged in ten tiers, and all
plain oblong recesses. There is no sign of any
potence having been in use. The walls are only
thirty inches thick, a fact which seems to nega-
tive the bold opinion offered by a villager that
it might date from “inthe Romantimes.” Some
speak of it, however, as of fourteenth-century
date; in any case it merits to be better cared for
than is now the case.

At Rowton Hall, Broseley, a sixteenth-cent-
ury house best reached from Coalport station,
there is amassive dovecote builtof brick, eight-

77

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

een feet square and over thirty feet in height.
It was at one time even higher, having a tiled
roof and loft. The present roofing material is
—horribile dictu—corrugated iron, surely the
last indignity that such a building can be called
upon to bear. The walls are three feet thick,
the doorway noticeably small. About one thou-
sand nest-holes still remain, rising from the
ground level to the roof. At Coalport and
Broseley we are getting into the brick-and tile-
making district of Shropshire, and it is there-
fore more interesting than surprising to see
that the bricks used for the nests were speci-
ally moulded for the purpose.

As Herefordshire at Mansel Lacy, soShrop-
shire in more thanone instance exhibits accom-
modation for pigeons fashioned in the fabric of
the dwelling-house itself. Thisis so at Tickler-
ton Hall, a house built near Much Wenlock in
the reign of Charles I.; where, in addition to
a square dovecote, there are pigeon-holes in
one of the house-walls, At the Woodhouse, a
small dwelling of Jacobean period in Wyke, a
dovecote exists in the attic gable. Finally, at

Hungerford, lying between Ludlow and Mun-
78

SHROPSHIRE

slow, there is a third instance of this kind. In
a stone house of Georgian date two wings pro-
jecting at the rear are linked together by an
overhanging roof which forms a covered bal-
cony, and is believed intended as a shelter for
these birds. It is impossible to look upon pro-
vision of this kind without an understanding
of the great importance formerly attached to
pigeons as a source of food-supply.

i
vs

i

Ninna i

Oe rs

DORMSTONE, WORCESTERSHIRE

CHAPTER SIX
WORCESTER AND
WARWICK

a a es

UD ee i ial t vents ey
nevis yy ie ube E eke ec Sl =
iy Ae pi. wee STG

‘ ‘
Va ey eM Eee

"i
WNfpsvyu,
fon LRAT ule

ODDINGLEY, WORCESTERSHIRE

CHAPTER SIX
WORCESTER AND
WARWICK

Inthe number, interest, and beauty of its dove-
cotes the county of Worcester may be fitly
grouped with the two already described. With
Herefordshire, especially, it presents many
interesting parallels. Statistics of Hereford-
shire dovecotes, compiled some thirty years
ago, showed the total number then existing to
be seventy-four, while more than, thirty had
been demolished or allowed to go to ruin. In
Worcestershire there were, fifteen years later,
ninety-three dovecotes, while twenty others,
known to have existed formerly, had disap-
peared. Inone point Worcestershire falls very
far behind the sister county; as compared
with Herefordshire’s twenty-one octagonal ex-
amples, she has only one to show.

Of circular dovecotes Worcestershire has
none of an age certainly equal to, far less ex-
ceeding, that at Garway; but she possesses one
of greater size. This, the largest in the county,
stands in a field at South Littleton, and is no

~ less than eighty-three feet in circumference.
83

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

It is built of local lias stone, much mixed with
rubble, and there are remains of rough-cast on
the outer surface of the walls. It is lighted by
a very small window-slit; and the roof, cover-
ed with stone slabs and now reported as in bad
repair, is crowned by a small, square, four-
pillared cupola. The walls are about two feet
thick, the doorway of fair size. The want of
thickness in the.walls is an argument against
the age of this specimen being anything ap-
proaching that of Garway, for it is a sound
general rule that the thicker the walls the
élder the dovecote.

Inside are eighteen tiers of nests, with an
alighting-ledge to every second tier; two more
tiers are now almost hidden by the raising of
the earthen floor. The number of nest-holes
is about six hundred and fifty. The potence,
though not nowin working order, still remains,
bearing one arm.

Littleton, not content with the possession
of the largest dovecote in the county, once
established pigeons in the church. Here, ex-
tracted from the churchwardens’ accounts of
the parish, are particulars concerning the ar-
84

WORCESTER

rangement:

“In the syxte yere of the Reygn’ of Kynge
Edwarde the vjth. all owr churche books of
latten (Latin) were tak’n a way and caryed
to worcetr and then we had all owr sves (ser-
vices) in Englys. And in the fyrst yere of our
sou’aygn lady mary owr quene, and all owr
books gone that showld serve owr churche.
All the hole paryss a greyd wyth Sr. hufrey
acton then owr vicar—and for hys gentylness
and be cawse owr churche had but lyttyll
money in store, and lacked mony things in
owr churche we were all co’tent that the seyd
vicar showld have all the p’fett (profit) of the
pyggynsthat use the stepull of owr churche for
all the tyme that he shalbe Vicar here, fyndyng
his books, this a grement was made a pon
Wenysday in the Wytson wycke, the fyrst
yere of the Reygn’ of owr sou’aygn lorde
phyllipe owr king, and the second yere of owr
sou’aygn lady mary’ owr quene.”

Or, in brief terms and modern spelling, the
parish lacked the means for purchasing anewset
of service books, and accordingly agreed with

“Sr, hufrey acton,” otherwise Humfrey Acton,
85

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

a former monk of Evesham, who was vicar of
Littleton throughout the reigns of Edward
and Mary, and for some time after the acces-
sion of Elizabeth, that he should provide the
books, receiving in return the profit accruing
from the steeple pigeons. It wasa compromise
which relieved the Littletonians from imme-
diate embarrassment, and doubtless proved of
ultimate profit to their vicar. To other cases
where pigeons were housed in the tower, and
even inother parts of churches, further allusion
will be made.

Higher in proportion to its size, with much
thicker walls and a general appearance of
greater antiquity than the Littleton dovecote,
is the circular example at Comberton, near
Pershore. It is about seventy feet in circum-
ference, and the walls are three feet seven
inches thick. Built of grey stone, it is sup-
ported by three staged buttresses, and entered
by a small round-headed doorway. The pot-
ence, if once present, has now disappeared;
but nest-holes to the number of more than
five hundred remain,some being still occupied
by pigeons. The roof is crowned by a small

WORCESTER

open cupola, and the whole building is in good
repair.

Exceeding both these dovecotes in respect
of massiveness of walls are the two found re-
spectively at Wick, near Pershore, and at the
Manor House, Cleeve Prior. That at Wick,
where the walls have a thickness of four feet,
isseventy-five feet round, and holds some thir-
teen hundred nests, It is constructed of a
greyish-yellow stone, which has once been
covered with plaster; stands upon sloping
ground, is supported by three buttresses, and
has a single dormer window in the roof. The
potence is in place.

Of still moresolid construction, having walls
four feet six inches thick, is the Cleeve Prior
dovecote. Thepotenceisabsent; and although
the building is sixty feet in circumference
it only contains four hundred and fifty nests.
These are provided with alighting-ledges at
every third tier—a not uncommon arrange-
ment. The dovecote is in good repair, and is,
moreover, still applied to its original use.

One ofthe most charming—perhaps, indeed,
the most charming—of all Worcestershire

87

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

dovecotes is the delightful building to be found
at Kyre Park, Kyre Magna. Beautiful in itself,
its attractions are enhanced by beauty of situ-
ation; it stands in close proximity to a fine
buttressed tithe barn, with good crow-stepped
gable-ends. Inside,the potence and its ladder
are in place, and the fivehundred nests are still
in excellent repair.

Externally the dovecote is singularly attrac-
tive. The doorway is slightly arched, and a
few feet below the eaves a string-course en-
circles the walls. The roof is crowned by a
four-gabled open cupola on slender pillars,
and its slope is broken by three dormer win-
dows, a picturesque grouping already seen at
Richard’s Castle, Herefordshire. None will
regret the timeor trouble spent in visiting this
charming specimen.

Of square pigeon-houses in Worcestershire
one may be first mentioned which, though not
otherwise particularly attractive, deserves our
notice by the rare appearance of a potence in
an English building of this shape. This is the
brick-built dovecote at Elmley Lovett, where
alighting-ledges are provided to each tier of

WORCESTER

nests, instead of the rather frequent com-
promise of giving one for every second or third
tier.
_ As has been already pointed out, the pro-
vision of a potence in a square dovecote is of
comparatively rare occurrence—south of the
Tweed at least—and its utility obviously limit-
ed. One inclines to think that, where so found,
it has been introduced without due consider-
ation; the dovecote’s builder having noticed
its presence in a circular or octagonal house,
admired it as a useful and ingenious contriv-
ance, and jumped too hastily to the conclusion
. that it would prove of equal service in his own.
Experience would go far to disappoint his
hopes.
Of square dovecotes built of stone there are
a dozen or more examples in Worcestershire.
Of these no less than six were present in one
village—that of Bretforton. One, said to be
of medieval age, is at the Manor House. A
second, with one wall rebuilt in brick and tim-
ber, bears the date 1630; while a third is of the
middle of the eighteenth century.
Elsewhere, at Dunhamstead, a stone dove-
89

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

cote twenty-one feet square has some eight
hundred nests, brick-built, with an alighting-
ledgeforevery tier. The roof hasbeenrepaired.
Offenham Court, with its pigeon-housetwenty
feet square, four-gabled, and lighted by four
windows, is of interest as standing on the site
once occupied by the sanatorium of the Abbey
of Evesham, in which house the last of a long
line of abbots died.

In a countyso well wooded as Worcester we
shall find withoutsurprise numerousdovecotes
into the construction of which timber enters to
a large extent. Some are the genuine “black
and white,” others have timber framing, with
brick “‘filling-in.” Of the latter kind was for-
merly the very interesting example at the
Manor Farm, Cropthorne; interesting here
as being of that form very common in Scotland
but rare in England—a house of two compart-
ments. The house is twenty-eight feet six
inches long, by fifteen feet ten inches broad.
Two sides are built in part of timber, but the
other two are now of brick. The two compart-
ments contain a total of five hundred and ten
nests. The whole is roofed with tiles; the lan-
go

WORCESTER

terns that give light to each division are in
somewhat bad repair.

Two dovecotes stand in the garden of Bag
End Farm, Dormstone, each holding between
five hundred and six hundred nests. One,
slightly the smaller of the two, has a four-
gabled roof and four windows, and bears the
date 1413 upon some lead-work. A somewhat
similar dovecote occurs at the Moat Farm, in
the same parish; it also is four-gabled, and is
built on a stone foundation.

The comparatively small dovecote at Manor
House Farm, Broughton Hackett, is of “black
and white” structure on a foundation of stone.
It is of rather special interest; for, in spite of
itssmall size—sixteen by fourteen feet—itcon-
tains as many as twelve hundred nests. These
are of wood, arranged with great economy of
space. Less than half this accommodation is
available in the much larger building at Staun-
ton Court; a dovecote twenty-six feet by
twenty-one, with walls two feet six inches
thick. It is hardly probable that this is the
dovecote alluded to in the Red Book of Ex-
chequer, where it is noted that Peter jde

gI

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Staunton, who died in 1288, “held a capital
messuage and garden, a dovecot, three water-
mills, two groves of eight acres in all, ten acres
of meadow, and 216 acres of arable land.”

We have it on the authority of the Evesham
Chronicles that Abbot Randulph, whose ten-
ure of office dated from 1214-to 1229, brought
about, among other improvementsonhislands,
the erection of dovecotes at Offenham, Ham-:
stone, Wickhampton,and Ombresley. At Off-
enham there still is, attached to other build-
ings, a very small dovecote, nine feet by ten; it
is much out of repair, the timber framing being
filled in with mixed brick and lath and plaster.
But this was certainly not that which Abbot
Randulph built; and the same may be said of
the far more attractive specimen at Hawford,
Ombresley, built upon a stone foundation,
seventeen feet square, four-gabled, and with
an open lantern in the roof. The lower part has
been converted tothe purpose of a coach-house,
and nest-holes remain on two sides only of the
upper floor. To the dilapidated dovecote at
Oddingley, still containing six hundred nests,
is attached the sinister story of its having form-
92

WORCESTER

ed the rendezvous of the gang of scoundrels
who, in 1805, contrived and carried out the
murder of the rector of the parish.

A readily explicable instance of a potence
being found in a square dovecote occurs at
Court Farm, Leigh, where a comparatively
modern dovecote, square in form, stands on the
old foundations of a circular forerunner, the
potence of the former building having been
allowed to keep its place. Ofancient dovecotes
lostto Worcestershire it is permissibleto speak
of the large circular examples demolished dur-
ing the last century at Cotheridge, Hudding-
ton Court, and Fladbury. Not so long since
there was alive an aged roadman who remem-
bered helping to destroy the one last named.
Its stones were not even devoted to use in the
parish, but were taken by barge down the
Severn to Gloucester.

Thereader is reminded of the warning given
in the preface; that this book does not profess
to be exhaustive, to mention all the best sur-
viving dovecotes, or even to deal with every
county. Over the neighbouring counties of
Warwick and Leicester we shall therefore pass

93

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

with haste.

Leicester, indeed, though not without its
dovecotes, does not seem particularly rich in
them. One will be found at Houghton-on-the-
Hill. It is a square brick building, twenty feet
in length, by sixteen feet six inches wide;
gabled, andwitha slated roof. The very moder-
ate thickness of the walls prepares us for the
knowledge that its age does not exceed two
centuries, it having been erected in 1716.
There are about onethousand L-shaped nests.

In a field at Aston Flamville is a square
brick dovecoteof the early eighteenth century,
the date being 1715. The length of wall is
eighteen feet, and the L-shaped nest-holes
number eight hundred.

In Warwickshire there falls tobe noticedthe
not very common instance of accommodation
for pigeons being providedinacastle—the four-
teenth-century fortress of Maxstoke, where a
chamber over the gate-house has been partly
fitted up with nests. A reliable architectural
authority, by whom this castle has been recent-
ly described, isof opinion that thearrangement
was carried out some time in the sixteenth
94

WARWICK

century.

At the well-known house of Compton Wyn-
yates an octagonal dovecote stands in an orch-
ard. It is of brick, with stone corners; has a
height of thirty-five feet, a diameter of eight-
een, and the very moderate wall thickness of
one foot ten inches. Inside are some six hund-
red L-shapednests. The potence was removed
some time ago. We shall probably be right in
assigning this dovecote to a date about 1600.

There isa fine circulardovecote of very con-
siderable age standing at “haunted Hillboro’,”
a hamlet in the parish of Temple Grafton, not
far from Stratford-on-Avon. Of this example
particulars are unavailable; but fortunately it
is otherwise with the very interesting dovecote
at Kinwarton, near Alcester, a building on the
rector’s glebe. It is, with fish-ponds, the only
surviving relicof a former moated grange which
belonged to the abbey of Evesham.

Thedovecote, solidly constructed of stone in
rather thin layers, plastered externally, has an
internal diameter of seventeen feet two inches,
a height to the eaves of fifteen feet, and a wall
thickness of three feet seven inches. The roof,

o5

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

surmounted by a lantern, is tiled, and the sup-
porting beams and rafters are in themselves
worth careful inspection. There is asingle dor-
mer window.

The potence is still in place, only one or two
rungs of its ladder being missing. The nest-
holes, numbering over five hundred, are plain
oblong recesses, varying a good deal in depth.

The doorway is particularly good. Its ex-
treme height, to the point of the small ogee
arch, is three feet nine inches; four inches less
to the spring of the arch. The width is just two
feet. The building, which is excellently cared
for,cannot be much, ifat all later than the four-
teenth century.

f oowy

AMIHSMOIMN VAN
LVANAM NOLdIVOO

ANTHSay
MINd Ad

CHAPTER SEVEN
NORTHAMPTON,
BUCKINGHAM, AND
HUNTINGDON

CHAPTER SEVEN
NORTHAMPTON,
BUCKINGHAM, AND
HUNTINGDON

PassinG eastward, the player at this game
of dovecote-hunting finds himself growing
“warm” onentering Northamptonshire. Dove-
cotes are numerous, though many have now
disappeared; they are curious in being for the
most part either square or oblong, though cir-
cular and octagonal examples are by no means
absent; while many are but a short distance
from the county town.

Let us award first place to a fine dovecote of
unusual size. It will be found at Newton-in-
the-Willows, a small villagelying a little to the
west of Geddington. Church, village, dovecote
stand apart from one another; the last-named,
lonely in a field, is all that now remains of a
former manor-house belonging to the Tresham
family.

Its size is most unusual; fifty-threefeet nine,
by twenty-three feet seven; the height to the
eaves twenty feet, and to the roof-ridge about

99

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

thirty-five. Like similar pigeon-houses of this
shape in Scotland,—where, however, they are
mostly covered by a lean-to roof—the build-
ing is divided into two compartments of equal
size, the party-wall being carried through the
roof, which is of Colly Weston slabs. Each sec-
tion of the roof has a small lantern to give en-
trance to the pigeons, furnished with alighting-
ledges facing south and north.

The walls, of local limestone, have a marked
“batter” —sloping slightly inwards'as theyrise.
On three sides they are blank, being broken on
the south side only by a heavily barred window
giving light to each compartment, with a door
to each. The doorways are noticeably small;
three feet four inches high, and two feet wide.
The doors themselves are almost certainly ori-
ginal, being made of solid oak fourinchesthick.

In the middle of the south wall, between the
windows, astoneslabbears the name ‘Maurice
Tresham” in raised lettering. Above, at the
end of the table-course over the dividing-wall
between the two compartments, is the device
of the Tresham family, a triple trefoil. This is

repeated on the northside, and again onastone
100

NORTHAMPTON

which caps the ridge.

Such is the only attempt at ornament.on this
great dovecote, and the building would present
a somewhat bare and forbidding appearance,
had not its old stones “weathered” to a richly
variegated hue, largely due to the growth of
many-coloured lichens.

Each of the two compartments has accom-
modation for two thousand pairs of birds. The
nests are empty now; but in the spring and
summer wild bees make their nests in inter-
stices in the walls; while daffodils and snow-
drops, springing here and there about the
meadow, tell of the old manor garden that has
passed away.

Thedovecote’sbuilder was, therecan belittle
doubt, the first of several Maurice Treshams
known to have existed in the family. He was
bornin 15 30and came intothe estate when only
eight years old.

The village of Harleston, four miles distant
from Northampton on the Rugby road, offers
a dovecote very different from the Newton
specimen, alike in situation, shape, and size.
The village itself is delightful, with its houses

' IOI

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

built of local sandstone, roofed with thatch or
tiles; the dovecote, far from standing lonely
and deserted in a meadow, peeps upon us from
behind a garden wall. ;

It isaround building of local sand- and iron-
stone, in some measure ivy-grown. The roof,
renewed three-quarters of a century ago, is of
the well-known local Colly Weston slates, and is
topped by an octagonal lantern and a weather-
vane. The wall is ‘‘set back” half-way up, with
a good string-course; whilea broad table-course
appears immediately below the eaves. The
walls, fifteen feet high, are three feet thick.
Entrance is by a doorway four feet high, two
feet one inch in breadth. Internally the build-
ing is divided into two stories by a modern
floor, and holds about four hundred nests, now
long disused.

The thickness of the walls, the small size of
the doorway, are good signs of age; but it isa
somewhat doubtful tradition which dates this
interesting structure to 1320,the year in which
the parish church was rebuilt. More probably
it has existed since the first quarter of the fif-

teenth century.
102

NORTHAMPTON

Harleston can show another dovecote, far
less picturesque, however, than the one just
viewed. Itis rectangularand almostsquare, the
wall-length being twenty-one feet by twenty-
three. The walls are three feet thick, but the
doorway is unusually large—six feet in height,
three feet three inches wide. Theheight to the
eaves is sixteen feet. The roof, once covered
with the famous local slates already spoken of,
is now of small red tiles. The somewhat bald
appearance of the whole is well toned down by
a large pear-tree trained on the west wall, as
also by the “‘weathering” of the lichen-covered
stones. A single window, narrow, tall, round-
headed, breaks the western wall. The dove-
cote, probably about three hundred years of
age, contains eight hundred nest-holes, all de-
serted now.

Aword with reference to thelargenessof the
doorway here. Though a small doorway may
be looked on as a sign of age, a larger entrance
isnotalwaysindicative ofmodernity. Thedoor-
way, made both small and strong for safety of
the inmates, was found nothing but an incon-

venience when thedovecote, as a dovecote, fell
103

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

into disuse, and it was desired to employ it asa
stable, cart-shed, or the like; so that a low and
narrow doorway has nowoften disappeared, be-
ing swallowed up in one of modern size. Inthe
same way the potence, useful when employed
for its due purpose, was found later to be in the
way ofcartsor cattle, and hasconsequently often
been cast out.

