Page images
PDF
EPUB

window, the window on the west face, immediately above the one in the basement, being similar in every respect, and still bears a trace of antiquity, for all the barbarous treatment it has been subjected to. The opening in the north face has been treated with more consideration. It is of greater antiquity than any of the openings in the tower, being a rectangular slit, 12 in. wide and 3 ft. 6 in. high, the outside quoins of which are of Barnack stone (?), but internally, alas! the opening has not escaped the hands of the modern bricklayer; being once heavily splayed to the extent of 3 ft. 2 in. in width, it is now filled in square with red brickwork. As to the third window, it has entirely passed away, the aperture having been enlarged to form a doorway, which is in connection with a modern circular stone staircase built on to the outside of the tower; this staircase being for the purpose of getting into the second storey of the tower. With reference to this staircase I shall have a word or two to say shortly. The height of the second storey is 13 ft. 4 in., although Buckler states it to be 12 ft. 6 in., which may have been the case, alteration and restorations since then having been the order of the day.

Ascending now to the second stage, or floor, one finds that the ruthless hands of the destroyer have been exceedingly industrious here. In 1856 Buckler states "the top or belfry storey is but 6 ft. 6 in. in height, and contained the remains of four windows, one on each face, and all similar, being heavily splayed on the inside." Half of these windows only remain, being shortened when the upper part of the tower was destroyed; there are no stones or arches across the openings to connect the walls; they appeared always to have been of larger dimensions than those on the lower storeys; in their present state they are 18 in. in width on the outside, spreading to 4 ft. 4 in. inside. By raising the roof of the nave, in the seventeenth century, the east window of the tower was enclosed; it now gives access, and admits air, to the timbers of the roof. At the present time a trace of one of these openings only remains. At a distance of 6 ft. from the floor of this storey is the last trace of the ancient walling, which is here only 3 ft. 6 in. in thickness, the set-off being on the inside; above all this is the restored part of the tower.

Since Buckler wrote, the only bell has been re-hung, on new timber framing. It is about 2 ft. in diameter, and having several coins of King Charles II's reign cast therein, with the following inscription in Roman capitals irregularly disposed in three lines:

"John and. Christopher: Hodson: made me : 1678

This bell was given by: Richard: Mulford: Sexton:
of this parish

:

And heare placed . TH: IL: then Churchwardens."

:

Externally, the tower now calls for few remarks from an antiquarian point of view, except that in general outline it bears the germ of antiquity.

The window openings on the west face are immediately above one another; between these two windows a Norman, or Early English grotesque head has been built into the restored flint work, in a similar manner to what one would see at the present day at St. Alban's Abbey. The opening in the north face was about half way up the original tower; it is just such a rectangular slit as one would see in the ruins of an early Norman castle, and may have performed the same function, as the splaying on the inside would admit of the free use of the crossbow. Throughout the external walling, and interspersed at intervals, are large pieces of stone, and consist of Barnack, sandstone, and clunch.

In the south angle of the tower, at the junction of the circular walling with the nave, and shown on the plan, is the circular stone staircase previously referred to. It was built at the time of the "restoration" of the church, in 1866, probably with the idea that it would be more convenient to get into the second storey of the tower from the outside. Previous to this abominable innovation, and for say nearly eight hundred years, the floors of the tower were probably approached by ladders from the inside, as exist at the present day in the towers before described, with the exception of Bardfield Sailing, which has a similar staircase of the fifteenth century, but approached from the inside of the tower, the effect of this incongruous innovation being to destroy the beauty and outline of the tower.

As to the date or origin of this tower, one can only

say that it contains considerable traces of Norman work. Whether it existed prior to the Norman period, or was built for the purpose of forming part of a sacred edifice, it is impossible to say; not a particle of evidence in this particular tower exists, so far as I can find, to speculate upon beyond the Norman period. I might, however, state that the tower is on high land, being about 200 ft. above sea level, from the summit of which a considerable area of country can be seen, especially that Essex mountain of London clay, the Laindon Hills. Neither must it be lost sight of that the distance of the tower from the river Thames is only about 3 miles. The record Wokendon-ad-Turrim is evidence of the existence of a tower in early times.

