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FIG. 4. NEWTON NOTTAGE CHURCH; PRIEST'S DOOR.

all probability the support for a temporary wooden platform; while the splayed and moulded battlement

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coping-stones (Fig. 10), now laid flat, would, when placed on their natural bed, form a moulded and weathered battlement coping to the early flat-roofed tower. It will be noticed that these stones have "slots" about

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4 ins. wide, cut through their outer moulding (Fig. 11). The writer would suggest that these slots were intended to receive wooden uprights; hence having regard to the large corbels before referred to, a fairly correct hypothesis showing an outer defence to the east is obtained from which it will be seen that an archer stationed on this platform, himself protected, could command the body of the church with far greater ease than if standing behind the battlement (See Fig. 12). As some corroborative evidence to this theory, the opening on the east tower wall appears to indicate a

SECTION OF

PARAPET

SHOWING

THE PROBABLE ORIGINAL INTENTION

Fig. 11.-Newton Nottage Church.

way of access to the platform, as on the inside there is a large projecting corbel or "step-up" to this opening from the floor below; which tends to show that this was not only used as a window, but also as a means of egress. There are no traces of corbel stones to the west, the louvred opening into the belfry is modern.

Viollet-le-Duc, in his Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture, vol. vi, gives several illustrations of almost identical methods of outer defence adopted in France during mediæval times. If the reader will compare Le-Duc's illustration with Fig. 12, he will at once see the similarity which exists, especially with regard to the great corbels at Newton. Another

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FIG. 2.

NEWTON NOTTAGE CHURCH, WEST TOWER.

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