Still occupied by pigeons is the dovecote at
Denton, a village six miles from Northampton,
on the Bedfordroad. It is of limestone and cir-
cular; there are three “‘set-backs” to the walls,
the uppermost alone being provided with a
string-course. Theroof and itscupoladate from
the middle of the last century, but the building
is much older. The doorway on the south is al-
most square, three feet six inches high, three
inches less in breadth.

Isham, a village lying between Welling-
borough and Kettering, possesses an interest-
ing seventeenth-century dovecote, rectangu-
lar in shape, and having its massive walls built
with a slight “batter.” The heavy door, thickly
studded with nails, is worth noting, and the

whole building is maintained in good repair.
104

tor 'f 29V.7

SINVHLYON ‘SMOTTIAVAHL:NENOLMAN

NORTHAMPTON

It is still tenanted by a few birds.

Externally there is but little special interest
apparent in the circular cupola-crowned dove-
cote standing near the mill at Warmington, a
village between Oundle and Peterborough,
three miles from the former place; though we
shall notice that its “Colly Weston” roof is of
a pleasant hue. Internally, this building, dat-
ing from the seventeenth century, has features
which demand attention.

Even the door detains us on our way within.
Ithastwo locks, the upperone of modern make.
The lower lock, probably as old as the building
whose occupants it was its office to secure, is
of very elaborate construction. It is contained
in an oakcase, wellornamented with iron-work.
There is a double key-hole with two separate
bolts. The key, when inserted and turned in
the usual way, unlocks the upper bolt. The
lower bolt is withdrawn by both the position of
the key and the direction in which it is turned
being reversed. _

The woodwork of the roof is original, the
main supports being two horizontal beams
which cross in the centre. From each of these

105

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

rises a curved piece of timber, on which is sup-,
ported a circle of wood to which the rafters are
fixed.

The potence is still in complete order. The
massive upright post, six inches by four in
section, is pivoted in a wooden block in the
floor and to the cross-beams which support the
roof. It carries a sixteen-rung ladder, which is
strengthened by diagonal struts.

But it is the construction of the nests which
presents the chief internal feature of this dove-
cote. Twofeet above the floor the walls are cor-
belled, a shelf six inches wide being formed.
From thisshelfrise perpendicularslabsof wood,
fixed to the wall at distances nine inches apart.
Similar slabs rise from the floor, in front of
those upon the shelf. These uprights are con-
nected by round wooden pegs, placed horizon-
tally, and long enough to project beyond the
front row. Upon these pegs flat boards are laid
to form the nest-floors, with upright boards to
serve as the dividing walls. The wholearrange-
ment wasthencovered withsomekindof mortar
orcement,aledge being formedin frontof every
tier. Such an arrangement as here seen is most
106

NORTHAMPTON

unusual, possibly unique.

At Burton Latimer, three miles from Ketter-
ing, is a plain but well-built dovecote, almost
identical in size and general form with that at
Isham. It offers no feature of special interest;
and theexplorer will do well toturn hissteps to-
wards Dallington, a village but a little distance
from Northampton, on the Rugbyroad. Here,
in the grounds of Dallington House, upon the
bank of a small stream, and reached through a
fine avenue of elms and chestnuts, he will find
one of the few octagonal dovecotes which the
county offers. Dallington House, it should be
noted, was built about 1720 by Sir Joseph
Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, on the site of a
manor-house which was once the home of Lord
Chief Justice Raynsford. The dovecote was
most probably erected at the same time as the
present mansion.

It isasomewhat ornate, yet massive building,
covered by an eight-sided ogee roof, the whole
crowned by an octagonal lantern. This lantern
is lead-covered, the angles of the roof of Colly
Weston slabs being likewise lead-protected.
The walls, two feet three inches, thick, are of

107

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

worked ashlar, with the corner-stones of rustic
work. The door, six feet in height, but lessthan
three feet wide, has evidently been enlarged;
and two out of three windows are certainly
modern. The house, containing over thirteen
hundred nest-holes, is nowempty, andthe holes
by which the birds once entered have been
closed.

Finally, a rather interesting dovecote is to
be seen at Mears Ashby, or Ashby Mares, a
pleasant village about eight miles from Nor-
thampton, on the Wellingborough road. It
stands upon a sloping bank immediately to the
east of the fine old Elizabethan hall, a building
ontheporchand leaden water-pipesof which ap-
pears the date 1637.

The dovecote is rectangular, with diitily
“battered” walls some three feet thick. Onboth
the east and west sides is a little window, with
a semicircular alighting-ledge immediately in
front. The roof is topped by a small wooden
lantern, with nine panes of glass in each of the
four sides,

Here, as so frequently elsewhere, the door-
way deserves attention. Its outside measure-
108

BUCKINGHAM

ments are four feet high, by two feet ten inches
wide; but the actual space between the sill and
lintel is but three feet, and between the side-
posts one foot eleven inches.

Passing now into Buckinghamshire we find
several dovecotes of interest. At Haversham,
in a field east of the Manor House, is a seven-
teenth-century example of-stone; square, with
a pyramid-shaped tiled roof, surmounted by a
good oaken lantern. A panel in the north wall
bearsthe legend “1665 M.T.” The dovecote is
still fitted with nests, and, unlike some others in
the county, is in good repair.

At Clifton Reynes is, or lately was, a circular
dovecote, the walls of which have aslight set-off
near the top. The thatched roof is crowned by
asmalllantern. Nestsarefittedinthethickness
of the walls. But the whole building was, a short
time back, in such dilapidation that it may have
been pulled down.

At Church Farm, Edlesborough, there ex-
ists, in company witha sixteenth-century barn
andthe remains ofa moat, a square brick dove-
cote built in the late seventeenth century, with

a tiled roof, and fitted with brick nests. To the
109

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

south ofGreat Linford Rectory, abuilding some
fourcenturies old, is a square example of stone,
with a pyramid-tiled roof anda lantern. Inside,
the nest-holes are intact.

At Tathall End Farm, Hanslope, adjoining
the north end of the house, is a good square
dovecote, built of stone rubble. Nests, with
alighting-ledges, still remain within the upper
floor; the age of the building is settled by the
“TB. 1602” which may be read over the door-
way in the eastern wall.

At Newton Longueville is a manor-house
built upon the site of a Cluniac priory. A dove-
cote stands in a field east of the house; it dates
fromthe early sixteenthcentury, and isof some-
what unusual construction for this neighbour-
hood. Its walls are of vertical timber framing,
closely set; the intervals between the uprights,
formerly filled in with plaster, are now closed
withbricks. Thereis a tiledroof witha skylight,
and the house is fitted with oak nests.

Stewkley possesses both a “Manor Farm”
and ‘“Dovecote Farm”; but it is at the former
that we find a dovecote standing at a few yards’

distance from the house. It is an interesting
110

BUCKINGHAM

specimen of early eighteenth-century work;
brick, andoctagonalinform. Thebricksare laid
in what is known to builders as the “Flemish
bond,” the ‘“‘headers”—those bricks, namely,
which present their ends to view—being black
_ and arranged to form a diamond pattern. The
dormer window and the lantern in the roof are
both modern. The string-course round the
walls is made of moulded bricks, while pilasters
adorntheangles. The doorway has asegmental
head. Immediately above it, on a plaster panel
framed in moulded britk, are the initials and
H.

date, G. A.

1704.

In Whitchurch, at a house in a lane south of
thechurch, wefinda Buckinghamshireexample
of pigeons being accommodated in a dwelling.
In the north gable of this house are two rows of
entrance-holes. Again, at Cuddington, the vil-
lage club has taken possession of what was for-
merly Tyringham Hall, a house constructed in
the seventeenth century. In one of the attics
may be seen some nest-holes built of brick.

At Burnham Abbey,a little south of themain
III

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

buildings, isagoodsixteenth-century dovecote;
square, and built oftwoandaquarter inch bricks,
The doorway is modern, but belowtheeaveson
the east wall is a curious little window having a
three-centred head. The roof is thatched, and
hipped on all four sides.

Finally, a dovecote with fittings of unusual
style stands in the grounds of the thirteenth-
century Notley Abbey, at Long Crendon, It is
a good-sized building of stone, square, with a
tiled hipped roof, and is seemingly a survival
from the Middle Ages. But its most, striking
feature will be found within. Projecting in-
wards from the walls are shorter walls, all fitted
with nest-holes. This arrangement, obviously
economicalof space, permitsof provision for be-
tween fourand five thousand pairsof birds. One
is inclined to wonder why this methodof obtain-
ing much additional accommodation was not
oftenerused. Theonly possible objection which
occurs is that of overcrowding and diminution
of air-space, a point on which the medieval
builder was not over strict. What is clear is that
the plan was seldom followed, this being the

only instance so far brought to notice.
12

HARLESTON, NORTHANTS

Face ~ 112.

HUNTINGDON

The county of Huntingdon must be passed
over with the notice of a solitary but very fine
example—that of the beautiful dovecote stand-
ing in a small paddock at Grove House, Fen-
stanton, near St. Ives. It is believed to have
been built about a centuryago, its form and de-
tails being copied from one seen in Italy.

It is remarkable for its height; the dome,
supported on six slender pillars, being fifty-two
feet fromthe ground; the weather-vane—acock
—adds four feet more. Itis a brick building, cir-
cular, with a circumference of some sixty feet.
There is a handsome string-course, with some
ornamental work beneath the eaves. It has four
stories, and provides accommodation for about
one thousand pairs of birds. The present occu-
pants are chiefly owls and daws, who, under the
genial sway of a bird-loving owner, hold their
lofty fortress in unchallenged peace.

Atthispoint, having nowexploredsomeparts
of the Welsh Border and the Midlands, it may
be not uninteresting to record some instances,
scattered over variousdistricts,inwhich pigeons
were at one time suffered, even encouraged, to

inhabit quarters wholly unconnected with them
I 113

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

in the modern reader’s mind. We have already
seen them dwell securely in the tower of a
church in Worcestershire; even more striking
cases may be found elsewhere.

DOVECOTE INTERIOR, SHOWING POTENCE

CHAPTER EIGHT
PIGEONS OF THE
CHURCH

CHAPTER EIGHT
PIGEONS OF THE
CHURCH

In that western corner of Gloucestershire which
lies between the converging streams of Severn
and Wye, and was formerly included in the now
shrunken limits of the Forest of Dean, there
stands, overlooking the larger of the two riv-
ers, the church of Tidenham, its massive tower
a bold landmark visible from far down-stream.
The story is told that the Gloucester harbour
commissioners once approached the vicar and
churchwardens with the following naive pro-
posal. The tower, they said, was a good guide
to mariners upon their way to port; but its
utility in this respect would be enormously
increased by a-periodical coat of whitewash.
Might they apply such dressing, and continue
so to do from time to time?

The guardians of the church no doubt re-
ceived the suggestion with something of the
indignation shown by the High Church vicar
who, in the pages of Punch, interrupts a pair
of tourists who have lost their way and are en-
deavouring to locate their whereabouts by the

117

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

orientation of the chancel; he tells them that
they will discover ‘‘an unconsecrated weather-
cock upon the barn close by.” Yet the applic-
ation of a church to secular as well as sacred
uses was, in old times, very far from being un-
known. The tower was frequently used as a
watch-station and asa point of vantage whence
there might be shown a beacon light. Men
slept in churches, feasted in them, even some-
times fought; St. Paul’s Cathedral wasat oncea
market-placeand public thoroughfare. It need,
then, cause no very great surprise to find some
portion of a church devoted to the purpose of
a pigeon-house.

There is a very interesting Herefordshire
instance of this having been the case. Some
ten miles west of Hereford, and a short dis-
tance from the former market town of Weo-
bley, is the small village of Sarnesfield. The
place consists of little but the Court and church,
the churchyard opening from the garden of the
mansion-house.

The churchyard has more interests than the
one with which we are immediately concerned.
Close to the timber porch before the church’s
118

CHURCH PIGEONS

entrance-door there is a simple, flat-topped
tomb, the legend carved upon it being barely
legible to-day, but recorded as follows:
This craggy stone a covering is for an Architector’s bed,
That lofty buildings raised high, yet now lyes low his head;
His rule and line, so death concludes, are now locked up
in store;
Build they who list, or they who wist, for he can build no
more,
His house of clay could hold no longer,
May Heaven’s joy frame him a stronger.
Joun ABEL,
Vive ut vivas in vitam aeternam.

The inscription is stated to have been com-
posed by the man who lies below; of his own
designing were the kneeling figures of himself
and of his first and second wives, together with
the compass, rule, and square, as symbols of
his craft.

Nor is this old, time-weathered tomb quite
foreign to the matter which concerns us here.
John Abel, who, a native of Herefordshire, was
born in 1597and survived till 1694, was famous
in his day and generation as an architect. He
was “King’s Carpenter”; and, more to our pur-
pose, was the designer of so many of those

119

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

timber buildings of which the county is most:
justly proud. He is said to have built the old

market-hall of Hereford, now, alas! a thing of

the past; and he rendered valuable services to

the city in 1645, when it was besieged by the

Scottish army, by constructing corn-mills. Full

many a delightful cottage and farmhouse in

“black and white” was probably John Abel’s

work; nor is it unreasonable to attribute to him:
some of the half-timbered dovecotes still to

be seen in the district—notably perhaps the

charming specimen already visited at Butt

House, King’s Pyon, dated 1632, when Abel

would be in the prime of life.

But for the moment we are now concerned
with a date earlier than John Abel’s time, and
with material far more durable than that with
which he mostly worked. Our business is with
the small tower of the church itself. Its height
from ground to wall-plateis but littleoverthirty
feet, and its internal measurement is only eight’
feet square. The walls are massive, being some
three feet thick.

About twenty years ago, Mr. George Mar-

shall, the owner of Sarnesfield Court, noticed,
120

TWO PIGEONS ON A ROOF

CHURCH PIGEONS

while examining the interior surface of thetow-
er walls, a number of holes observable in their
upper portion. These he at first took to be
niches in which the joists of a former belfry
chamber had been inserted, but closer study
soon dispelled this first surmise. The openings
were all uniform in size—six inches square;
the holes entered the walls at an angle, and
they enlarged gradually until a depth of from
fifteen to eighteen inches was reached. There
are six tiers of holes in each of the four walls,
the usual number of the holes in every tier
being four, though there are sometimes five;
one or two occur also on either side of the tia
cet windows. Below each tier of holes there
is a stone alighting-ledge.
There cannot be the slightest doubt that
.these were nests for pigeons; not adapted to
such purpose as an after-thought, but planned
and executed when the tower was built. Asthe
‘tower dates from the first half of the thirteenth
century this remarkable dovecote must be giv-
en rank as perhaps the oldest in the county—
older by half a century at least than that which

stands by Garway church. That it was not the
121

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

only pigeon-housein the parish seems suggest-
ed by the name Pigeon-house Meadow in an
ancient document; but any traces of the dove-
cote there alluded to will nowbe sought in vain.

Very similar accommodation for pigeons
occurs in the church tower at Collingbourne
Ducis, Wiltshire, and it is probable that many
other instances exist to which attention has
not yet been drawn. The real purpose of such
holes as those at Sarnesfield might quite easily
elude the observer, who would regard them as
“putlock-holes,” made to receive the ends of
horizontal timbers used in scaffolding, tempor-
ary or otherwise.

In several cases a pigeon-house existed,
sometimes stillexists, in parts of a church other
than the tower. At Hellesdon, near Norwich,
there was a wooden pigeon-cote placed on the
west gable of the church. Pigeons formerly oc-
cupied thetowerat Monk’s Bretton, Yorkshire;
Birlingham, Worcestershire; and Gumfreston
in Pembrokeshire; nor do these instances en-
tirely exhaust the list. We know that pigeons
nested in the bell-tower at Ensham, Oxford-
shire, in former days; for in 1388 a man en-
122

CHURCH PIGEONS

gaged in catching some of them fell down into
the choir and was killed. During the reign of
Henry III. acertain Johnof Hertford, who “car-
ried Holy Water at Denham (Bucks), when
he wished to drive out some pigeons from a
certain lantern at the church of Denham, out-
side the same church, let fall a stone from that
lantern upon the head of Agnes, wife of Robert
de Denham, who was sitting in the church, so
that the third day she died.” Again, in1375 the
vicar of Kingston-on-Thames was judged en-
titled to all pigeons bred in the church and its
chapels.

Adjoining the west end of the now ruin-
ous church of Portpatrick, Wigtownshire, and
slightly encroaching on its western wall, there
is a curious small round tower. The walls are
over three feet thick, and the internal diameter
about nine feet. The lower portionseems much
older than the upper part, from which it is
divided by a string-course. The slated roof, a
truncated cone in shape, is topped by a small .
pigeon-cote.

In 1670 a door was placed at the top of the

_. steeple at Wilmslow church, Cheshire, in order
123

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

to “keepe forth the Piggens from Fowleinge
the church.” The door seems to have failed in
its duty, for five years later a net is bought for
the same purpose. This apparently succeeded
no better, and finally, in 1688, the drastic step
was taken of expending twopence on “shottand
powder” to exterminate the birds.

Though it seems certain that Sarnesfield
church tower wasoriginally built insuch fashion
as to include its utility as a dovecote, later ar-
rangements were in some cases made tothe
same end. At Elkstone, near Cheltenham, a
chamber over the chancel shows clear traces
of having been so adapted, the forty odd nest-
ing-places now seen being evidently a late ad-
dition. The birds flew in and out by way of an
unglazed lancet window.

A like case existedat the church of St. Peter,
Marlborough, where the dovecote, a chamber
overthechancel, hadagroined stoneroof. Here
pigeons nested until towards the middle of the
nineteenthcentury. Tothe samerecent period
extended the custom of allowing pigeons the
use of aroom above the vaulting of the church
at Overbury, Worcestershire. Four centuries
124

CHURCH PIGEONS

ago the pigeons which frequented Yarmouth
parish church had their headquarters over one
of the chapels.

Doubtless the custom would die hard, yield-
ing reluctantly before a growing reverence for
the fabric of the place. The cooing of doves
above his chancel would have sadly vexed the
spirit of a certain cleric who one day exhibit-
ed his church to a chance visitor. Quite sud-
denly his steady flow of information ceased. It
was asunny autumn morning, the church door
stood open, and a little robin had flown bold-
ly in, doubtless attracted by the decorations
for the coming Harvest Festival. It flutter-
ed happily from place to place, uttering those
autumn notes so sadly sweet; and presently it
perched upon the very altar, innocent and un-
afraid.

In utmost consternation the now agitated
vicar harried the intruder up and down and
here and there; till, seeming to understand at
length how very far from welcome was its pre-
sence, the discouraged bird departed by the
way it came. .
The churchman had perhapsnever heard the

125

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

story of the city arms of Glasgow—Robin Red-
breast on asilver shield—memorial of the deed
of healing wrought by St. Mungo on the bird’s
behalf;normightaman whochasedawaya robin
be inclined to take the legend as excuse. For
his sake it is perhaps as well that pigeons nest
no more above our English chancels, and that
the church tower harbours none but owls and
jackdaws as its uninvited but still tolerated
guests.

CHAPTER NINE
LANCASHIRE,
WESTMORLAND,
AND CUMBERLAND

CHAPTER NINE
LANCASHIRE,
WESTMORLAND,
AND CUMBERLAND

Resuminc our pilgrimage and turning to the
north, a pause must be made in Lancashire to
notice a dovecote at Meols Hall, Churchtown,
near Southport. It is of interest as being one
of those oblong buildings containing two com-
partments, aspecimenofwhich we have already
noticed in Northamptonshire, and which we
shall find common in Scotland.

Of the Meols dovecote one compartment is
in ruins, and the roof of the whole building has
fallen. The compartment still standing has
an internal measurement of fourteen feet by
twelve, and contains nearly four hundred L-
shaped nest-holes. Its age is not definitely
known; but the present mansion of Meols Hall
stands on the site of a much older house; and
the owner, whose ‘family has been settled on
the spot since 1180, tells us that a second dove-
cote formerly existed on a farm of the estate,

but was demolished towards the end of the last
K 129

‘BOOK OF DOVECOTES

century.

In Westmorland the farm of N ether Levens,
near Milnthorpe, will showtwo dovecotes, both
standing in the farmyard. The largest is about
twenty-seven feet square by twenty-five feet
high to the eaves, has aridge-roof, andis divid-
ed into an upper and lower story. The nest-
holes have been largely filled up within recent
years, and the door enlarged.