Summing up the results of my investigations so far on the six round towers of Essex, I must say their origin is still vested in mystery, there being little direct evidence to prove that they existed prior to the Norman Conquest, while on the other hand there is evidence to prove the existence of round towers in Saxon times (see remarks in previous papers). With reference to the round towers of Suffolk and Norfolk, from the geographical position they occupy, which is chiefly along the banks and mouths of rivers and estuaries, it appears evident they were not built with any idea of forming part of sacred edifices, their function probably being as towers of security and defence from the piratical invasions which were of such frequent occurrence in the days of the East Anglians.

In conclusion, I have to express my thanks to all those who have assisted me in this research, and to the Rev. Julius Rowley, the rector of South Ockendon, and the Rev. W. Warren, the vicar of Little Sailing, for the kind assistance they have given me in pursuing this investigation in their respective churches.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE RECENT

EXCAVATIONS INTO THE TUMULI OF THE

TROAD,

AND OF THE

HISTORICAL ANTIQUITIES OF SAMOTHRACE
AND PERGAMOS.

BY DR. PHENÉ, V.P., F.S.A., F.R.G.S.

(Read 2nd February 1881.)

If there is a district made reverend by classic lore, which should be, perhaps is, more esteemed by the British people than any other, which is more fit for the consideration of the British archæologist than any other spot out of Britain, it is the Plain of Troy.

Setting aside that only a few years have passed since our fleet, the rendezvous for which was in Besika Bay, carried through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, to the Euxine, British besiegers, who re-enacted in the Crimea a siege like that of Troy, and with a similar result, the classic history of Homer has permeated our language, inspired our poetry, infused bravery and noble honour into the youths of countless generations, and has been the great feature which has prevented the past from becoming a dead past, as the Greek language is vulgarly but most inaptly called a dead language.

As the last explorer of this revered area I have had the advantage of comparing the operations of all previous explorers with their results. I have been able to probe all their feelings, to follow in their footsteps, to examine their excavations, to inspect the exhumed relics, to exult in their discoveries, and in some cases to pause with surprise and regret at their reports. Uninfused, for the most part, with the spirit of the Homeric muse itself; uninfluenced by the Anglicised, and therefore more familiar way of putting things rendered by a Pope, a Chapman, a Gladstone, or a Derby, many have set to work, I fear, as mere handlers of the spade and pick, opuктŷpes, anxious less to illuminate history than to produce bric-à

brac. Often, in the repeated visits I have made to the Troad, have I found a once symmetrical tumulus reduced to a mass of tumbled earth,-reduced from the poetic picturesque by no niggardly expenditure of time and labour, the result of the research being reported by the explorer as barren of result; and yet from among that mass of heaped-up refuse I have extracted bronze ornaments, glass of the finest creation of the Sidonians, with less marked relics, but all illustrations of the history, customs, habits, and refinements of Trojans, Greeks, Phrygians, or Phoenicians.

How curtly even "Eothen", on his traversing the Plain, dismisses the very gods, mentions the Greeks only to assume that they lavished curses on the divine landscape, and the Trojans not at all. He comments on Homer's picture of Neptune viewing the siege from the summit of Samothrace, while I realised it by the ascension of the sky-piercing peak, saw the same landscape that the seagod viewed, and from the very "watch-tower of Neptune", and wandered amongst the remains that Diodorus records as established for exercising rites and mysteries. He condescends to mention Imbros and Tenedos. I traversed them both, and again and again the lateen sails of my laughing caïque crested the bright waves as I sailed to and from them and the Asian shore. Realising the advent from the not distant Tenedos of the "spotted serpents" (vessels probably so named, like the Scandinavian "snake" and "dragon" Vikings' galleys), and so bearing the priests of the Pythian Apollo to avenge an innovation in his worship by Laocoon.

He comments on the changed course of the Scamander, and wanders by its banks. I visited and revisited it, crossed it in a triangular boat, cared less for its courses, though interesting, than for its history, and saw in it a curious identity. Is there no mixing up the history of one people with the myths of another here? The siege of Scamander guarded Troy, and the encompassing of the Jordan guarded Jericho, with the fall of each on the completion of the allotted period. In each case there were concealed spies, the entrance of whom into either city caused its downfall.

Ilion was the first opposing city encountered on the

« PreviousContinue »