This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...Saxon form but are usually internally-splayed loops with narrow outside apertures the head of which, after a fashion that is Roman and Irish and 1 The doorway at Kirkdale is really the west door of the church, not a tower door, but it is useful for comparison. Fig. 92.--Keyhole loop, west face of tower, Clce, ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...Saxon form but are usually internally-splayed loops with narrow outside apertures the head of which, after a fashion that is Roman and Irish and 1 The doorway at Kirkdale is really the west door of the church, not a tower door, but it is useful for comparison. Fig. 92.--Keyhole loop, west face of tower, Clce, Lincolnshire. Height, 2 ft. 8 in. Norman as well as Saxon, is cut out of a single stone. One particular form of aperture has received the name of' keyhole' from its form shown in Fig. 92. It occurs in the same district as the doorways last mentioned, but it is found also exceptionally in Oxfordshire, where the aperture in some midwall slabs in the centre of double-splayed windows in the tower of Langford church has the same outline. (F) On entering the tower our attention is directed first to the arch opening from its ground story into the body of the church. This is generally, but by no means always, of lofty proportions, and it seems to have been always in old times open and not closed by a door. There is an exceptional arrangement at Leathly, near Otley, Yorkshire, in a tower which lacks the distinguishing marks of the present type, the double belfry openings, and should only be included doubtfully in any pre-Conquest list. Here there is no tower arch but a doorway 3 ft. 4 in. wide, closed with an iron-bound door, the sill of which is 3 ft. from the floor of the church. There is an external western door to the tower but it is doubtful whether it is original. These points are of significance in connection with the question whether these early towers were used like the Irish round towers for purposes of defence. It may be said generally that there is not the smallest actual indication of such a use. Since half the towers have western doorways to the e...
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