The second dovecote, also square but small-
er, has a pyramid roof, with a stone ball upon
the top. Like its neighbour, it has suffered a
good deal of alteration. Both buildings are of
stone.

Crossing from Westmorland to Cumber-
land, we arein a district of much interest to the
dovecote-hunter, andour survey ofthe county’s
specimens may well begin with the interest-
ing example standing in the grounds of the
mansion of Hutton-i’-the-Forest. Its present
position is in a plantation of trees; this, we may
be sure, was non-existent when the dovecote
was erected, for pigeons do not like a tree-sur-
rounded home—one reason being probably the
difficulty of seeing where it lies.

130

CUMBERLAND

The dovecote is an octagonal building of
dressed ashlar, similar to that of the mansion
itself, which was built from designs by Inigo
Jones at intervals during the last forty years of
the seventeenth century. The dovecote had
been long neglected, till, some fifty years ago,
attention was called to its interest by a guest
staying in the house, when it was put into re-
pair.

The potence, though without the ladder, still
remains, together with about four hundred and
fifty nest-holes. These are L-shaped, nine in-
ches high, five inches broad at the entrance,
and penetrating nine inches into the wall, the
right-angled recess adding another ten inches.
The lowest of the twelve tiers in which they
are arranged isfour feet from the floor, and im-
mediately before it is a ledge six inches broad.
This was evidently intended as a safeguard
against rats, as the remaining ledges—one to
every tier of nests—are only half the breadth.
The octagonal roof is surmounted by a small
lantern or “glover.”

Wreay Hall has, on one of its farms, a dove-
- cote, likewise octagonal, of dressed ashlar, and
131

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

rather similar to the Hutton example. Four-
teen tiers, the lowest two feet from the ground,
contain about fivehundrednests. Thepotence,
or a remnant of it, is in place, and presents an
. unusual featurein being surrounded bya ledge
or shelf. The purpose of this, if purpose there
were other than to provide a finish or orna-
ment, is hardly clear.

A third octagonal dovecote will be found at
High Head Castle, near Carlisle. It is of very
modest size, the external measurement of each
wall being only seven feet four inches. The
lowest tier of nests, three feetabovethe ground,
is, as at Hutton, provided with a six-inch ledge
in front, in this case formed of very massive
stone. The building seems to be of early
eighteenth-century date.

At Bunker’s Hillis a very large circulardove-
cote, built of rubble stone, and visible from far.
The fieldin which it stands is known as Pigeon
Cote Field. Thenests, numbering between five
and six hundred, are L-shaped, built of brick,
and arranged in fourteen tiers. The lowest
tier is at the unusual height of more than seven
feet above the floor; but the lower part of the
E33

CUMBERLAND

building has been long used asa cattle shed,
and it is very possible that formerly existing
lower tiers have been removed. The dovecote
is of considerable height, and sixteen feet in in-
ternal diameter; there is an open cupola upon
the roof.

At Rose Castle, the episcopal palace of the
diocese, we find a square dovecote. A stone
above the doorway bears the date 1700, at
which time Bishop Smith, a well-known bene-
factor to the diocese, was holder of the see;
but a survey taken in the days of the Common-
wealth speaks of a dovecote of “hewn stone,”
and it is probable that the Bishop merely exe-
cuted some repairs. The building is eighteen
feet nine inches square, and twenty feet high
to a heavycornice which entirely surrounds the
house. The L-shaped nests, numbering about
eight hundred and arranged in fifteen tiers,
commence nine inches from the ground and
are provided with alighting-ledges.

A dovecote presenting features of special
interest stands at the hamlet of Parsonby
Green, in the parish of Plumbland. Itisnearly,
although not quite square. The lower portion

133

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

was converted to the purpose of a coach-house
several years ago, anda large modern doorway
has been made in the north wall. The original
entrance, now built up, is on the south, and
very small—four feet three inches high, and
less than two feet wide. A single stone forms
the sill, another the lintel, and both these and
the jambs are broadly chamfered. The roof has
been renewed.

Apart fromtheold doorway thechief interest
lies within. The nests, once numbering about
six hundred, are plain oblong recesses, but of
unusually massiveconstruction. Theyarebuilt
of stones six inches thick by fourteen inches
square, A tier of these was laid with intervals
of sixinches betweenthem, andthe rows above
added in the same way, the stones of one tier
covering the intervals in that below. Each
nest was thus six inches broad, six inches high,
and fourteen inches deep. Nearly eight hun-
dred of these massive slabs of stone, all cut to
the same size, were used; and the labour and
cost involved, even in times when the hand of
toil might be secured for a few daily pence,
must have been very considerable. The nests
134

CUMBERLAND

are now perfect onlyon the east and west sides
of the house. The lowest tier is practically
level with the ground. The tiers have no a-
lighting-ledges, save that the east and west
sides have, some four feet from the floor, a
three-inch ledge.
_ Another square dovecote of interest occurs
at Crookdale Hall, Bromfield. The shape is
very nearly square, with sidesof abouteighteen
feet,and a height of sixteen feet. Theentrance
for the occupants was provided by two oval
apertures, placed half-way between the eaves
and a broad string-course; one faces north, the
other to the east. The east and west ends,
which are gabled, have as ornament a ball of
stone, and on each angle of the building is an
urn-shaped finial. The original roofing material
has perished, and is replaced by red tiles. The
nest-holes, oblong recesses, are of unusually
large dimensions—fifteen inches deep, nine
inches broad, ten inches high. Theyare vertic-
allyaboveeachother, have no alighting-ledges,
and are built of massive flags of stone. The
dovecote is of rubble, with dressed quoins.
This dovecote dates from the end of the
135

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

seventeenth century, an inscription above the
door running as follows:

Sr. I. B. (small heart) A. B. 1686.
The same heart is to be seen on an oak pew
in Bromfield church. The initials are those of
Sir John Ballantyne and his wife Anne, a
daughter of the Musgrave family.

This dovecote has been muchaltered, a new
window having been made in the south wall,
and a fireplace and chimney inserted on the
east. These conveniences were introduced at
some date prior to the early nineteenth cent-
ury, at which time the dovecote was in use as
a school-house. And at this school George
Moore, draper, fox-hunter, and philanthropist,
whose life was made the subject of a volume
by the worthy Samuel Smiles, received a por-
tion of his scanty education.

Moore had been first sent toschool at Bolton
Gate, where his master was one ‘Blackbird
Wilson,” apersonof drunken habits and drastic
educational methods, but blessed with a mel-
odious whistle which had earned for him his
common name. Moore’s father, a Cumberland
dalesman, paid six shillings and sixpence a
136

CUMBERLAND

quarter for the boy’s share of this pedagogue’s
instructions, but later transferred him to the
care of one Pedlar Thommy, whohadexchang-
ed the calling ofa wandering merchant for that
of schoolmaster, and had established his head-
quarters in the Crookdale pigeon-house.

Ina field behind the vicarage at Aspatria
is a quadrangular dovecote about twelve feet
square, built of rubble, and roughcast. As in
the Crookdale specimen, a ledge’surrounds the
outside of the walls at six feet from the ground.
The door has been enlarged; the nest-holes,
formed of blocks of stone, and vertically over
one another, are eight inches square by one
foot deep. They begin at the ground level and
have no alighting-ledges.

Unhappily this dovecote is at present in a
grievous case. It is now quickly falling into
ruin; and, owing to an uncertainty as to the
shouldersupon whichshould fall theduty—and
the cost—of its repair, there seems at present
every prospect of its beingsoon numbered with
the many dovecotes which have “disappear-
ed,” It is particularly unsuitable that Cumber-
land, a county where the dovecotes have been

137

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

so carefully chronicled, should now risk losing
such a good example.

Yet another fine stone dovecote stands at
Great Blencowe Farm, near Penrith. Internally
it measures about ten feet square. The height
to the eavesiseighteen feet, and the roof, form-
ing a four-sided prism, is topped by a stone
ball, from which projects an iron spike. The
building is two-storied, the upper chamber hav-
ing a semicircular entrance for the birds. In
the room below an ovoid aperture is placed on
either side of the doorway. Above thedoor the
initials W. T., with the date 1789, are sunk in
the stone, the lettersevidently standing forone
William Troutbeck, formerly a dweller at the
farm.

The wooden floor of the upper chamber is
comparatively modern, but replaces oneof older
date. The nest-holes are built of perpendicular
tiers ofbricks, their floors being sandstoneslabs.
In the lower room recesses of a different shape
were clearly designed to meet the needs of
poultry of various sizes; an upper tier being
about three feet from the ground, while that

below has nests large enough for geese and
138

CUMBERLAND

turkeys,

At Corby Castle—that Corby whose atoning
charms David Hume recorded inthe following
verse, scratched on the window of a Carlisle
inn:

Here chicks in eggs for breakfast sprawl,
Here godless boys God’s glories squall,
Here Scotchmen’s heads do guard the wall,
But Corby’s walks atone for all.

—at Corby, onaslopeabove thecastle, isadove-
cote which, although the lover of these build-
ings may regard it with some satisfaction as a
curiosity, is not one such as he would care to
meet too often in his pilgrimage. It isa highly
ornate structure in the form ofa Doric temple,
a little over twenty feet square, and having its _
front elevation adorned bya porch—which leads
tonothing, the entrance being atthe back. The
desire forappearances hasovercome theregard
for utility in another detail; for, about ten feet
above the ground, a ledge runs round three
sides, presumably intendedas a perching-place
and lounge for the birds—a use to which they
were effectually prevented from putting it by
its being steeply chamfered to a slope.

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BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Inside, it being no longer needful to adhere
to classical design, things are more sensibly ar-
ranged. The nests, L-shaped, are placed upon
each wallin fourteen tiers, fourteenineverytier.
Each tier is furnished with its own alighting-
ledge,

Finally, though the dovecoteis rectangular,
there is a potence, and a somewhat elaborate
one. The upright beam, twenty feet high,
carries three cross-arms, each seventeen feet
long and projecting upon either side. On these
are borne two ladders, as was frequently the
case in France; while the middle arm of the
three also supports a horizontal platform about
six feet square. Something of the same ar-
rangement is occasionally seen in other dove-
cotes, but its purpose is not very obvious,

The Corby Castledovecote is a late example,
dating from about a century ago; it was doubt-
less built in 1813, when the mansion was re-
stored in Grecian Doric style. It is almost
equally certain that the present dovecote is at
least the second that has stood at Corby; and
very probable that itsforerunner was eithercir-
cular or octagonal, in which case it is easy to
140

CUMBERLAND

understand that the potence would be deemed
a necessary feature of the new building.

Ofa dovecote which formerly existed at Na-
worth Castle, only the spot on which it stood is
known. Thatat Penrith was pulled down thirty
years ago to yield to a new road. At Crofton
one formerly stood in front of the house, grew
to be looked on as disfiguring the landscape,
and was ruthlessly destroyed. Near Cocker-
mouth a field is still called Dove Cote Close,
and a like name describes a piece of ground
near Bootle Rectory.

CHAPTER TEN
YORKSHIRE

CHAPTER TEN
YORKSHIRE

On entering Yorkshire it is natural for our
thoughts to turn to Waterton, that eminent
naturalist who wrote with equal charm and
vigouronsomany subjects—vultures, miracles,
and Hanoverian rats! We think of him to-day
with mingled feelings; for, although he built a
dovecote, which is so much to his credit, he
pulled down an old one, and who knows what
treasure of antiquity he thus destroyed?

That of his own erection occupies the centre
of the stable-yard at his old home of Walton
Hall; a tallsquare structure built of stone, with
a hipped roof, two dormer windows, and a cu-
pola. The number of the L-shaped nest-holes
is three hundred and sixty-five; was this in-
tentional? There is asocket-hole in the floor,
which seems to show that he considered a pot-
ence of some use in a square house.

Waterton thoroughly understood the busi-
nessofpigeon-rearing. Itmay be noted inpass-
ing that he derives the term “glover,” some-
times applied to the lantern or cupola, from the
Frenchowvert,andisvery probably correct. He

L 145

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

contradicts the theory of a living Yorkshire-
man, who attributes the falling-off in the num-
ber of birds frequenting his dovecote to the
presence of an owl; quite to the contrary, says
Waterton, the owl is there, not for the birds,
but for the rats, and is regarded by the right-
ful inmates as a welcome friend. This view,
which we sincerely hope may be correct, was
greatly valued by that lover of the owl and
raven, Bosworth Smith, with whom the reader
will come into closer touch before this volume
ends.

Before dealing with Yorkshire dovecotes
generally, allusion may be made to one or two
special features of our subject to be found in
that extensive county. No visitor to Darring-
ton, a village in the neighbourhood of Ponte-
fract, which has been described and chronicled
by that staunch Yorkshireman, Mr. J. S. Flet-
cher in his fascinating volume, AZemorials of
a Yorkshire Parish, should leave it without a
glance at the old Vicar’s Dovecote, one of two
thevillage owns. It is, indeed, no longer either
applied to its original purpose, nor in its origi-
nal form, having been converted into vestries
146

YORKSHIRE

and a caretaker’s dwelling. Nests formerly ex-
isted in the upper portion, and a potence was
in use. It is a building of large size, and must
once have furnished the vicar of Darrington
with a food-supply of no small value.

In certain parts of Yorkshire, as in the
neighbourhood of Halifax, pigeon-houses pro-
per are less common than what are locally call-
ed “pigeon-hoils,” usually found forming an
upper story to hen- or pig-“hoils”—the word
being a north of England term for a hole or
shelter. A similar arrangement is frequently
found in the gables of barns, and, more curi-
ously, in the gables, and especiallythe porches,
of many houses of the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries.

An example of this occurs at Little Burlees,
Wadsworth; another at Kirk Cliff, Soyland, a
house dated 1630, where three entrance-holes
appear above the low projecting porch; while
Eastwood Lee, Stansfield, and Upper Cock-
roft, Rishworth, exhibit a like provision. The
pigeon-holes lead in each case to a low but
fairly spacious room, entrance to which is pro-
vided inside the dwelling by a trap-door in the

147

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

chamber floor.

Turning now to dovecotes in the stricter
application of the term, where can one come
upon a dovecote more agreeably situated than
within the bounds of an old garden? Such a
pleasantly placed example offers for inspection
in the garden of Fulford Hall,near York. The
manor is a very old one, and the present owner
is nodoubt correctin his surmise that the dove-
cote now standing, built towards the middle of
the eighteenth century, is the successor of an
older one.

It is a square substantial structure of red
brick, well weathered by a century and half of
sun and storm. The length of wall is about
twenty feet, the height eighteen. Upon the
old red roof is placed a cupola.

Inside are about seven hundred and fifty L-
shaped nests, still to some extent occupied by
pigeons. They are arranged upon each wall in
fourteen tiers, from twelve to fourteen nests
in every tier. Alighting-ledges are provided;
but, though these project sufficiently to serve
as hand- and foot-holds to aperson climbing to

explore the nests, a potence was formerly pre-
148

YORKSHIRE

sent, a portion of theupright beam stillremain-
ing. In the centre is a small stone slab or table,
raised two feet above the ground. This may
have been provided as a place on which to de-
posit a basket of young birds, although it
seems rather inthenature of a needlessluxury.
Another dovecote in a Yorkshire garden
will be found at Rogerthorpe Manor, near
Pontefract. It has been modernised to some
extent, the nest-holes having been removed,
and a floor inserted, dividing the building into
an upper fruit-store and a potting-shed. But
happily the roof of old stone slabs remains in
place, its beauty little lessened by the changes
carried out below. The dovecote is an oblong
one, some twenty feet in height, and twenty-
three feet long by thirteen feetsix inches broad.
Few Yorkshiredovecotes enjoya finer situa-
tion than the one we shall find at Barforth Old
Hall, close tothe Durham border of thecounty.
It stands on the hill-slope, looks down on Bar-
forth Hall, the park, the rippling Tees, and the
picturesque village of Gainford in the back-
ground; a worthy picture set in an ideal frame.
It isya circular building of stone, thirty feet
149

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

high to the eaves, and about forty-five in in-
ternal circumference. The vaulted roof has a
small round central opening. There are two
string-courses upon the outer surface of the
walls, which are over three feet thick. Inside
are some three hundred oblong nest-holes, now
untenanted. This dovecote is a very early ex-
ample, dating probably from the time when the
abbey of St. Mary stood upon the ground now
occupied by a large farm.

Gainford, had we but time to cross the Tees
and enter Durham, would display not a few
dovecotes in the neighbourhood; but we must
ignore them here, and pass to Snape Castle,
near Bedale, where, in the stackyard, stands
a stone-built dovecote twenty-six feet square
and twenty-two feet high, with wallssomethree
feet thick. The roof of grey slates is broken
by a single dormer window, and surmounted
by a lantern. The door is two feet six inches
wide. Inside are fifteen hundred nest-holes,
furnished with alighting-ledges, and to some
extent still occupied.

The age of this building is probably very
considerable, the date 1414, cut with a joiner’s
150

YORKSHIRE

chisel, having. been discovered on the wood-
work of the roof a few years back.

Thereis aridge-roofed dovecoteat Leathley
Manor, a fewmiles from Otley. The middle of
the ridge was formerly crowned by a very ele-
gant little ball-topped stone cap, raised on
pillars; but recently the effect has been some-
what marred by the removal of the pillars and
the lowering of the cap.

Near Wakefield are three dovecotes, two of
which are of special interest as standing close
to eachother. The third,at Huntwick Grange,
is about twenty feetsquare, and nearly eighteen
feet high to the eaves. Pigeons—wild “rocks”

' —frequented it until some years ago, but have
forsaken it of late.

The two others stand, one at Sharleston
Hall Farm, a house which dates from 1574,
and the second little more than one hundred
yards away, although on land belonging to an-
other farm. The walls of both are fully three
feet thick, andinside each are nests which have
alighting-ledges furnished to each tier. Both
stand in open fields and both are frequented
by wild pigeons.

151

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Remembering the part played by pigeons
in bringing about the French Revolution; re-
membering, too, the modern pigeon-shooting
“days,” arranged, as we are told, to rid the
country of a farmers’ pest, it may surprise us
to observe howoften pigeonsare still tolerated,
perhaps encouraged, in their former dwell-
ings, even when the dovecote is upon a farm.
Pigeons, we see, are kept at Fulford Hall and
at Snape Castle; while at Sharleston and the
neighbouring farm the dovecotes shelter some
two hundred birds. Is, then, the pigeon sucha
foe to farming as has been believed?

In answer to a question on this point a
Yorkshire farmer writes as follows—and the
agriculturists of Yorkshire are not usually re-
garded as being either fools or failures:

“The ravages on crops by pigeons, crows,
etc., are no doubt very serious at times. On
more than one occasion I have had large pieces
of wheat practicallyruined by crows. At times
in midwinter I have shot a few pigeons, and
their cropsare always gorged by what are prob-
ably weed seeds. In my opinion the harm

done for short periods in the year is more than
152

PIGEON-HOIL OVER PORCH (LITTLE BURLEES), YORKSHIRE

lace p. 152.

YORKSHIRE

made up for during the longer period when
they are doing good in many ways. A good old
motto is ‘Live and Let Live.’”

No doubt all pigeons feed to a large extent
on grain, but the diet of some kinds at least
comprises the seeds of many weeds. No one
would suggest a return to the six-and-twenty
thousand well-stocked dovecotes of four cent-
uries ago; but there is no saying what revenge
the whirligig of time may not bring round. A
day may come when dovecotes falling into ruin
will be repaired, when architectural journals
will give plans and elevations of “desirable”
dovecotes, and the village carpenter add pot-
ence-making to the numerous branches of his
trade.

At Marske-by-the-Sea, on the estate of the
Marquis of Zetland, is aninteresting octagonal
brick dovecote, with a slated roof of the same
shape; in one side of the roof is a small dormer
window with nine entrance-holes, arranged in
rows of three. It is a large building, each wall
measuring eleven feet, while to the eaves the
height is twenty-four feet. There is a string-
course half-way up the walls.

153

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Inside, about one thousand nests are ar-
ranged in twenty-two tiers, the lowest row
being four feet six inches from the floor. From
a pillar three feet high, placed in the centre,
rises the beam of the potence, which still re-
tains its ladder. The walls are nearly three
feet thick; and, as in certain dovecotes we
shall later see—though not to such a marked
extent as in some cases—the surface of the
floor is well below the level of the ground out-
side.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
ESSEX AND SUFFOLK

CHAPTER ELEVEN
ESSEX AND SUFFOLK

Tuelate Mr. Harry Quilter, ina rather “quaint
and curious” volume which he styled What's
What, has left on record his disapprobation of
the county of Essex, which he describes as an
“undesirable locality” in which to buy or rent
a country house. His objections seem to have
been founded chiefly on an inconvenient rail-
way service from London, and the presence of
a clay soil when the difficulties of transit have
been overcome; with, among other unattrac-
tive features, a scanty population, out-at-el-
bows as regards the upper classes, dull and
suspicious in the lower strata of society.

These animadversions strike us as what Mr.
Perker would have called “harsh words.” The
county is less unattractive than the tints on Mr.
Quilter’s palette would incline one to believe.
Objections to it there may be; it is sufficient
to the present purpose that Essex yields usa
good store of dovecotes.

One of the most interesting is certainly that
which stands near the stables at Dynes Hall, a
house near Great Maplestead. It is of timber

157

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

framing, witha lath and plaster filling-in; eight-
een feet square, and twenty feet high to the
eaves. The tiled roof is a truncated pyramid,
crowned by a wooden cupola of somewhat un-
usual form; it has four windows of a pleasing
shape, each set in its own gable. This is prob-
ably an addition of later date than the dove-
cote itself, which, from an allusion to it in an
old document, appears to have existed in 1575.
The chief attraction is within. On the side
facing the door are one hundred and eighty-
four nest-holes. Of these, those in the upper
tiers, numbering about one hundred, are of
wood; the eighty-four below are made of clay,
and are for the most part in very good condi-
tion. Internal measurements give a cube of a-
bout one foot, and each is entered by a round-
ed hole in one corner. Thirty-seven similar
nestsstillsurvive inthe left-hand wall, and there
appear to have been more.
Thereisnopotence, butits place istaken bya
wooden table, five feet highand four feet square.
There are also four high posts, each connected
to its neighbours by two rails, and furnished

with projecting wooden pegs. The rails and
158

ESSEX AND SUFFOLK

pegs were doubtless perching-places, though
the arrangement is unusual; and it is possible
that the table was formerly the scene of such
operationsas killing, plucking, and general pre-
paration of birds forthe table—or perhaps more
probably of packing them for market.

A somewhat similar platform, which the
owner of the dovecote thinks was perhaps in-
tended as a means by which to reach the upper
nests, occurs at Chelmshoe House, Castle Hed-
ingham. The dovecote is a square brick build-
ing standing in an orchard. It is no longer oc-
cupied, and nests, to thenumberof two hundred
and fifty, remain on one wall only.

Another example is to be seen in the yard
of a house in the main street of Newport. This
is a square brick structure, with tiled roof. The
L-shaped nest-holes still remain, but other-
wise there is no very striking point of interest
save that which makes it worthy of brief men-
tion here—the occurrence ofa dovecote of con-
siderable size in the centre of a town.

At Great Bardfield, near Braintree, ina field
called Dovecote Meadow, is another dovecote
of that timber framing and lath and plaster

£59

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

filling-in, of which Essex offers several speci-
mens. It forms a cube of about eighteen feet
each way, with a tiled roof and a small cupola.
Inside are overseven hundred L-shaped nests,
with potence and ladder. The house—Great
Bardfield Hall—to which the field and dove-
cote now belong, has a long history, culminat-
ing in its ownership by the trustees of Guy’s
Hospital. The dovecote is most likely of Eliza-
bethan date.

The Deanery at Bocking, also near Brain-
tree, has a dovecote of which the lower story
seems to have been long in use as a coach-
house. Now standing in a garden, it at one time
formed part of other farmyard buildings. It is
of unusually large size, being a cube of thirty
feet; is built of brick and timber, and may with
safety be attributed to Tudor days. The roof
is tiled, withasmalldormer entrance at the top.
The inside of the walls is lined with clay, in
which the L-shaped nests are formed.

Inthe farmyard at Wendon Lofts Hall, near
Saffron Walden, is an octagonal brick dove-
cote of large size, the total height being nearly

forty feet,andthediameter morethantwenty. It
160

ESSEX AND SUFFOLK

contains nearly eight hundred L-shaped nests,
with potence and ladder complete. .

Another typical Essex example in timber
and lath and plaster is found in the garden of
a house called The Moat, Gestingthorpe. It
is nearly square, about sixteen by fifteen feet;
contains neither nest-holes nor pigeons; and is
probably of rather later date than thefifteenth-
century house to which it belongs.

At Tiptofts, Saffron Walden, a farm which,
just three centuries and a half ago, was pre-
sented by Lord Mordaunt to Brazenose Col-
lege, Oxford, in support of scholarships, there
is a brick dovecote fourteen feet square. The
roof is of a curious form, its slope being brok-
en at one end by a gable. Many of the nests
have disappeared, but those remaining are L-
’ shaped.

At Little Braxted Hall, near Witham, is a
square wooden dovecote, largely constructed
of oak and placed on a brick foundation. The
tiles on the roof are of a very old type, but it
is hardly safe to dogmatise upon the question
of its age.

Other Essex examples include the one at
M 161

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Farnham Rectory, near Bishops Stortford, built
chiefly of wood, and of sufficient antiquity to
have bestowed the name of Dovecote Pond
upon a neighbouring piece of water.

Suffolk must be passed over with the bare
mention of the so-called ‘“dovecote,” the re-
mains of which will be seen among the abbey
ruins at Bury St. Edmunds. It would be an
interesting example had we any proof that it
was ever applied to the purpose suggested by
its common local name; for it is of that un-
usual shape, a hexagon. But no such evidence
exists. About twenty feet of the tower remain,
the length of each wall of the hexagon being
nine feet six inches. The walls are two feet
six inches thick;at a height of about ten feet are
the remains of a perpendicular window. Of any
sign that it was formerly a dovecote there is
none,

CHAPTER TWELVE
DOVECOTES NEAR
LONDON

CHAPTER TWELVE
DOVECOTES NEAR
LONDON

Soup the Londoner feel himself aggrieved
at thecomparatively small number of dovecotes
mentioned as being easilyaccessible fromtown,
he is offered as consolation the following assur-
ance—that one of the very finest examples to
be seen in England stands awaiting him within
a railwayrun of half an hour. In describing one
or twodovecotes to be seen in Berkshire, Hert-
fordshire, and Kent, right of priority is justly
due to the splendid old building standing at
Ladye Place, a house in the parish of Hurley,
near Marlow.

Its situation well becomes it, Hurley being
a placeof great antiquity. When the ninthcent-
ury was on the point of ending it was traversed
by the Danes upon their way from Essex into
Gloucestershire. Its manor, once possessed by
Edward the Confessor’s master of the horse,
was later bestowed on a De Mandeville as a
reward for distinguished conduct at the Battle
of Hastings; and in 1086 De Mandeville and

his wife founded the priory of St. Mary as a
165

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

cell to the great Benedictine house at West-
minster. Never a large house, Hurley, at the
moment of the Dissolution, had but eight
monks, in addition to its prior.

The Lovelace family, connections of the poet
and cavalier, then came into its ownership, and
were succeeded by the sister of a bishop, who
purchased it with the proceeds of a prize gain-
ed in a lottery. Still later came the brother of
that Kempenfeldt who perished in the Royal
George, and who himself had helped to plant
a laurel alley at the place. Finally, early in the
present century, Ladye Place came into the
hands of the present owner, who built the house
now seen, and to whose interesting pamphlet
concerning it, as also to his kindly help in other
ways, this account is largely indebted.

Everything at Ladye Place is of interest;
thevery charming houseitself,thesubterranean
chamber, the old fish-ponds, and the stately
cedars on the lawns. But we must turn our
back on all except the dovecote, standing in its
field beside a splendid tithe-barn and another
building scarcely less in size.

It is a circular stone structure, eighty-eight
166

NEAR LONDON

feet in circumference, and twenty-three feet
high to the eaves. The walls, three feet eight
inches thick, are buttressed in four places. The
four buttresses are on the north, south, east,
and west respectively, and are carried up the
full height of the walls.

The door, five feet in height by two feet six
inches broad, has jambs and lintel of a later
period than the walls; indeed upon the lintel is
the date 1642,with C. R.—standing, almost cer-
tainly, for Carolus Rex. Immediatelyabove the
doorway is a blocked-up pointed arch. The roof
iscone-shaped, with a small square cupola upon
the top.

Inside we find six hundred L-shaped nests
of chalk, arranged in fifteen tiers; the eighth
row is the only one with an alighting-ledge,
though there are other ledges quite irregularly
placed. A potence is still in position.

The date usually assigned to this most in-
teresting building is 1307, though the grounds
for such precision are not clear. But there is
little doubt that it is hardly, if at all inferior in
antiquity to the Herefordshire example at Gar-
way, or to the lost treasure at Bosbury. A vault-

167

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

ed roof, as seen at Garway and elsewhere, may
quite well have existed formerly and been re-
placed by that now seen. The dovecote-lover
may congratulate himself, not only on the Hur-
ley dovecote, but upon the knowledge that it is
in careful hands.

Standing onthelawn at Place Manor, Streat-
ley, is a fine circular stone dovecote nearly
eighty feetin circumference. The roof, of tiles,
is topped by a square cupola, and has a single
dormer window. The walls are three feet eight
inches thick, and the arched doorway five feet
high by rather more than two feet wide. The
oaken door appears to be original. Insidethere
is a potence, also three hundred and fifty nest-
holes.

Turning now to Hertfordshire, we find an
octagonal brick dovecote of unusual size at
Walkern Manor Farm, near Stevenage. The
height to eaves is twenty feet, whileeach of the
eight faces is twelve feet in length. The walls,
however, are but fourteen inches thick. The
tiled roof is crowned by a small open cupola of
rather elegant form, which coversacentralopen-
ing. More than five hundred plain oblong nest-
168

oo

LADYE PLACE, HURLEY, BERKS

Face p. 168.

NEAR LONDON

holes are contained in the upper story of the
building, the lower chamber being a granary.

At Cottered, in the same county, is a square
brick dovecote standing in an orchard, with
tiled roof, its dormer windows now filled in. It
is debased into a store for apples, and few de-
tails are tobe obtained. Another Hertfordshire
dovecote will be found at the Hall Farm, Little
Wymondley—a brick building, with a half-
hipped gabled roof; while a fourth, a small sev-
enteenth-century structure of brick and tim-
ber, is at Norcott Court, near Northchurch.

On the other side of London a particularly
charming dovecote, not only delightful in itself,
but attractive from its situation and associa-
tions, offers itself for notice at the house known
as East Court, Detling, near Maidstone. East
Court is built upon the site of an old pilgrims’
“rest-house,” demolished about eighty years
ago. The pilgrims’ way to Canterbury from
Southampton passedclose by the charming old
walled garden, and it is upon this long deserted
path the dovecote now looks down.

It never looked upon the pilgrims who went

by, weary yet eager for the shrine they sought,
169

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

for it is hardly earlier in date than Jacobean
times; a square brick building, roofed with old
flat tiles. The pyramidal roof isbroken by three
dormer windows, and a zinc-toppedcupola sur- —
mounts the whole. Thedovecote’s formis near-
ly cubical; the walls eleven feet high, eleven
feet four inches square. Inside there are about
two hundred L-shaped nests. The tiers com-
mence four feet above the earthen floor, which
is upon a lower level than the ground outside.

Another pleasant Kentish dovecote is found
at East Farleigh, also near the county town.
It is circular, built of stone rubble, with tiled
roof. The walls, twenty-six feet high to the
eaves, are four feet thick at the ground level,
gradually diminishing to three feet at the top—
a plan not very common. The diameter is four-
teen feet. The building has astring-course half-
way up.

The deep-eaved roof contains four dormer
windows, and is crowned by a square cupola.
The weather-vane this carries is pierced with
“J,.A.1674,” but the building itselfis certainly
of greater age. Inside there are eight tiers of
L-shaped nest-holes, twenty-nine nests toatier.
170

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SUSSEX, HAMPSHIRE,
AND WILTSHIRE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SUSSEX, HAMPSHIRE,
AND WILTSHIRE

Tue vanished Herefordshire dovecote of Bos-
bury had, as was pointed out, strong claims
for its inclusion in the record given here. But
it was not unique, others of its kind remaining.
This, unhappily, is not the case with one about
to be described, and the vandalism which per-
mitted the destruction of a building absolute-
ly uniqueshould not go unrecorded and uncen-
sured,

Towards the'close of theeighteenthcentury
the dovecote which then stood among the ruins
of Lewes Priory, Sussex, was deliberately
“pulled down for the sake of the materials.”

This extraordinary building, almost certain-
ly unmatched in England, was of cruciform
shape and unusual size. The longer arm, which
pointed north and south, was eighty-one feet
three inches long, the cross-arm being a foot
shorter. Slightly different dimensions have
been given, but those set down here are froma
careful measurement of the foundations, made
in 1895. Further, the eastern arm of the cross

173

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

was placed slightly more towards the north
than the western one.

This enormous dovecote is variously stated
to have contained from two to four, or even
five thousand nest-holes, as to the shape of
which there is no information to be had. Over
each of the four gables the roof projected in a
curious and picturesque manner, giving ample
shelter to the perching birds. That such a
building shouldhave been deliberately destroy-
ed is a lasting disgrace to Sussex in particular,
and to British antiquarianism in general.

Since the disappearance of the Lewes speci-
men the county has perhaps good reason to
consider the example standing at a farm at
Berwick, not far distant, as among the best
which it can boast. Itis amassively built square
structure, withangle buttresses, and has suffer-
ed to some extent from alterations, besides be-
inga good deal obscured by surrounding build-
ings. Failing particulars of its former internal
arrangements, we are consoled by information
as to its utility three centuries ago. This is
revealed in Remembrances for the Parsons of
Berwick, written by Prebendary John Nutt
174

SUSSEX

who commenced these notes about his parish
in 1619, and died thirty-four years later. In
1622 he writes:

“The Piggeon house has paied mee tithes
and doth this yeere by Nicholas Dobson now
farmer thereof; it is rented at £5. a yeere but
I take them in kinde and stand to the truthe
and conscience of the farmer in the paying of
them.”

If Prebendary Nutt consumed five pounds’
worth of pigeons annually, they must, con-
sidering the comparative value of money in
those days, have been but rarely absent from
his table. Still, there are far worse things than
pigeon-pie.

Not far distant from Berwick, in a field at
Charleston Farm, is another good dovecote;
circular in shape, and built of flints, with a
height of fourteen feet, an internal diameter of
eighteen, and a tiled roof curiously finished at
its apex. The walls are very thick and the door
rather small. The potence is in place, as also
about three hundred and fifty nests. These,
thoughin several instancesrepaired with bricks
and tiles, are of chalk slabs and blocks.

175

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

In the middle of a field at Treyford Manor
Farm is a rectangular stone dovecote in good
repair, a little over twenty-five feet long, by
nearlytwenty wide. The ridged roof is of tiles.
The walls are little less than three feet thick,
while the door, nowaltered from its formersize,
wasvery narrow, with anogeearch. The height
to the eaves is about eighteen feet. More than
five hundred L-shaped nest-holes are in place.
The Manor Farm itself is dated 1621, and the
dovecote may quite well be older by at least a
century.

At Trotton, near Midhurst, a square four-
gabledseventeenth-century dovecote standsin

agarden. Thewalls, threefeetthick,aretwenty-

fivein length, thetotal height tothegable ridge
being thirty-four. The building, which is dated
1626, hasasmall Tudordoorway, witha window
similar in style.

Inside are twelve hundred L-shaped nests;
also, at a height of nine and eighteen feet re-
spectively, a six-inch ledge of stone, the under
edge of each being chamfered. A local sugges-
tion is that these were the supports for two div-
iding floors, the building having once contain-
176

glt fF 2904

‘

AHAINOO TIN

AMIHSINVH ‘ASNOH ONISVA AULTHSANOANO

HAMPSHIRE

ed three stories; but there is no trace of beams,
and it is more probable that the two ledges were
provided, partly as alighting-ledges, partly asa
safeguard against rats. In any case they are an
unusual feature and add largely to the interest
of the whole.

Few Hampshire dovecotes can hopeto rival
in interest the one specimen that can be men-
tioned here—that found at Basing House, a
place which bulks so large in history. Basing
House was, underthe care of itsowner, the Mar-
quis of Winchester, a stronghold of Royalist
faith and endurance through a portion of the
Civil War, sustaining sieges during upwardsof
twoyears, untilat length stormedanddestroyed
by Cromwell early in October 1645. The im-
portance attached to its fall may be judged by
the reward of two hundred pounds awarded to
Colonel Hammond, who carried to Londonthe
good news of the success; and a certain Mr.
Peters dilated in glowing terms to a rejoicing
Parliament upon the magnitude of both the
place and victory. The surrounding fortifica-
tions were over amile inextent; the Old House
had stood for several centuries, a “nest of Idol-

N 177

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

atry”;the New House was furnished “fittomake.
an emperor’s court.” One bedroom alone con-
tained furniture to the estimated value of some
thirteen hundred pounds. The place was provi-
sioned for years; four hundred quartersof wheat,
hundreds of flitches of bacon, beer, “divers
cellars-full, and very good”—a point on which
Mr. Peters wasqualifiedto judge, having tasted
the same.

No less than seventy-four defenders of the
stately house were slain, including one woman
whohad provoked the soldiers by her “railing,”
andan officer whose heightis givenas nine feet!
The place was plundered, fired, laidintotalruin.

Mr. Peters further speaks of the-beef, pork,
and oatmeal laid instore; but there was another
source of food-supply, of which the gallant gar-
risonnodoubt madeuse—the dovecotes, stand-
ing one at either endof along garden wall. One
of the two at least was almost certainly in place
when Basing House was stormed three cent-
uries ago, although it hardly dates, as reported
locally, from the eleventh century. The second
dovecote, athatched building, isofdoubtfulage.

The one which doubtless furnished to the
178

WILTSHIRE

garrisonawelcomestore of freshandappetising
food is an octangular brick building with sides
seven feet in length. The roof, also octagonal,
is of old brown flat tiles. In one section of the
roof, that immediately above the door, there is
a wooden gable with four tiersofentrance-holes,
theholes being placed intiersof one, two, three,
and four. The apex of the roof is topped by a
stone pillar carrying a knob.

Thewalls are twofeet thick, thedoor five feet
in height. There are five hundred L-shaped
nest-holes, with a potence in good order.

Passing now westward into Wiltshire, it is
possible that, to readers well grounded in the
works of Richard Jefferies, there will occur a
curious omission; dovecotes are surely never
mentioned in his most delightful books. Yet it
is difficult to think of any building that, for its
uses and associations, ought to have appealed
more strongly to his tastes. Surely among the
farms he haunted, the old villages in which he
loved to wander and to dream, somewhere a
dovecote stood.

Oneatleast standsintheoldgardenofthenow
deserted manor-house of Lydiard Millicent, a

179

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

village to the west of Swindon, and not difficult
of access from Purton station. It is a square
brick building, standing atthe junction of three
fruit-tree-covered walls. Its wallsaretwenty feet
inlength, itsheightaboutthirty. Theroof of old
Cotswold stone tiles is very picturesque; four-
gabled, with thecentralcupolacrowned by what
appears to be the mutilated figure of a pigeon,
or at least a bird. There is a “‘practicable” door
on the west side, another, now bricked up, being
opposite. Inside are more than one thousand
simple oblong nests, together with a potence.
The building seems to date from the time of
Anne or the early Georges.

Alarge oblong stone dovecote, witha hipped
andstone-tiledroof, standsin another Wiltshire
garden, at the house known as Jaggard’s, Cors-
ham. Althoughit measures twenty-six feet long
by twenty feet in width it only holds about two
hundred nests, some few of which are tenanted
to-day. Oneof the two doors ismodern, and the
building generally has suffered considerable
alteration, the lower part having served as a
cowhouse.

A circular stone example, with a stone-tiled
180

WILTSHIRE

roof and small arched doorway, is in the yardat
Wick Farm, Lacock. ‘“‘Wick” was the pseu-
donym that Jefferies gave to his old home of
Coate; was it this place he had in mind? The
building, which may very well date fromas early
as the fourteenth century, contains about five
hundred nests, as well as the remains of a for-
mer potence.

One of the most curious and interesting
of Wiltshire dovecotes exists at the ancient
manor-house of Wilcot, near Pewsey, a place
mentionedin Domesday Book, andstillexhibit-
ing traces of monastic buildings. The ‘““Monks’
Walk” is the name given to a path. beside the
ponds known asthe “Eel Stews” ;and close byis
what isvery possibly the almost equally ancient
dovecote, a circular brick building with a cone-
shaped roof. Above the low doorway is a small
square grated window.

Thedoorgivesaccess tofour steps, the dove-
cote’s floor being several feet belowthe level of
theground outside. Weshallshortly seeaneven
morestriking exampleofadovecote being part-
ly underground. The internal diameter issome
twelve feet, theheight toeaves about eighteen.

181

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

About five hundred L-shaped nest-holes still
remain; so, too, does the main beam of the pot-
ence, with some portions of its ladder-bearing
arms.

Avery interesting dovecote enjoysadelight-
ful situation in a corner of the rose-garden at
Fyfield Manor, near Pewsey, a house which,
dating in the main from Tudor times, has de-
tails of still greater age. Thedovecote, twenty-
five feet square, is built of alternate courses of
brick and stone; has a tiled roof, with cupola
and weather-vane; a single window; and three
hundred and sixty-five L-shaped nest-holes,
provided with very narrow alighting-ledges.
The walls are four feet thick, the doorway four
feet six by two feet three. The upright of the
potence still survives.

The number of nest-holes—one for each
day of the year—can hardly have beena matter
of chance. The same number occurs in some
other examples.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GLOUCESTER AND
OXFORD

MINSTER LOVEL, OXFORDSHIRE

From Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GLOUCESTER AND
OXFORD

From the many fine dovecotes scattered
through the lengthand breadth of Gloucester-
shire hardlya better introductory example can
be chosen than that standing ina meadownear
the Manor Farm at Daglingworth, a Cotswold
village three miles distant from Cirencester.
The nunnery of Godstow had a cell, or as
Dame Juliana Berners calls it, a “superflu-
ity,” at Daglingworth; and here, as in so many
other instances, it is the dovecote only which
survives.

It is a large circular building of stone, with
a string-course more than half-way up the
walls, and a roof in which are two dormer win-
dows. There is no cupola, the weather-vane
rising directly from the apex of the roof. In-
side are five hundred and fifty nests, with the
potence in working order.

Although our business here is with dove-
cotes, it would,as remarked by Mrs. Micawber
in somewhat similar circumstances, be “rash”
to leave Daglingworth without pausing at the

185

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

church, if only to read the following quaint in-
scription, quoted by Mr. H. A. Evans in his
Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cots-
wolds; it will be found upon a brass inside the
porch, and runs:

THE DISSECTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF
GiLes Hanpcox

Who earth bequeathed to earth to Heaven his soule

To friends his love to the poore a five pound dole

To remaine for ever and be imployed

For their best advantage and releefe

In Daglingworth
April the 9. 1638.

Mr. Evans, by the way, deserves mention
here as one of the few writers inthe Highways
and Byways series who pays any marked at-
tention to those old buildings which are our
chief delight. Mr. Lucas, for instance, passes
over the Sussex dovecote at Trotton without
giving it a single word.

A very similar dovecote of almost equal ex-
ternal attraction exists at Bibury, near North-
leach. Though circular, it carries on its roof
a small squarelantern mounted on four pillars,

the whole seemingly a modern addition; there
186

GLOUCESTER

is also a dormer window. Unfortunately fuller
details of this excellent example of a Cotswold
dovecote have proved unobtainable.

At Nauntonthedovecote standing in Pigeon
House Close at the Manor House is a large
square building of good Cotswold stone. The
length of each wall is twenty-four feet, and
their height to the eaves eighteen. The slated
roof is four-gabled, each gable containing a
Tudor window two feet six inches square,
having a middle mullion of stone. Rising from
the centre of the roof is a square two-gabled
cupola mounted on four oak supports. There
is a string-course about half-way up the walls,
and the whole building is of imposing appear-
ance.

The walls are nearly three feet thick, but the
doorway is unusually large—seven feet in
height by three feet six in width. Inside are
over onethousand L-shaped nest-holes, alight-
ing-ledges being attached to five out of the
thirty tiers.

Passing into Oxfordshire, though conscious
of leaving many a Gloucestershire example

undescribed, we may pause at the park of
187

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Chastleton House, in the village of that name
near Moreton-in-the- Marsh; for here isa very
handsome, although perhaps not very ancient
dovecote, of a style not often seen. It consists
of an upper story only, raised on massive
arches rising from stone pillars—the material
of which the house itself is built. The four-
gabled roof, with a circular window in each
gable, is crowned by an open octagonal lan-
tern. In spite of many endeavours to obtain
further particulars of this handsome dovecote,
information on the subject is withheld.

Chastleton House was formerly the property
of Robert Catesby, a distinguished member of
the Guy Fawkes gang. It is said to contain
Charles the First’s Bible.

Every possible information was readily fur-
nished by the owner of the delightful dovecote
at Stanton Harcourt, a building which, attrdc-
tive in itself,isrendered doubly charming from
its situation on the lawn before the Parsonage
House. It is a square stone structure covered
with rough-cast, roofed with local slates, and
lighted by a window in one wall. The walls

are two feet nine inches thick, and the door
188

OXFORD

very small—three feet eleven inches high by
two feet wide. Additional interest attaches to
this detail of the building by the fact that the
original outer door remains, secured by two
strong locks; and, further, that there is a second
inner door, flush with the inside surface of the
wall. This doubling of the doors, a fairly fre-
quent feature of the Scottish dovecotes, is less
often seen in English instances.

Unsuitable as the shape seems forthe intro-
duction of a potence, one was nevertheless
present till a few years since, when it was re-
moved, the beam being preserved. Pigeons,
too, nested here till recently. More than three
hundred nests were built into the walls, while
several dozen others were of wood.

Parsonage House is known to have been
rebuilt in the reign of Anne, but the dovecote
is probably coeval with an older house.

At the Hall, Kiddington, near Woodstock,
is a circular stone dovecote, over twenty feet
in diameter, having threedormer windows and
a lantern in the roof. Several hundred L-
shaped nests are still in place, furnished with
alighting-ledges. Thereis also a potence. ae

169

DAGLINGWORTH, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

-CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE

From Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds

From Highways and Byways of Oxford and the
Cotswolds

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MONMOUTHSHIRE
AND WALES

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MONMOUTHSHIRE
AND WALES

MonMouTHSHIRE is not markedlyrich in dove-
cotes; but, taking it upon our way towards
Wales, we pauseto look at one or two. Thefirst,
if we enter the county from Gloucestershire
by way of Chepstow—once a thriving port of
entry for the wines of Spain, then for a century
a sleepy country town, destined to renewed
and vigorouslife as an importantshipyard dur-
ing the late war—we find at the mansion of St.
Pierre, some six miles west upon the Newport
road.

The dovecote is a good square structure,
built of stone cemented over, with a tiled roof
and several hundred L-shaped nests, It is in
good repair and until lately was the home of
“tumbler” pigeons, but exhibits little to detain
us long.

A little farther on, near the Roman town of
Caerwent, we shall find the parish of Llanfair-
Discoed, where, at the Court House Farm, is
a substantially built square stone dovecote.
The roof, which boreja cupola, has fallen in.

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BOOK OF DOVECOTES

The walls, three feet six inches thick, form a
cube of twenty-onefeet. That onthesouth side
has, besides a door placed several feet above
the ground, four external alighting-ledges,
each with four entrance-holes. Within are one
hundred and fifty oblong nest-holes, also pro-
vided with ledges.

There are some remains of an old Norman
castle, to which the Court House was built as
successor. Over the door of the farmhouse is
the warm Welsh greeting freely translatableas

Though narrow be the door, wide is the welcome,

with the date 1653.

Not muchisnowto be seen of thenext dove-
cote of the county, which lies in its extreme
north-west corner, in a narrow slip of country
that runs up between the mountainous borders
of Herefordshire and Brecon. Here, hidden
by hill ramparts upon either side, and lying on
the bank of the swift-flowing Honddu river,
is Llanthony Priory, where was unearthed by
chance in 1905 one of the most curiously con-
structed dovecotes known.

It was discovered by some workmen who
196 |

MONMOUTHSHIRE

were digging ina field, and its remains were at
once examined by an expert. What he saw was
a great part of a building of roughly dressed
stone, circular, with a diameter of nearly fifteen
feet. The presence of several tiersof L-shaped
nest-holes, their inner arms turning right and
left respectively in alternate tiers, left no doubt
as to the structure’s use.

Ithad quite clearlyalways stood some seven
feet belowthesurface of the ground. Ata little
above this height the walls began to arch in-
wards and were covered by a beehive-shaped
roof, formed of flat stones of considerable size,
placed horizontally,and overlapping each other.
The inner surface of this roof was smoothly
plastered with a mortar-like cement, but the
outside was rough, and it was the observer's
opinion that the columbarium was construct-
ed with a view to the roof and upper portions
of the walls being covered with earth—at any
rate at certain times.

The broken capstone of the roof was found;
circular, four feet four inches in diameter, with
a round central hole sixteen inches across. A
chased line round the stone, half-way between

197

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

the central hole and outer edge, suggested the
former presence of some sort of lid.

The walls were four feet thick. The door-
way, placed onthe south-west, was approached
between wing walls, doubtless constructed to
preventtheearth from fallingin. Thenests, pro-
vided with alighting-ledges, varied consider-
ably in depth, the builders having been with-
out the guide of an even and well-defined face
upon the outer surface of the walls.

It seems extremely difficult to account for
the dovecote being so built. A semi-subter-
ranean situation would surely have an effect
thereverse of beneficialon the health and com-
fort of the birds. True that the region was a
wild one in the days when it was built; wild
even later still, as Walter Savage Landor was
to find when he took up his quarters at the
Priory inn and set himself to plant the bare
hill-slopes with cedars and to build himself a
lordly pleasure-house. The dwellers in that
lonely district looked askance upon him, high
and low alike; pulled up his cedar saplings,
quarrelled with him, would not pay their rents

or make him justice of the peace. The house
198

WALES

he built is there to-day, an empty shell, the
sparrow and the rabbit its sole tenants, to re-
mind us of the disenchanted poet’s stay.

But the Llanthony monks had surely other
thingstolose besidesthe inmatesof theirdove-
cote if they feared attack; it was not for the
sake of safety thatthey built their columbarium
partly underground. So, with the problem still
unsolved, we pass to Wales.

And here we find, a little unexpectedly, the
name of “culver-house,” fairly familiar in parts
of the south and south-east of England. “Cul-
ver’ at first sight seems quite possibly akin to
the “columba” of the Latins; is it a mere cor-
ruption, we may ask? So fancied Grimm, but
hewaswrong. For “culver” isan Anglo-Saxon
word, well known in other forms. The cowslip
is the “culverkeys,” and you may call a fool a
“culverhead.”

This short digression is not wholly uncon-
nected with the first of South Wales dove-
cotes to be noticed here; asemi-artificial, semi-
naturalone. Half-natural, for it is constructed
in a fissure of the cliff close by Port Eynon, on
thecoast between Worms Head and Mumbles;

199

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

half-artificial, for advantage has been taken of
the site by man.

The cliff crack has, at some date now un-
known, been closed in by a solid wall, sixty feet
in height and ten feet thick at the base. This
wall is pierced by several windows, while in-
side there is a rough stone stair. Further, the
inner face is lined by many hundred L-shaped
nest-holes.

The wildrock pigeon stillfrequentsthecoast;
the purpose of the unknown builder of the wall
is fairly clear—to attract the birds to nest in
the holes he had provided, when, covering the
windows with a net, he would be able to secure
what he required from time to time. This Port
Eynon dovecote is most probably unique.

On Caldey Island, at St. [ltyd’s Priory, a
religious house believed to have been founded
in the sixth century, and now again occupied
by monks of the order of St. Benedict, there is
a rather interesting dovecote over an archway
in the west wall of the garth. The buildings
still surviving range in age from the eleventh
to the sixteenth century, and the pigeon-loft

is probably of the fifteenth. It only contains
200

WALES

about thirty plain oblong nest-holes, each fur-
nished with a narrow stone alighting-ledge,
and pigeons are still kept.

At Angle Hall, near Pembroke, is a dove-
cote obviously of great antiquity. It is built of
rough stones of very varied size and shape; is
circular, with a domed roof, in which there is a
central aperture about one foot in width. The
height of the walls to the spring of the dome
is about twelve feet; there is a string-course
at their summit, and another half-way up the
dome. The internal diameter is twelve feet.

A modern opening has unfortunately been
made for the admittance of cattle, but the arch
of the old doorway, which was five feet high by
three feet wide, is seen immediately upon the
rightof this. Thenests are not L-shaped, there
is no potence, and alighting-ledges are found
only here and there. The walls are three feet
thick.

But the most curious feature is the presence
in the wallsofwhatat first appear to be external
nest-holes, dotted here and there. These are
not nests, however, but lead through into the
building, forming entrances and exits for the

201

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

birds. Some are blocked up, but the original
number was about four dozen, leading to four
of thetiers, The holestaketheir places in order
among the nest-holes proper, and were clearly
no afterthought, but so constructed when the
dovecote was built.

This very rare arrangement will be found re-
peated in some Cornish specimens, but seems
to be unknown elsewhere. It would certainly
lay the building open to attacks by rats and
other vermin, and may probably have been a-
bandoned upon that account.

The date of the Angle Hall dovecote has
been put at the twelfth or thirteenth century,
and, with the exception of theratherlargedoor-
way, everything about the building points to
its great age. Angle Castle, of which ruins still
remain some hundred yards away, was, from
1215, inhabited for nearly two centuries and a
half by the De Angulo and Shirburn families.
In 1447 Edward de Shirburn dedicated to St.
Anthony alittle chapel which still stands in the
churchyard,

Dovecotes rather similarin planand general

detail to the Angle specimen—al ways except-
202

WALES

ing the unusual outside holes—are to be seen
at the castles of Oxwich and Manorbeer. At a
farmhouse called the Vann, beside Caerphilly
Castle, is a fine example containing twenty
tiers of nest-holes, fifty in a tier.

At Ewenny Priory, near Bridgend, oneofthe
most interesting buildings in Wales, and also
one of the least known, we find a dovecote in
an unexpected place. The Priory Church offers
the rare example ofa fortified religious build-
ing of pure Norman architecture. In a tower
in the line of the former fortifications there may
now be seen a pigeon-house, fitted with L-
shaped nest-holes, the inner arms of which are
unusually short and turn to the right in every
case. The room’s internal measurements are
twenty-five by fifteen feet.

Passing from South Wales to the northern
corner of the Principality, we pause before a
dovecote in the island of Anglesea—at Pen-
mon Priory. Itisastone building abouttwenty
feet square, but covered with a circular stone
roof. The transition from square walls to cir-
cularroofisingeniously effected by thearrange-

ment of the horizontal stones of which the roof
203

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

is formed; these being so laid that finally a cen-
tral aperture is left. Over this is now a cupola,
probably a later addition.

A square dovecote offers nogreat prospect of
a potence to be seen inside; and here there is
none in the stricterapplicationoftheterm. But
its place is adequately taken by acentral stone
pillar, fitted to a considerable height with pro-
jecting stone steps which gave an easy access
tothenests. The building probably dates from
about the time of Henry VIII.

In thesamedistrict, at Llaneugraid, isagood
Elizabethan dovecote, forming the upper story
toan open shelter below. It is four-gabled, with
a cupola to match; is lighted by diamond-shap-
ed windows, and has a string-course round the
walls. Inside thereare about onehundred nests.

Before closing this somewhat inadequate
description of a few Welsh dovecotes—all that
space permits—a word is due to one example
long since passed away. Were it in place to-
day it would almost certainly enjoy the dis-
tinction of being the only pentagonal speci-
men in the kingdom.

This building once stood in the courtyard
204

WALES |

of Holt Castle, Denbighshire. The fortress
was itself five-sided, and the dovecote was no
doubt designed tobein keeping with the whole.
A ground-plan of the castle, dated 1620, shows
a five-sided building marked ‘‘Dovecote” in
the courtyard, and a note records it as a “de-
cayd doue-house fiue square.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DEVON AND
CORNWALL

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DEVON AND
CORNWALL

ConTRARYto expectation Devonshire, a county
otherwise so rich in history, legend, ancient
monuments of many kinds, yields but a poor
return so far as dovecotes are concerned. It is
extremely difficult to understand why Devon-
shire should have possessed few dovecotes;
equally difficult to know why, if they once ex-
isted, they should have so largely disappear-
ed. The fact remains, the explanation rests
obscure.

Still, that county which, to many persons
other than its own inhabitants, will ever be the
best loved in all England, is not entirely with-
outexamples. At Powderham Castle, near Ex-
eter, the seat of the Earl of Devon, a field con-
tains an ancient dovecote standing near the
Exeter to Dawlish road. The field is known
as “Pigeon Vale”; but as a human family of
Pigeons has for long resided in the parish, it
is most probably to them, and not to the old
building’s former occupants, the name is due.

The dovecote is also locally known as the
P 209

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

“Round House.” It is a circular brick build-
ing of considerable size, and is now converted
into a cottage. Needless to say the nests have
disappeared, and the structure cannot be re-
garded as any very great “find” by the dove-
cote enthusiast.

Away in the north of the county, at Stoke
Rivers, near Barnstaple, the rectory garden
has a dovecote which, like the hero’s helmet,
has been converted to ‘‘a hive for bees”; the
late incumbent, a whole-hearted apiculturist,
having made it the headquarters of his hives.
It is a small octagonal building of stone, witha
thatched roof.

We are better rewarded at Buckland-tout-
Saints, a village near Kingsbridge, where, in
the garden of the mansion-house, there is a
good example of a Devon dovecote, built of
_ stone and “cob.” It is circular, with an inside
diameter of fifteen feet, a thatched roof and
dormer windows. The outer surface of the walls
is ivy-covered, and the inside boarded over.
The walls are very thick, the doorway notice-
ably small and low.

The owner has adapted it asa game larder,
210

DEVON

a modern purpose for which such a building,
little affected by changes of external tempera-
ture, is by no means ill-suited. Nor need we
look upon the change as being in any way a
desecration. Was it not once the rearing-house
for future food? It has to-day advanced a stage
inthatfood’shistory, slightly changedits nature
—nothing more. And if, as in this case, the
change insures the building being kept in good
condition and repair, what could we well desire
further.

At Warleigh House, Tamerton Foliot, near
Plymouth, isa good circular brickdovecote; the
doorway, high ahd narrow—six feet high by
two feet nine inches wide—is of granite. The
building has a high-pitched roof of slate, with
open cupola upon thetop. The walls are nearly
three feet thick, and over twenty feet in height.
There are nearly five hundred nest-holes, and
the former presence of a potence is made clear
by the survival of the granite base which took
the lower socket of the upright beam. Some
portions of the dwelling-house date from the
reign of Stephen, and the dovecote is quite

probably of little less antiquity.
211

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

One of the best of Devonshire dovecotes
stands in an orchard of comparatively modern
growth at Pridhamsleigh, Ashburton. The
building, seemingly of Norman date, is circular
and built of stone. The height to the eaves is
fifteen feet, and the circumference more than
sixty. Thedomed roof, with astone coping, has
in the centre a circular opening, two feet six
inches in diameter. Thedoorway, fivefeet high
and two feet broad, displays a pointed arch and
chamfered edges to the jambs; the walls are
three feet thick. Inside there are eleven tiers
of oblong nest-holes, about two hundred and
fifty in all. Only a few of the upper nests have
projectingslates as alighting-ledges. The build-
ing is much overgrown with ivy.

Passing nowto Cornwall, we find a dovecote
at the house of Garlenich, near Grampound.
The building, standing justinside the entrance-
gate, is dated 1714. It is of brick, octagonal,
with a thatched roof, and contains about two
hundred nests. The walls are twenty feet in
height to the eaves.

Of much greater interest is the very ancient

“culvery,” the local contraction for ‘“Culver-
212

CORNWALL

hay”’ (culver = pigeon, hay =a house or home-
stead) existing at Trevanion, near Wadebridge.
Itisacircular structure, built of stoneand earth,
in whichno signs of lime or mortar,as weknow
it, can be traced. The internal diameter is
eleven feet, the height of the walls eighteen,
and the size of the doorway six feet by three.

The roof, also of stone, is domed after the
fashion of the earlier Norman examples. Inthe
centre was originally the circular hole seen in
so many dovecotes of this shape and type; but,
in this instance, above the hole was a stone,
supported on pillars. The pillars have been
later removed, and the stone placed flat upon
the hole, thus closing it.

This would, apparently, close the building’s
career as a pigeon-house. But, here, as ‘at
Angle Hall in Wales, we find that several
holes pierce through the walls, providing en-
trance for the birds. It is interesting to find
that this curious plan, which was clearly never
followed as a general rule, should be adopted a-
like in southern Wales and Cornwall, districts
linked in other ways.

Other holes, near the top of the walls inside,

213

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

were seemingly designed to support the hori-
zontal beams to which was secured the upper
end of the potence, which, the centre of the
roof being open, could not be supported at that
point.

Another curious feature of this very interest-
ing dovecote is the relatively small number
of the nests—one hundred and thirty only—
wholly disproportioned to a building of its size.
Was there some regulationinthe district, limit-
ing the number of birds kept? But if such re-
gulation dated from the period of thedovecote’s
first erection, why then was it built upon so
large a scale?

This dovecote at Trevanion is, although
much overgrown with ivy, still in excellent re-
pair, andan object of keen interest toits owner.
The same is happily the case at the vicarage,
Trevena, where a very similar dovecote is still
used for its original purpose. It isa little larger
than the one just noticed, has more nest-holes,
and is particularly worthseeingas still showing
the original arrangement of the opening in the
roof; the aperture being covered by a slab sup-
ported on three stone pillars,

214

CORNWALL

Yet a third dovecote of this type is found at
Crafthole, Whitesand Bay. Here the roof en-
tranceisentirely uncovered. Some other Corn-
ish dovecotes of a similar construction are now
more or less in ruins,

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SOMERSET AND
DORSET

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SOMERSET AND
DORSET

Recrossinc Devon into Somerset we find our-
selves on fruitful ground. Let us turn first to
so well known and popular a place as Dunster,
where is a dovecote which, besides being of
considerable antiquity, is “beautiful for situ-
ation,” while a tragic story clings to its old
walls.

It stands in the garden of the ancient priory;
a massive building, circular, and dating from
the thirteenth century. The doorway is par-
ticularly worthy ofnotice. The building’s height
is about nineteen feet, and the diameter the
same; the roof is covered with small slates.
There are five hundred and forty nest-holes of
varying and rather irregular shape. The pot-
ence also is in place.

The story above alluded to may best be
quoted from the late Prebendary Hancock’s
Dunster Church and Priory. After describing
the dovecote he goes on to say:

“A terrible tragedy is on record with regard
to this dovecote. Itis related that, when, one

219

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

spring, it was full of birds, old and young (it
would contain quite two thousand) some one
shut up or forgot to open the window which
gave the pigeons egress to find food for them-
selves and their young, and that all the occu-
pants were starved to death.”

At West Camel, near Bath, in a paddock ad-
joining the rectory garden, is a circular dove-
cote with four buttresses. The diameter is fif-
teen feet, the height considerable. Insideis no
sign of the potence which probably once exist-
ed, but, though untenanted, more than seven
hundred nest-holes still remain, some being L-
shaped, others of more simple plan.

The roof is of rough tiles, the walls but little
short of three feet thick, and the door notice-
ably small. Close by is a good specimen of an
old tithe barn, perhaps coeval with the dove-
cote, West Camel was formerly an appendage
of Michelney Abbey, near Langport, and the
tradition of this having been the abbot’s dove-
cote is quite probably correct.

An even finer tithe barn, with a stately en-
trance, buttresses, and narrow cruciform win-

dow-slits, isthenear neighbour of the dovecote
220

SOMERSET

at the Manor House, Pilton. Both house and
barn belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. The
dovecote, standingin theyard, isa square stone
building of no particular beauty, and is now at-
tached to other buildings. The length is eight-
een feet, the breadth some two feet less, and
height to gable of the tiled roof twenty-five
feet. Several hundred nest-holes are still seen
within. This dovecote, like the one previously
noticed, is buttressed. The suggestion that it
is of very early date is confirmed by the good
thickness of the walls—three feet four inches.
One window faces south, another west. The
doorway on the ground levelisclearlyamodern
addition, the original entry having been bya
small door placed high in the north wall, and
doubtless reached by a ladder.

At Ivythorn Manor, Street, we have an ob-
long dovecote, measuring thirty and a half feet
by twenty-one and a half. There is a gabled
roof, the tiles on which have clearly been re-
newed in modern times. The whole north end
has also been rebuilt,a barn-door being insert-
ed, and the former nests removed. The three

remaining sides contain nests to the number
oat

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

of over five hundred. The partitions between
them are noticeable as being of a very porous
limestone, known as “‘coral rag” and stated to
be French. Ivythorn manor-house dates back
for over seven centuries, but the dovecote is
of less antiquity.

Anotheroblong dovecote occurs at Witham,
near Bath. It formerly stood in the middle of
other farm buildings belonging to Witham
Priory, for it is mentioned in an inventory of
the early part of the sixteenth century. Its old
surroundingshavenowdisappeared,aroadruns
through their site, and by this road the dove-
cote stands. Moveover, it has suffered drastic
alteration as to purpose, being to-day the Par-
ish Room.

It is a building thirty-one feet long by thir-
teen feet in breadth, with a heightof twenty feet
tothehigh-pitchedroof. Theroof is newly tiled,
but still retains its ancient timber-work. The
walls are three feet thick and are supported by
four buttresses. The ancient doorway has now
disappeared. The still remaining nests are of
the orthodox L-shape.

Thereisan unusualinternal feature for which
222

SOMERSET

it is difficult to account with any hope of cer-
tainty. This is a ledge or “drip” which runs all
round the inside surface of the walls, four feet
six inches from the floor. The suggestion has
been made that it was meant to carry a wheel-
ed staging toand froacross the house—a means
of access to the upper nests. This seems hard-
ly likely, such arrangement being unknown
elsewhere.

Acertain mystery attachesto the next dove-
cote on our list. This will be found at Stoke
Courcy—commonly called Stogursey—near
Bridgwater. It stands on sloping ground east
of the church, in the yard of Priory Farm. It is
of stone and circular, the walls being three feet
thick, the internal diameter about fifteen feet,
and the height to the eaves eighteen. The
cone-shaped roof is thatched.

A modern floordivides the building into two
stories, the upper one being reached by out-
side stone steps. A window in this upper story
faces east, that in the lowerlooking towardsthe
church.

The accounts received of it are somewhat
discrepant. First comes a clear little woodcut,

223

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

printed in a magazine some years ago, in which
itisdescribedas the “monks’ barn’—an obvious-
ly erroneous account of a building at once cir-
cular and small. Then follows a correspondent
who, while not supporting thistheory, suggests
that it was always what it is to-day; namely a
store-house, or, as an alternative, a “game
kitchen.”

But doubt is seemingly dispelled bythe pre-
sent tenant of the farm, who, in a description
of the building which is both minute and clear,
states that though many of the original nest-
holes are blocked up, some still remain and
others can be traced. They had an entrance
six or seven inches square, and enlarged in-
wards.

This seems conclusive, and the Stogursey
dovecote is, in consequence, entitled to admis-
sion here.

Aninteresting dovecote standsinthechurch-
yardof Norton-sub-Hamdon. It wasamanorial,
not a clerical appurtenance, formerly standing
in afield,and only assuming its present position
when the churchyard was enlarged some years
ago.

224

SOMERSET

It is a picturesque circular building of Ham
stone, with a cone-shaped roof in which are two
dormer windows. The cupola takes the form of
a flat stone slab, supported by four small stone
pillars andsurmounted byan ornamental knob.
Theinternal diameter of the buildingis thirteen
feet, the heightto eaves a littlemore. The level
of the floor is some feet lower than the ground
outside. Inside are about four hundred oblong
nests,

Five buttresses support the walls, which are
three feet thick. The doorway is small—four
feet six inches high, by two feet four in breadth.
On one jamb is carved the date 1785; but the
body of the building iscertainly the equal inage
of the fifteenth-century church. Trask, in his
history of the parish, says: “The dovecote, held
by Nicholas Newcombe at 6s. 8d. rent, is still
with us, althoughit was built beforethechurch.”
The rent, unlike the rent of other dwellings at
thepresenttime, is falling, foroneshillingannu-
ally is now paid to the lord of the manor by the
churchwardens.

Not far distant, at Stoke-sub-Hamdon, is a
dovecotenowroofless. Itisacircular stone build-

Q 225

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

ing, sixteen feet high to the eaves, and fifteen
feetindiameter. Thereisasmallsquare window
near the roof, the walls are three feet thick, and
the door four feet high. Inside are about five
hundred oblong nest-holes, but no trace of a
potence. A priory existed here in 1306.

Somerset’sdovecotes have detained uslong,
leaving but little time for those of Dorset, the
last English countyhere to be described. Four
only will be noticed; these, though “few,” are
more than “fit,” and eminently worthy of their
place.

Most beautiful for situation is the dovecote
standing on the lawn at Athelhampton Hall, an
ancient manor-house distinguished even in a
county which is full of such. The dovecote’s
background, looking at it from the house, is
formed of immemorial elms; whileclose behind
it are green walls of closely clipped yew hedges
stretching in along perspectivefrom thevelvet
turf.

The dovecote is a large round building, in
circumference over eighty feet. The walls are
buttressed, and against them several ancient

pear trees grow—the most innocuous form of
226

DORSET

living vesture that a building can well have.
Thereis asingle dormer window just abovethe
eaves of the tiled roof, upon the top of which is
a small wooden cupola having three tiers of en-
trance-holes, alighting-ledges being provided
for eachtier. The vane surmountingall is a bird
which we may take to be a pigeon.

Thewalls are three feet thick, the door three
feet six inches high, by two feet six in width.
Insidethereisa potence, in good working order,
with its ladder still in place. Of about one thou-
sand nest-holes some are simply oblong, while
a few have two entrances.

At Melplash Court, near Beaminster, nowa
farm, there is a circular stone dovecote said to
have been built in 1604. It stands ina field and
isof rathersmall size; forty feet only indiameter,
and twelve feet high to theeaves. The walls are
forty inches thick, the doorway four feet high.
The nest-holes, about two hundred in number,
aresimpleoblong recesses; nopotenceremains,
but timbers inthe roof suggest one having been
in use.

Piddletrenthide Manor presents us with a
dovecote differing entirely in one respect from

227

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

any of the specimens already seen. It stands a-
bout three hundred yards from the house, on a
small hill in a wood, and is built of mixed brick
and flints. The height to the eaves is consider-
able, being forty feet; the diameter is twenty-
one. While the greater portion of the building
is of circular form, the first six feet from the
ground is octagonal.

This, at least, is the case externally; but in-
side, the whole, from floor to roof, is round. It
contains over eight hundred L-shaped nest-
holes, with alighting-ledges for each tier. The
potence and ladder are in’ complete working
order. The walls are three feet thick, the roof
tiled, and surmounted byalead-covered cupola
upon which is a weather-vane.

Wecan recallthe story of a feast at which the
choicest wine was served the last. Old coach-
men, consciousofatired team beforethem, were
wont so to husband its strengthand speedas to
“keep a trot for the town.” So, on like plan, a
certain Dorset dovecote is reserved to be the
lastrecorded inthe Englishsection of this book;
a dovecote which, did it possess no beauty in it-

self, would yet claim notice, even affection, on
228

BINGHAM’S MELCOMBE, DORSET

Face p. 228.

DORSET

account of its former owner. He, worthy of the
county that calls William Barnes its son, spent
all too short a portion of hisuseful life inthe old
garden where the dovecote stands; spent it a-
mong the birds that he loved second onlyto his
fellow-men. It is to Bingham’s Melcombe, the
last homeof Reginald Bosworth Smith, that we
are now to turn.

Pity that time and space will not allow de-
scription of this wonderful old Dorset manor-
house, of this enchanting garden where ‘tis al-
ways afternoon. Much might be said about the
house itself, its architecture dating from the
reignof Stephen tothe daysof Anne; about the
gate-housewith its buttresses, its old walls nine
feet thick; about the hall, the Tudor oriel, with
the powdering-room and turret stairs. More
still about the garden, with its walls, here built
of small grey bricks, and there of “‘cyclopean
stone’ ;itsgiant hedge of yew, fourcenturiesold;
its bowling-green ofan “inviolateantiquity’; its
silver firs and sycamores and flowing stream.
But ofall this it isfar better notto speak. Some
one hasbeen beforehand withus; one whodwelt

for seven happy years amid this scene of placid
229

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

beauty, and, whendeath beckoned, gavehislast
look tothe old garden that he heldso dear. For
Bosworth Smith himself has told us surely all
there istotell of houseand gardenin that fascin-
ating volume, Bird Life and Bird Lore.

So let us come at once to where, ‘‘further on
again, isacircular dovecote of stone withoutan
angle in the whole, walls, roof, or top... such
as nowell-conditioned manor-house of the Ed-
wards or the Henryswould willingly have been
without.” A little cavalier, this treatment of the
building, we may think, for it is one of no un-
common charm, And yet we cannot doubt its
owner loved it, as he loveditsinmates, lovedthe
magpies, ravens, owls of which he wrote with
such appreciative pen.

To us at least the building seems one not to
be passed lightly by. On entering into owner-
ship of Bingham’s Melcombe, the new occupier
found the dovecote much dilapidated, and forth-
with restored it with a care it well deserved, re-
modelling the whole upon an old design. It is
a circular building of brickand stone. The roof,
its slope of most alluring grace, is covered with

delightfulold stonetiles and crownedbya small
230

DORSET

open cupola, poisedon pillars manyand slender.
The walls are three feet thick, the doorway not
particularly small. Inside are several hundred
L-shaped nests. There is a subtle air of both
antiquity and grace about the Bingham’s Mel-
combedovecote, rendering itunfittedtobeany-
where than in its own peculiar place.

Beauty at Bingham’s Melcombe—thither
have we wandered by a long and devious road
from Garway’s rugged walls; and here our sur-
vey of some Englishdovecotes ends. Turnnow
to what awaits us north of Tweed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE SCOTTISH
““DOOCOT”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE SCOTTISH
“DOOCOT”

“Nor was the court without its ornaments.
In one corner was a tun-bellied pigeon-house,
of great size and rotundity, resembling in
figure and proportion the curious edifice called
Arthur’s Oven, which would have turned the
brains of all the antiquaries in England, had
not the worthy proprietor pulled it down for
the sake of mendinganeighbouring dam-dyke.
This dovecot, or columbarium, as the owner
called it, was no small resource to a Scottish
laird of that period, whose scanty rents were
eked out by the contributions levied upon the
farms bythese light foragers, and the conscrip-
tions enacted from the latter for the benefit of
the table.”

In the above words, familiar to every reader
as part of the description of the entrance-court
at Tullyveolan, Scott makesusacquainted with
a very common form of Scottish “doocot,” as
well as with the purpose of its erection. Nor,
unfortunately, is the fate which befell Arthur’s
Oven one invariably escaped by dovecotes,

235

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

whether they lie north or south of Tweed.

The rectangular variety, equally common,
with its single slope of lean-to roof, is also
known in fiction. In Mrs. Jacob's story, Zhe
Interloper, we are introduced to the dovecote
of Morphie, andare madespectatorsof the fight
which there took place between the hero and
the would-be pigeon-thieves. It is clear that in
this case the building was of the rectangular
type, with its gables crow-stepped—“corbie-
stepped,” in Scottish phrase—and ornamented
withstone balls upon the summit of the roof. A
net is employed by the depredators, who throw
it over the entrance-holes in order to secure
the birds as they fly out. This was a common
method of catching the pigeons in legitimate
fashion, and on some Scottish dovecotes iron
hooks to which the net was fastened may be
seen.

Again, in Neil Munro’s novel, Zhe New
Road, the dovecote of Drimdorran is a central
feature in the scene.

The attack upon the dovecote of Morphie
was an offence liable to severe punishment;
nevertheless it was, without doubt, a frequent
236

SCOTTISH ‘*DOOCOT”

one, judging from the pains taken to render
such attempts abortive. As often in England,
so also in Scotland the doorways of the dove-
cote were generally small and low, the doors
massive and well secured; we shall indeed fre-
quently find the doorsdoubled—oneon the out-
side edge, asecondontheinsideofthe thick and
solid wall. Not only was the act of dovecote-
breaking formerly regarded as a serious crime;
it was likewise illegal to kill pigeons found out-
side the shelter of their home, however far a-
way that home might be. Everything points to
the great value placed upon the birds as food
—a point of view easily understood when we
recall the comparative poverty of Scotland.
But the other side of the question was not
entirely neglected, at any rate in later times.
The baronialright of dovecote-building, which
was the Scottish parallel to the powervested in
the lordof an English manor, received adoubt-
less necessary check early in the seventeenth
century. A statute of 1617 limited the right of
building and maintaining a dovecote to those
persons who held “lands or teinds of a yearly
rental amounting to ten chalders of victual”;
237

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

the chalder being equivalent to sixteen ‘“‘bolls”
of one and a quarter hundredweight each. The
dovecote wasto bebuilt within two miles ofthe
owner’s land—a provision which seems more
liberal to him than to the holders of the inter-
vening fields; and only one might be so built
for the amount of land named. No limit was
placed upon the size of the building or upon the
number ofits occupants, though on these points
a court would perhaps be open to reasonable
argument. A dovecote, once built, was not
liable to demolition merely because, in chang-
ing hands, it had passed into the possession of
an owner who had not the stipulated acreage
of land; nor, even if condemned by law as hav-
ing been illegally erected, need it be destroyed
entirely, the simple blocking of the entrance-
holes being deemed sufficient satisfaction.

It is probable that the statute named was
rendered necessary by recent increase in the
number of existing dovecotes. More than one
example shortly to be seen dates from the clos-
ing years of the sixteenth century, and many
others are certainly of the same period. Some

of those so dated are circular, others oblong;
238

SCOTTISH “DOOCOT”

so that it isa moot point which of these forms
was first employed. Remembering the case in
England,the palm for antiquity would beaward-
ed to the circular examples, were it not that
many of the others show clear signs of a great
age. Nor, although the oblong and thecircular
are the main types, is Scotland lacking in
modifications of both. To some few Scottish
“doocots” the reader is now, without further
delay, to be introduced.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
IN AND AROUND
EDINBURGH

CHAPTER NINETEEN
IN AND AROUND
EDINBURGH

Tue Southron who arrives in Scotland by the
East Coast route will not lack evidence as he
draws near to the “grey city of the North,”
that hehas entered dovecote-land. Clearlyseen
from the railway carriage is anoblong example
between Drem and Longniddry, serving, in
conjunction with a circular dovecote in a field
immediately west of Prestonpans station, to
illustrate the two chief styles. Both of these
dovecotes will be noticed later on; meanwhile
letus see what Edinburghandher suburbs have
to show.

And here the visitor, however poor be his
pedestrian powers, is at little pains to carry out
hissearch. Lethim boardatram-car going south
from the Register House, and travel on it to
the terminus at Nether Liberton. There, bare-
ly fifty yards away, between the forking roads,
he sees a high bare wall; viewed from the
southern side the dovecote stands revealed.

It is a very large and massive building, a
most excellent example ofits kind. The shape

243

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

is oblong, with a lean-to roof which, as often
the case in this type, is broken half-way down
into two separate planes, forming an upperand
a lower slope; the slope of course is almost al-
ways towards the south as here; and entrance-
holes for the birdsare provided under. the eaves
of the upper slope, in addition to a row at the
topof the south wall. It is a pity that, while the
upper section of the roof is tiled, the lower half
has been renewed with slates.

The building is divided into two equal and
entirely identical compartments, each entered
by a massive door placed on the outer edge of
rough stone walls full three feet thick. The
door is secured, not only by alock, but by heavy
iron bars, which, fitting over staples, are held
fastin their position byanuprightbar. Further,
on the wall’s inner edge there is a second door.
Clearly the Scottish doocot was regarded as a
treasure to be held secure,

The nests inside are plain rectangular re-
cesses, those of L-shaped form being practic-
ally unknown north of Tweed. There are about
three hundredinthehigher or north wallofeach
compartment, rather fewer on the south wall
244

AROUND EDINBURGH

and upon the sloping walls that form the sides;
the twocompartmentshold, together, sometwo
thousand nests. The party-wall appears above
the roof.

This dovecote, probably but little short of
some fourcenturies inage, belongsto The Inch,
a neighbouring mansion saidto contain the old-
est inhabited room in Scotland—an ancient
dining-room with bare stone walls.

Here perhaps may be discussed a question
which has not improbably ariseninthereader’s
mind, What is the object of dividing the dove-
cote of this form into two compartments, an
arrangement as common in Scotland as it is
rare in England?

The solution is probably that given by the
present holder of a dovecote of this type. He
points out that, as may be easily imagined, the
taking of a large number of squabs from the
nests causes a certain discontent and restless-
ness among the parent birds; so much so that
they will sometimesdesertthe house forashort
time. If the dovecote be in two compartments,
having no internal communication, they can be
“raided” alternately, one thus being always un-

245

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

disturbed.

If thisexplanation beaccepteditcarries with
it the conclusion that the Scots were more ad-
vanced in the theory and practice of successful
pigeon-rearing thantheir English neighbours,
and indeed than their French friends. Yet it
is strange that the religious orders of both
Franceand England, skilful dovecote-builders
as they were, should seemingly have missed
this point.

There is indeed an alternative theory,
which, much as it might have suited Dr. John-
son, is not one to hazard lightly, much less to
accept. Still, is it possible that, Scotland pos-
sessing more thieves than England, care was
taken that at least all the eggs should not be
placed in one basket; that dovecote-breakers
should be faced by two good sets of doors, and
not one only, if they wished to “sweep the
board”?

From Liberton it is a short and pleasant

stroll to the beautifully placed ruin of Craig-

millar Castle, where, however, the small nest-
lined tower in the outer courtyard wall is of no

very striking interest. The nests have doubt-
246

AROUND EDINBURGH

less been in place for many years; but it is
questionable if it was for pigeons, rather than
as a look-out station or advanced-post, that the
tower was designed. &

For those who care to see, not a true dove-
cote, but an ancient tower which has been
adapted to that use, the walk may be con-
tinued down the Dalkeith Road until the little
town is nearly reached. Upon our left, at
Sheriffhall, among a group of pleasant houses,
is a high square tower which has certainly
formed part of other buildings.

It has been fitted as a dovecote, being lined
from floor to roof with wooden nests. Further,
not onlyis the woodworkingeniously arranged
in octagonal form, but a potence, still in ex-
cellent condition, will be found. Unlike the
more orthodox pattern, however, it carries its
ladder in an absolutely perpendicular position,
not upon a slope.

This dovecote is quite populous. Asked
whose the pigeons are that make their exit
with no little tumult as we open the old rusted
iron door, the lady of the house at which the
key is kept replies that she would fancy they

247

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

must be “the Duke’s.” They are not hers—
of that she is quite sure. Nobody feeds them,
no one seems to own them; nor do they prey
upon the gardens close around. Dalkeith is in
a highly cultivated district, and we feel that
here again is room for doubt respecting any
harm that a few score of birds may tause.

For those who can spare time to wander
farther south to classic Hawthornden, birth-
place and home of Drummond the poet, there
is a very curious dovecote to be seen. A door-
way in the cliff upon which stand the remnants
of the former house, gives access to a passage
leading to a group of chambers hewn out of the
solid rock. In one of these we find the well
which once supplied the house; while in a sec-
ond, through whose broad low window we look
outuponthe lovelyglenandheartherushof the
swift Esk, there are six tiers of rather shallow
recesses, thirty in a tier, all quite obviously
pigeon-holes. The chamber goes by the name
of ‘‘Bruce’slibrary,” and many alessdelightful
place for study might be found; although what
Bruce was doing at Hawthornden, and howex-
tensive was his travelling library, are questions
248

AROUND EDINBURGH

it is hard to solve.

Ignoring this proposed digression to Dal-
keith and Hawthornden, the visitor may, from
the Nether Liberton dovecote, take the hill to
the Upper village; notingon his way, it isto be
hoped, the experimental stone causeway onthe
left side of the road, which, while it gives a
smooth and easy surface for the wheels of an
ascending cart, provides security of grip for
horses’ feet. It was suggested and laid down
by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of Robert
Louis, a century and more ago.

From the hill-top a road upon the right will
lead us to the Braids and Morningside. A short
half-mile along it is a dovecote on the left; one
similar in style to that just seen, but covered
with rough-cast, and having a well-groomed
and somewhat modern air.

Beyond it, on our right, is Liberton Tower;
not a dovecote, but an ancient “peel,” though
pigeons have been quartered in itsupper story
now and then. Still farther, where the Braid
Burn flows in a deep glen between the Braid
and Blackford Hills, there is another dovecote,
snugly hidden from sight. Indeed the house

249

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

at which it stands—the Hermitage of Braid—
is hardly seen, so deep the glen, so dense the
screen of intervening trees. The house is full
of history, even though the present one is but
a century old; its predecessor stood a little
higher, on theglen’s north bank. But Skelton,
Mary Queen of Scots’ defender and apologist,
lived in the present house, and Froude has sat
andtalked within the wallsthat Adam planned.

The dovecote stands in the large sloping
kitchen-garden, rarerock-plants from Salonika
flowering at its doors. It is of oblong plan,
with two compartments; but, built at a later
period, when desire for ornament had grown,
is pleasingly ornate in style. The coping of the
high north wall slopes slightly downward from
the middle to each end, and bears three deco-
rative urns, another being at the south end of
either gable-wall. The comparatively moder-
ateage of the building is further proved by the
small thickness of the walls—two feet.

Returning towards the city, we might per-
haps enquire for East Morningside House, a
dwelling dating from a time before the present
suburb had surrounded the large garden in the
250

AROUND EDINBURGH

midst of which it stands. Here is a dovecote,
tall and square; the lower part now used asa
hen-house, and the whole so draped with ivy
that it is almost impossible to ascertain the
shape of roof. But still some fragment of its
ancient purpose clings about the place; from
time to time a pair of pigeons settle in it fora
season, rear a brood, and presently depart.

If we now take a west-going car we shall
reach Murrayfield. Thence it is little more
than a full mile to where, beyond the gates of
that Zoological Park which is the prideof Edin-
burgh, lies the village of Corstorphine, with
its quaint squat-towered, stone-roofed church.
Some fifty yards beyond it, in a garden which
was once a field, stands an exceptionally fine
exampleof the othertypeof Scottish dovecote,
circular in plan.

It is a large building, over eighty feet in
circumference, and holding quite a thousand
nests. The walls are about three feet thick,
the domed roof has a central opening, and the
occupants were offered a second means of en-
trance bya curious little window-shaped group

ofholesplaced abovethemidmoststring-course
251

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

of the three around the house. Above each of
the two lower string-courses the walls receive
a slight “set-back”; the third is just below the
roof,

Thisisan exceptionally handsomedovecote,
and we love it none the less that from its an-
cient walls the voice of pigeons falls upon our
earto-day. Quiteout of keeping withits peace-
ful purpose is the knowledge that, close to the
building, now the sole remnant of the former
castle of Corstorphine, jealousy provoked a
certain George, Lord Forrester, to kill his wife.

From the Murrayfield tramway terminus it
is but a short walk to Ravelston, where, in a
garden unrivalled in Edinburgh, among vast
yew hedges, spreading cedars, dolphin foun-
tains, relics of antiquity of every kind, we find
the last of Edinburgh dovecotes there is time
to see. It is of oblong, two-compartment type,
andvery large; quite twenty-five feet high,and
long and broad in proportion. The walls are
three feet six inches thick. The one compart-
ment is still open, though no longer occupied
by birds; the doorway of the second has for

years been closed by a thick growth of ivy.
252

ee ty

AROUND EDINBURGH

Inside we notice that the vaulting of the
roof is of remarkably fine workmanship, and
very well preserved; the small round central
aperture is perfect as when made. A tiny dor-
mer in each section of the roof contains a pair
of entrance-holes. The higher wall is orna-
mented by stone balls on upright shafts.

The scene at Ravelston is altogether so de-
lightful that it is to be regretted that this
splendid dovecote, so well fitted for a ‘garden
ornament,” should beunfortunately placed; the
front in close proximity toa thick hedge, which
makes a full appreciation of the building quite
impossible.

CHAPTER TWENTY
HADDINGTONSHIRE

CHAPTER TWENTY
HADDINGTONSHIRE

For those who would see something of the
dovecotes to be found outside the capital, yet
lack the time to journey far afield, no better
plan can well be recommended thana little tour
in Haddington, a county where an ample har-
vest may be gleaned. With this in view we
leave the train at Prestonpans.

First comes the circular example close to
Northfield House, a delightful building of the
early seventeenth century,thedate upon thelin-
telof the doorbeing 1611, towhich isadded the
motto, “Unless the Lord build, in vain builds
man.” In truth the house, with gables, over-
hanging turrets, and quaint cornersupon every
side, ismoreattractivethanthedovecote, which
presentsnovery specialcharm. Itisalarge, sub-
stantial, circular building of stone, with three
string-courses and a vaulted roof.

On turningto the right a fewyards down the
road, we come to Preston Tower. Its gaunt
ruin stands in a market-garden in the north-
east corner ofwhichisadovecote worth apause.
It is of oblong form, with lean-to roof and one

S 257

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

compartment only; the higher wall adorned by
three stone pillars capped with balls. The
gable-walls are crow-stepped; pains were evid-
ently taken with the appearance of the whole.

Now down the hill until we reach the wind-
ing tramway running between Musselburgh
and Port Seton. Here,in a brewer’s yard upon
the very margin of the Firth of Forth, are two
more dovecotes; tall, not specially attractive
buildings, one of which at least is sliding down
the easy road to ruin. Theyare of interest from
the fact that they stand close together—bare-
ly fifteen yards apart; a situation possibly ac-
counted forby the fact thattwo different abbeys
—Holyrood and Newbattle—formerly held
lands in the district.

Returning to the station, Tranent church is
visible upon the hillside, lying a mile away to
the south-east. As we approach it we shall see
the dovecote just below the churchyard wall.
This zs of special interest, being one of the old-
est dated examples in Scotland; 1587 is the
date upon the lintel, where we also make out
the name ‘David Sitoun.” Thereare the traces

of another name upon a stone a littlehigher up,
258

HADDINGTONSHIRE

which has all the appearance of being a frag-
ment of gravestone.

The dovecote is of stone and oblong, with
butasinglechamber. The door hasbeen walled
up, and entrance is impossible. An ugly gap-
ing crack beside it tellsof the damage wrought
by subsidence, coal-pits being now on every
side, andone of the largest coal-washing plants
in thekingdom a prominent featureof the fore-
ground.

It is a rather long and uninteresting road
which runs east from Tranent, changing from
one side to the other of therailway line bylevel
crossings, and leading through the village of
Longniddry, with its Veterans’ dwellings just
a shade too studied in their effort to be pictur-
esque. At a large homestead half-a-mile beyond
Longniddry station we find cottages much
pleasanter to look upon than those too often
seen on Lothian farms; and a large dovecote
occupies a chamber over the main entrance to
the yard.

Weare rewarded further when we come to
Redhouse, the tall ruin beside the line. The
dovecote here is oneof the familar oblong type,

259

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

but has some special features of its own. The
pigeons were accommodated on an upper floor;
the lower story, with a very massive vaulted
roof, is now used as a hen-house, but was prob-
ably intended for a store.

The upper story is oftwo compartments, each
originally furnished with aseparate door placed
eight feet from the ground. Oneof thesedoors
has been blocked up, an internal communic-
ation being made between the compartments.
Each is still lined with oblong nests, and each
has in its vaulted roof an aperture. This is a
very rare example of an upper story dovecote
being in two divisions. The building was con-
structed with unusual strength and obvious
care, the vaulting of both floors being specially
worthy of notice.

From Drem station an undulating walk of
some three miles will bring us to the village of
Athelstaneford. On looking up the slope that
faces us as we descend the hill we see a dove-
cote on the right.

It stands belowthe churchyard wall; a build-
ing about sixteen feet square, and seven feet

six inches high to the lower of its two string-
260

HADDINGTONSHIRE

courses. Itsmaterialisrubblestone ofall shapes
and sizes, an opportunity for examination being
only toowell afforded by the fact that the north
wall now lies in ruin upon the ground, leaving
the nests inside intact. This disaster occurred
during the winter of 1919-1920, and it is to be
feared that unless steps are promptly taken to
repair the damage, the whole house will pres-
ently be down. A villager bemoans the coming
loss, but addsthat ‘“‘withsomany war memorials
folk hae little coin to spare.”

The walls are over three feet thick, the door
nomore than two feet six in breadth. Over the
latter is a stone which carries the date 1583,
enclosed in an oblong knotted design. Here,
then, we have another dovecote of well-proved
and definite antiquity. The gable-walls are
corbie-stepped, and the roof is in two planes,
with entrance-holes below the eaves.

Inside there are about a thousand nests. As
in some other square Scottish dovecotes there
is a potence—or a rather poor attempt at one.
The central. post revolves, but carries a rough
framing, with no sign of a true ladder.

Descending the hill atrightangles to our line
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BOOK OF DOVECOTES

of approach, taking aturn tothe leftandanother
to the right, we are soon at Gilmerton House,
or rather at the steading, screened from the
road bya smallplantation. Inthe middle of this
is a fine circular dovecote of brick, which the
grieve is far from unwilling to exhibit on re-
quest.

More modern than the one just visited, it is
insomewaysmore pleasing; for, far from being (|
deserted and in semi-ruin, it is well populated a
and inexcellent repair. Asthedooropenstothe | __
turning of the key, pigeonsswarm out through.
the small cupola that tops the dome-shaped
roof; through the three curious little windows
immediately above the upper of two string-
courses; even through thedooritself,so urgent
seems their haste.

The building, fifty feetin circumference, con-
tainsabouteleven hundred nests, witha potence
in good working order. The storms and frosts
of winter have worked havoc here; the coat of
plaster recently applied has parted from the
walls in places and hangs loose. But there is
here no danger of the dovecote’s most-feared

foes—indifference and neglect. We notice
262

HADDINGTONSHIRE

the effective ornament attained by the bricks
immediately below the string-courses being
laid obliquely, with a corner of each projecting.

Awinding unfrequented by-way leads us up
a hill and into the main road between Dunbar
and Haddington. Following it eastward, we
shallreachthe pleasantlittle town, or rather the
large village, of East Linton, with its. bridge
across the Tyne.

Here, time permitting, we may turn aside
from our mainrouteand pay a visit to twodove-
cotes which stand not far off. One, seen from
the north end of the village street, is on the
slope of Drylaw Hill. It is a large and sub-
stantial stone building of three stages, with a
conical roof, built on an outcrop of rock in a
field. There is a low broad dormer window in
the roof, and further access for the birds by a
row of holes immediately below. A description
of the interior isnot possible, the key being kept
some distance away.

A second interesting dovecotewill be found
at Preston Mains, a farm about a mile along
the road to, Tyninghame. It is a very large

square structure, flanked on either side by
263

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

lower buildings. Unfortunately these have
been converted into cottages, and a chimney
now defaces either corner of the dovecote’s
higher side. But, even with this unwelcome
addition, the building is imposing. The slope
of the tiled roof is on two levels, with the en-
trance-holes, as usual in such cases, at the
“break.”

Resuming the main road we cross the river
and reach Phantassie, a large farm upon theleft,
a short half mile beyond the bridge. At the
bottom of a lane leading to fields lying north-
east of the steading is a very curious dovecote.

The backgroundis well wortha glance before
we give attention to the pigeon-house itself.
Beyond the fields that lie before us is the wind-
ing river, and upon its farther bank is Preston-
kirk, snugly ensconced below a ridge of hill.
That hill-slope is a curious sight to eyes accus-
tomed rather to the verdant pastures of the
English Midlands or Welsh Borders than to
Lothian lands. Fieldafter field, without abreak
of intervening green, is red in spring with the
bare soilof Britain’s finest land; golden in early

autumn with the ripening grain. The eye may
264

1 SPOTT 2. PHANTASSIE
3. LUFF NESS HOUSE 4. GILMERTON HOUSE
HADDINGTONSHIRE

Face p. 264

HADDINGTONSHIRE

weary atso long a stretch of cultivation, but the
heart rejoices atthethought ofsuchagrain-pro-
ducing land.

Now to the very curious dovecote standing
here. It is of stone and circular—nothing un-
common about either point, considering where
we are. But circular dovecotes are most often
covered byacirculardomedroof. Notsotheone
before us. Its builder clearly knew the benefit
of giving to its occupants a sheltered southern
slope, and this is how he set himself to carry
out the plan.

The height of the round wall is varied, high-
est towards the north and lowest to the south.
The roof is therefore sloping, slightly horse-
shoe-shaped, and is a foot or more below the
summit of the walls, thus affording additional
protection from cold winds. Entrance is given
by a curious low broad dormer window, also by
a row of holes below the eaves, which give a
happy effect of miniature arcading.

It is difficult to set aside the opinion that the
designer of this dovecote was a Scotsman who
had been in Southern France, or who had per-

haps received advice upon the matter from a
. 265

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

French visitor or friend; so strikingly does the
unusual style of roof remind us of those raised
againstthe mistral’s blasts. The lean-to, south-
ward-facing roof so often seen upon an oblong
Scottish dovecote, but sorarein England, gave
a welcome shelter in a land where chill winds
blow; but here we have one which combines
the shelter of the lean-to roof with the main
building’s rounded form.

The dovecote is a large one, the circum-
ference being sixty feet; massive in structure,
for the walls are four feet thick. The doorway
measures five feet high by two feet broad. In-
side are about five hundred nest-holes; also a
not uninteresting substitute for the usual pot-
ence, perhaps deemed too difficult of nice ad-
justment in a house which narrows markedly
as the walls ascend. There is a fixed post ris-
ing to the roof. Against it is secured a ladder
giving access toa large proportion of the nests.
Those at a still higher level are reached from
a shorter ladder fixed in the reverse direction
from that taken by the one below. In short, the
dovecote at Phantassieisone well worth seeing.

Following the main road for two miles or
266

HADDINGTONSHIRE

more, the railway ever on our right, we take,
directed by a finger-post, a lane which leads us
towards the Lammermoors and Spott. Spott
is a place with interests of more kinds than one.
From Doon Hill, just above it, David Leslie
once descended, ona wild Septembermorning,
to take part in Dunbar Drove. Witches were
burnt at Spott in 1705; and at this village, on
a Sunday just three centuries and a half ago,
the Reverend John Kello, parson of the place,
strangled his wife with a towel, hanged her on
the chamber wall in order to suggest the death
being due to suicide, and then, leaving the
manse and entering the church, preached calm-
ly to his waiting flock.

The dovecote, easily discovered, is a well-
kept, typical example; oblong and of two com-
partments. The doorways seem modern en-
largements, but theornamentalpillarsstanding
on the higher wall are probably original.

A short walk takes us to Dunbar, and if the
time is summer and the weather hot it is most
likely that an inn and tea will be the visitor’s
first thought, for we have covered many miles

to-day. But, naturesufficiently refreshed, there
267

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

is a dovecote close at hand that should not be
passed by. Leaving the High Street, let ustake
the turning marked as Edinburgh Road; keep
a look-out upon the left, or ask to be directed
to the Friar’s Croft, a piece of land which once
belonged to the old abbey of the place. Here,
rudely shouldered bya telegraph post, isa large
dovecote which is surely the ugliest in Scot-
land!

Ugly indeed, but curious; for it is an oblong
building, not, as usual, with a lean-to roof, but
one which slopes both north and south. More-
over, the ridge runs across, and not in thedirec-
tion of, the length. The slopes originally met
at a gable-ridge, still clearly to be seen. But at
some unknown period an extraordinary addi-
tion has been made. The ridge was ‘‘capped”
by an immense square-topped inverted wedge
of masonry. It was doubtless to support this
formidable addition of weight that there were
introduced within two massive arches, crossing
from side to side, and built of a greyer stone
than that of the main body of the house. The
lower ends of each arch take the form ofa well-

finished roll.
268

HADDINGTONSHIRE

The nests are to a large extent filled in. An
ordinary ladder gives access to most of them;
but, high in the gable-ridge and in the addi-
tion already described, there is a small potence,
carried by a beam which runsacross the house.

It is difficult to suggest an explanation of the
curious addition to this dovecote. It adds very
little to the accommodation; it is exceedingly
clumsy and top-heavy in appearance; and, as
seen by the introduction of arches, it called for
drastic measures for its safe support. There,
however, it is, defying conjecture, silently hid-
ing its strange origin.

If, in returning from Dunbar to Edinburgh,
we keepas far as possible besidetheintervening
stretch of iron coast, we shall soon come upon
a dovecote which is probably well known to.
many a visitor—that at Tantallon’s still im-
posing although ruined hold. Here, opposite
the castle’s entrance, in a field still guarded by
a ditch and mound, we find a fine old dovecote
of the oblong shape; placed but a stone’s-throw
from the edge of the sheer cliff on which Tan-
tallon stands, above the shore on which the
North Sea thunders without pause.

269

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

Simple and homely, the Tantallon dovecote
has a beauty of its own; for its old roof is grass-
grown, and upon its crumbling ‘string-course
blooms the gorse. It is of two compartments,
one still showing all itsnests intact, while in the
other only those which lined one wall remain.
Each chamber has an oblong opening in the
roof. The building is some five and twenty feet
in length by seventeen feet broad. A rather
unusual feature is that the two doors are not,
as usual, side by side, that of one chamber be-
ing at the end.

There is a good dovecote of similar form in
the neighbouring town of North Berwick, near
the station; another in a field below the Law;
but neither need detain us long. Passing west,
we come, after a walk of two miles, to Dirle-
ton,a really picturesque Scottish village, where
the old gardens of the castle, with a splendid
holly hedge as one of their attractions, should
be seen. The dovecote built into the castle’s:
garden wall is best viewed from the village
green.

It isa good example, circular, and buttressed

to a point some half-way up. There are three
270

Ts

ATHELSTANEFORD 2. DUNBAR
DIRLETON CASTLE 4. TANTALLON CASTLE

HADDINGTONSHIRE

Face p. 270.

aw

&

HADDINGTONSHIRE ©

string-courses, and a domed roof with central
circular entrance. Within are nearly nine hun-
dred nests, but no traces of a potence.

A continuation of the walk will bring us to
that heaven of the golfer, Gullane, and, pur-
suing the road across the links, we come in
time to Aberlady, half a mile short of which
is Luffness House. Here, just within the en-
trance-gate and forming a delightful ornament
to a close-shaven sloping lawn, is a very simi-
lar dovecote to the Dirleton specimen. It is
perhaps slightly less massive in build, has only
two string-courses, and a flattish domed roof
crowned by a small lantern whichis obviously
a later addition. Inside are five hundred and

fifty nests, with a potence slightly the worse
for age.

CHAPTER TWENTY
ONE
ELSEWHERE IN
SCOTLAND

MEGGINCH CASTLE, PERTHSHIRE

CHAPTER TWENTY
ONE |
ELSEWHERE IN
SCOTLAND

GATHERING into our concluding chapter a mis-
cellaneous collection of dovecotes from various
districts of Scotland, we will begin in the ex-
treme north by a visit to the island of Stroma,
lying off the north-east corner of Caithness.
Here will be found two examples of interest.

The firstisan old bell-shaped dovecoteoftwo
stages, standing near to Freswick House. It
is about twenty feet in height, has a circular
opening in the roof, and contains stone-built
nests which begin at a height of seven feet from
the floor. This, by the way, is in accord with
the advice of Waterton, who tells his readers
that the walls should be solid to a height of
six feet from the ground as a security against
the ‘Hanoverian rat.”

The second Stroma example is both inter-
esting and unusual; a now roofless building in
the middle of a graveyard on the south shore of
the island. It is rectangular, constructed ofgrey

275

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

flags, with sandstone quoins. The walls, some
thirty inches thick, are twenty-five feet long
by eighteen feet six inches broad, and twenty-
two feet high. There is a doorway with a bead-
and-hollow moulding in the western wall, and
another at a higher level on the opposite side.
On a stone in the south wall the date “1677”
is carved in relief.

The building is two-storied. The lower
chamber is vaulted, the vaulting rising from a
six-inch ledge two feet above the level of the
floor. This was quite clearly a burial-vault;
while in the chamber above are stone nest-
holes for pigeons. This curious combination is
quite possibly unique.

At Stenster House, near Bower, is a some-
what dilapidated dovecote, seventeen feet three
inchessquare, withaspanroofand crow-stepped
gable-walls. The walls, three feet thick, are
twenty-six feet high to the roof ridge;the nests
of stone.

Other Caithnessexamplesinclude abeehive-
shaped building in the garden of Dale House,
near Halkirk,withthreestring-courses,aheight

of seventeen feet, andadiameter of sixteen; and
276

STROMA ISLAND, CAITHNESS

FORSE HOUSE CAITHNESS

Face p. 276.

SCOTLAND

apairof eighteenthcentury dovecotesat Acker-
gill Tower, Wick, oblong, with lean-to roofs.
Calling for more detailed notice is the interest-
ing oblong dovecote of two compartments in
the “policy” of Forse House, Latheron. It is
twenty-eight feet long by sixteen broad, the
main wallbeing twenty-fivefeethigh. Thelean-
toroof isbroken intotwo planes half-way down,
twosetsof entrance-holesbeing placed beneath
the upper slope. The crow-stepped gable-walls
have balls as ornaments, while in the middle of
the higherwallisathistle. Finally, the arrange-
ment ofthestring-coursesis somewhat unusual,
there being threeonthemain wall, two upon the
sides, and one in front.

Now coming south as far as Forfarshire, an
unusual dovecote awaits us in the policies of
Pitmuies,a mansion near Guthrie. Isitperhaps
needful to inform the English reader that the
Scottish “policy,” or “policies,” is what the
southron calls a park? By a “grass park” the
Scotsman means a piece of meadow-land.

The Pitmuies dovecote stands among trees
beside the Vinny burn. The form of the main
building differs from many other Scottish ex-

277

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

amples only in being square instead of oblong,
the inside measurement of each wall being
twelve feet. The lean-to roof is of interest, be-
ing covered with large shield-shaped slabs of
stone. The dovecote is of stone, the high back
wall being rough-cast; this wall is fourteen feet
in height, the front onesixfeet less. The thick-
ness is two feet. The two side walls are corbie-
stepped, and round theback andsides is aledge
or string-course four inchesbroad. Ontheback
wall appears a shield with coat-of-arms, the
latter sodefaced thatthe ownerof Pitmuies has
so far been unable to decipher it. But the date
—1643—‘is clear.

The house is entered through the south wall
by a doorway with a pointed arch. Above this
doorway, just belowthe eaves, there is a row of
fifteen entrance-holes, divided from eachother
by stone slabs. Inside are about five hundred
nest-holes.

The most curious feature is the presence at
each end of the front wall of a small circular
tower, with a battlemented top rising slightly
above the loweredgeof theroof. Externallythe
towers are identical in form, each being lighted
278

SCOTLAND

by asmall glazed cruciform window. But while
the western tower is entered by a small door
from inside the main building and is lined with
nests, the otheris onlyaccessible by an external
door, has no communication with the dovecote,
and contains no nests,

That the designer should construct two
towers for the sake of symmetry is easy to be
understood; less obvious is his reason for con-
necting one with the main building and insert-
ing nests, while leaving theother emptyand cut
off. Thisdovecotethuspresentsus withanother
of those problems met with in our pilgrimage.

In Perthshire a single example must suffice
us—one which atones for youth by its unusual
shape. It is the first sexagonal dovecote seen
since leaving the Herefordshire mansion of
Foxley,and datesfromtheeighteenth century.
It stands in the courtyard of Megginch Castle,
near Errol,aseatofthe Drummond family. The
building is an upper story only, raised on six
pointed arches which enclose an open space.
The wide-eaved slated roof is of an ogee curve,
culminating in a point, above which isa ship as
weather-vane. The entrance forthe birds isbya

279

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

rowof holes, placed at thebottom ofa‘‘dummy” © |

window with a pointed top.

Pigeons are still the tenants of this most at-
tractive cote. About fifty pairs occupy it in the
breeding-season, reinforced bynew-comers to-
wards autumn, when, as the owner tellsus, wild
pigeons seem glad to take refuge from the at-
tacks of the numerous peregrine falcons then
on passage.

Coming to Fifeshire,wefindacounty stillrich
in dovecotes, though many have disappeared
since the close of the eighteenth century, when
the numberexisting is stated tohavebeen three
hundred and sixty. There was alocalsaying that
the usual possessions of a Fifeshire laird com-
prised ‘‘a puckle land, a lump o’ debt, a doocot,
and alawplea”—no veryrichinheritance. Two
of those still remaining shall be noticed hereas
being readily accessible.

The first is in the immediate vicinity of
Rosyth Castle, an old tower which, formerly
standing on a strip of land which was an island
at high water, has now been absorbed into the
vast enclosure of the new naval dockyard, and

looks forlorn enough, surroundedas it is by gas-
280

1. PITTENCRIEFF GLEN 2. DOUGALSTON, MILNGAVIE,
FIFESHIRE DUMBARTONSHIRE
3. ROSYTH CASTLE, FIFESHIRE 4. CORSTORPHINE, EDINBURGH

Face p. 280.

SCOTLAND

containers, giant cranes, and miles of granite
quays. But happily the dovecote stands on the
mainland in a little wood which slopes down to
the shore; and thevisitor canexamine andeven
photograph the building without risking liberty
or life.

It is an exceedingly interesting specimen,
rectangular in form, and covered with a ridge
roof formedoflargestoneslabs. Thegables are
corbie-stepped, and—a very unusual feature—
each ‘‘step” is itself gabled, forming what archi-
tects call a “gablet.”

Overthe door is averycurious ornament, re-
semblinga wide-spreading pair of buffalohorns,
but with the addition of a loop ineach such as is
seenin those of rams. The spreadis fartoo great
for them to be intended for the horns of sheep;
unless, indeed, the mason-artist drew on his
imagination, or upon his patriotic pride.

Our second dovecote stands at the top of
Pittencrieff Glen, Dunfermline, the publicpark
presented to the town by the late Andrew Car-
negie. It isa large circular building with a pro-
jecting cornice, above which the wallsare battle-

mented. There is a cupola upon the roof. Over
281

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

the pointed doorwayis awindow-slit in the form
of a Greekcross, on each side of which is aquat-
refoil opening, now blocked up with stone—if,
indeed, they were ever open. Inside the nests -
are made of wood; this fact, in spite of the quite
usual style of roof and cupola, make it permiss-
ible to doubt whether the tower was not origin-
ally intended foran outlook ratherthanapigeon-
house.

In Stirlingshire we will passover a good cir-
cular dovecote at Dunipace, near Denny, in
favour of something still better to be found at
South Bantaskine, a house on a hill-side two
miles from Falkirk. The house itself is not a
century old; andtheadjoining quarry whenceits
stone was taken has been turned into a most
charming water-and rock-garden, whereasmall
stone Cupid smiles upon the scene. But itis on
the lawn beside the house that we shall find the
dovecote, which was spared from demolition
when the former mansion was pulled down.

Itisan upperstory only, placed upon the arch
that formed the entrance to the former stables,
and is octagonal, with a fine ogee roof. In each

of its eight walls there is a pointed window;
282

SCOTLAND

“dummy” ones on every side except the south,
where holes giveentrance to the birds. On this
side there is also asmall dormerintheroof. The
interior, lined with oblong nests, isreached from
the archway by meansof atrap-door in thefloor.

Standing on shaven turf and backed by a
wide-spreading cedar, with clumps of rhodo-
dendrons and azaleas in full boom, this South
Bantaskine dovecote would be hard to match.
Andthelast neededtouchisgiven bythe snowy
fantail pigeons that for ever flutter round the
roof and windows, light the shadowy archway
with their graceful forms, or make a dazzling
contrast with the emerald of the sunny lawn.

Two Dumbartonshiredovecotes deservein-
spection. One occupies the middle of a field
at Dougalston, Milngavie. The shape is sexa-
gonal, the walls of stone, although the nests
are brick. The total wall-length is sixty-six
feet; the height to the eaves, where there is a
good corbel-table, twenty feet, and the thick-
ness two feet. There is a cupola upon the slat-
ed roof.

Each of the six walls, except that in which is

the doorway, is broken by a tall arched dummy
283

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

window, with another one of similar shape
above. The arches are rather, awkwardly cut
off from the main body of the windows by the
string-course that runs round the walls. But
the building is of striking appearance, and a

small defect in the design can be excused by . . .

the unusual shape. It probably dates from the
middle or latter half of the eighteenth century,
It should be noticed that a potence is in place.

Thesecondspecimenisintheyardat Drumry
Mains, near Drumchapel, and is a tall stone
building withhipped roof. Eighteen feet square,
it measures thirty to the eaves. About twelve
dozen nest-holes occupy the upper story only,
the room below being perhaps intended for a
larder or a slaughter-house. The walls are
three feet thick, the doorway large—eight feet
by three.

Drumry Mains was formerly held by Paisley
Abbey, and the dovecote has been stated to be
seven centuries old. This is a rather liberal
estimate, but the building is no doubt of ripe
old age.

Turning still farther towards the west and
south, we shall find that a dovecote makes part
284

ERWICKSHIRE

B

MERTOUN HOUSE,

284.

Face p.

SCOTLAND

of the still remaining portion of Crossraguel
Abbey, Ayrshire. It stands at an angle of the
outer walls, and is of very unusual form, the
main beehive-shaped structure being raised on
acomparatively smallround tower, partly over-
hung by what it carries. Inside there are about
nine hundred nests.

The county of Berwick offers several dove-
cotes of interest. Foremost of these is that
standing in the old garden of Mertoun House,
near St. Boswells, for upon its lintel is carved
the earliest date found on any Scottish example
—1576. Itisa large circular building of stone,
with three string-courses, and an open centre
tothe roof. The height to top of walls is thirty
feet,andthe diameter eighteen. The buttresses
have probably been added at a later date.

In the corner of a cottage garden near to
Chirnside church is a circular stone dovecote
sixty feet in circumference. There is a string-
course half-way up the walls. Round the central
opening in the vaulted roof isaspiked iron rail,
evidently intended as adefenceagainst thieves.

At Edington, a village in the Chirnside dis-
trict, isa large oblong dovecote of dressed eo

205

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

stone, with walls three feet thick, a tiled roof,
and crow-steppedgables. It stands in a market
garden, where may be seen some traces of a
former castle.

Here, then, our present quest must end.
Should this slight and imperfect survey of ex-
isting British dovecotes bring about an increase
of interest in these buildings, and lead to the
more careful preservation of the many which
now stand, forlorn, forgotten, and neglected, up
and down the land, then the chief object of this
little volume will have been attained.

INDEX OF DOVECOTES
DESCRIBED OR
MENTIONED

INDEX OF DOVECOTES
DESCRIBED OR
MENTIONED

Alphabetically arranged under Counties

FRANCE
Boos, near Rouen
Rouen (St. Ouen)
Varengeville, near Dieppe

ENGLAND AND WALES |

ANGLESEA

Llaneugraid
Penmon Priory

BERKSHIRE

‘Hurley (Ladye Place)
‘Streatley (Place Manor)

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Burnham Abbey
Clifton Reynes
Cuddington
Denham
Edlesborough (Church Farm)
Hanslope (Tathall End Farm)
Haversham
- Linford, Great
Newton Longueville
Notley Abbey
Stewkley
Whitchurch

CARMARTHENSHIRE
Kidwelly (Colman Farm)

CHESHIRE
Wilmslow

CorNWALL
Crafthole
Garlenich
Trevanion
Trevena

CUMBERLAND
Aspatria
Blencowe, Great
Bootle
Bromfield (Crookdale Hall)
Bunker’s Hill
Cockermouth
Corby Castle
Crofton
High Head Castle
Hutton-i’-the- Forest
Naworth Castle
Penrith
Plumbland (Parsonby Green)
Rose Castle
Wreay Hall

DENBIGHSHIRE
\
Holt Castle

DEVON

Buckland-tout-Saints

Powderham Castle

Pridhamsleigh, Ashburton

Stoke Rivers

Tamerton Foliot (Warleigh
House)

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

DORSET

Athelhampton Hall
Bingham’s Melcombe
Melplash Court
Piddletrenthide

DuRHAM
Gainford
EssEx

Bardfield, Great, near Braintree

Bocking (The Deanery)

Braxted Hall, Little

Castle Hedingham (Chelmshoe
House)

Farnham (The Rectory)

Gestingthorpe (The Moat)

Maplestead, Great (Dynes Hall)

Newport

Tiptofts

Wendon Lofts Hall

GLAMORGANSHIRE

Caerphilly (The Vann)

Oxwich

Port Eynon
GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Bibury
Daglingworth
Elkstone
Naunton
HAMPSHIRE
Basing House
HEREFORDSHIRE

Bodenham
Bollitree, near Weston
Bosbury

Cowarne Court
Eardisland

Foxley

Garway

King’s Pyon (Butt House)
Luntley Court

Mansel Lacy

Marcle, Much (Hellens)
Mordiford (Old Sufton)
Richard’s Castle
Sarnesfield

HERTFORDSHIRE

Cottered

Northchurch (Norcott Court)
Walkern Manor Farm
Wymondley, Little (Hall Farm

HUNTINGDONSHIRE
Fenstanton (Grove House)

KENT

Detling (East Court)
Farleigh, East

LANCASHIRE
Churchtown (Meols Hall)

LEICESTERSHIRE
Aston Flamville
Houghton-on-the-Hill

MONMOUTHSHIRE

Llanfair-Discoed
Llanthony
St. Pierre

NorFOLK

Hillesdon
Yarmouth

INDEX

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
Burton Latimer
Dallington
Denton
Harleston
Isham
Mears Ashby
Newton-in-the-Willows
Warmington

OXFORDSHIRE
Chastleton House
Clattercot, Banbury
Kiddington
Milcombe
Minster Lovel
Northmoor
Shipton Court
Stanton Harcourt

PEMBROKESHIRE

Angle (The Hall)

Caldey Island (St. Illtyd’s Priory)
Gumfreston

Manorbeer Castle

SHROPSHIRE
Aston Munslow (White House)
Bourton Hall
Broseley (Rowton Hal!)
Chetwynd House
Harley
Henley Hall
Hungerford
Llanymynech
Shipton Hall
Shrewsbury (Whitehall)
Thonglands
Ticklerton Hall
Tong Castle
Wyke (The Woodhouse)

SOMERSET

Camel, West

Dunster

Ivythorn Manor
Norton-sub-Hamdon
Pilton Manor

Stoke Courcy (or Stogursey)
Stoke-sub-Hamdon
Witham

SUFFOLK
Bury St. Edmunds

SURREY
Kingston-on-Thames

Sussex
Berwick
Charleston Farm
Lewes Priory
Treyford Manor Farm
Trotton

WARWICKSHIRE

Compton Wynyates.
Hillboro’
Kinwarton
Maxstoke

WESTMORLAND
Levens, Nether

WILTSHIRE

Collingbourne Ducis
Corsham (Jaggard’s)
Fyfield Manor
Lacock (Wick Farm)
Lydiard Millicent
Marlborough

Wilcot

BOOK OF DOVECOTES

WORCESTERSHIRE
Birlingham
Bretforton
Broughton Hackett
Cleeve Prior (Manor House)
Comberton
Cotheridge
Cropthorne (Manor Farm)
Dormstone (Bag End Farm)
Dunhamstead
Elmley Lovett
Fladbury
Hamstone
Huddington Court
Kyre Park
Leigh (Court Farm)
Littleton, South
Oddingley
Offenham
Ombresley
Overbury
Staunton Court
Wick ”
Wickhampton

YORKSHIRE

Barforth Old Hall
Darrington

Fulford Hall

Huntwick Grange
Leathley Manor
Marske-by-the-Sea
Monk’s Bretton
Rishworth (Upper Cockroft)
Rogerthorpe Manor
Sharleston Hall Farm
Snape Castle

Soyland (Kirk Cliff)
Stansfield (Eastwood Lee)

\

Wadsworth (Little Burlees)
Walton Hall

SCOTLAND

AYRSHIRE
Crossraguel Abbey
BERWICKSHIRE
Chirnside

Edington
Mertoun House

CAITHNESS

Bower (Stenster House)
Halkirk (Dale House)
Latheron (Forse House)
Stroma Island (2)

Wick (Ackergill Tower)

DUMBARTONSHIRE

Dougalston, Milngavie
Drumry Mains, Drumchapel

EDINBURGH AND SUBURBS

Corstorphine
Craigmillar Castle
Dalkeith (Sheriffhall)
East Morningside House
Hawthornden
Hermitage of Braid.
Liberton, Nether _
Liberton, Upper (2)
Ravelston House

FIFESHIRE

Dunfermline (Pittencrieff Glen)!
Rosyth Castle

FORFARSHIRE
Pitmuies

INDEX

FLIADDINGTON
Athelstaneford
Dirleton Castle
Drylaw Hill
Dunbar (Friars’ Croft)
East Linton (Phantassie)
East Linton (Preston Mains)
Gilmerton House
Longniddry (Farm)
Luffness
North Berwick (2)
Prestonpans (Northfield House)

Prestonpans (Preston Tower)
Prestonpans (2 in Brewer’s Yard)
Redhouse

Spott

Tantallon Castle

Tranent

PERTHSHIRE
Megginch Castle, Errol
STIRLINGSHIRE

Dunipace, Denny
Falkirk (South Bantaskine)

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