The

the honour of being the place of religious assembly of the people, which formerly belonged to the church alone. The numerous prehistoric remains in the neighbourhood indicate the early period at which the locality must have been inhabited. The churchyard is situated on the edge of a prettily wooded valley, at the bottom of which runs a mill stream. On the opposite side of this valley, but at no great distance from the church, is an ancient tumulus. The proximity of places of Christian worship to Pagan remains is by no means uncommon, and calls for a few words of comment. neighbouring church of Rudbaxton may be cited as another striking instance, being built within one hundred yards of a large barrow. The early Christian missionaries to this country were doubtless guided by the same judicious tact which enabled St. Paul to seize upon the altar to the unknown God, and by means of skilful oratory to persuade the people to transfer their feeling of veneration (which was in itself good) to a more worthy object. The introducers of Christianity into this country therefore did not wantonly destroy every remnant of Paganism, but stamped them with the symbols of the new religion, thus utilising all that was good in the old faith. In Brittany, at the present day, may be seen the lichen-covered cromlech, surmounted by the cross of Christ, ever bearing witness to its triumph over heathenism. Facts such as the above are well deserving of the careful consideration of the archæologist. It often happens, for instance, that stones bearing ogham inscriptions have crosses carved on them, and what has been said previously shows that it is quite possible that the Christian symbol was added subsequently to the cutting of the inscription. If the cross does not evidently form part of the original design, it is probably of later date, and if it interferes with the original design (as when cutting through an inscription), it is almost certain to be more recent.

Having now briefly touched upon the peculiarities of the situation of Camrose Church, let us proceed to

discuss its architectural features. Mr. Freeman advocates the thorough examination of the exterior of a building before venturing to pass judgment on the interior. The one being, in fact, what mathematicians call a function of the other. The churchyard gate lies to the north, from which point we may obtain a good coup d'auil of the whole structure, and then, walking round it sunwise, note its details more minutely. The great length of the building is very remarkable, being 114 ft. from east to west, and this peculiarity is increased by the absence of aisles or transepts. However, the monotonous appearance of the main body of the church probably contributes to the pleasure with which the eye rests on the picturesque old tower at the west end. Surmounting its embattled top a gigantic wooden weathercock stands out boldly against the clear sky, and just below the parapet a broken gurgoyle, quite in keeping, glares with his one remaining eye to warn the unwary of the torrent of water that the next rainy day will enable him to belch forth on their unsuspecting heads. The tower is 12 ft. square at the base, and 40 ft. high, and abutting against the north-east angle is a polygonal stair turret, one side of which has a very considerable batter. But since the main tower does not taper towards the top, and the line of intersection of the stair turret with it being made vertical, the result is that one of the sides is a skew surface. The form of this surface may be readily realised by holding a sheet of paper, so that one edge is vertical and the other sloping, when it will be found that instead of being flat, as before, it will be slightly hollowed in the middle. When these skew surfaces occur in architecture (as for instance in the well known ploughshare vaulting of the apse of Westminster Abbey), they are proof of a want of knowledge of solid geometry, and it will be found that they entirely disappear in the later work. In the present case, this effect, though difficult at first to detect, undoubtedly gives a very quaint look to the tower, which it would be difficult otherwise to account

for. It may here be remarked, in passing, what a great variety of outline has been produced in the different Pembrokeshire churches, by altering the position of the stair turret in relation to the bell tower, against which it abuts, and then again by varying the position of the bell tower in relation to the main body of the building. And in addition to this, the stair turret may be rectangular or many-sided. The commonest plan is to make the staircase at one of the angles of the bell tower in the thickness of the walls, which is accordingly here increased by rectangular projections. When the stair is not built within the walls, the turret containing it is usually polygonal outside, to correspond better with the circular form of the inside, and thus economise masonry, and add to the beauty of its form at the same time. The tapering of one or more of the sides of the tower is a marked characteristic of the Pembrokeshire churches. After examining a few of these old buildings, it will soon be found that it is the constructive features, such as we have described, which influence the general appearance of the work far more than any quantity of On every work of man, from the rude flint flake of the prehistoric man to the most elaborate productions of Greek art, the human intellect leaves its unmistakable traces. Hence the pleasure experienced in placing one's mind en rapport, so to speak, with that of the architect of any old building, and following out the train of thought by which he was led to adopt this or that artifice to overcome any difficulty that might beset his path. It is thus often easy to detect the feebleness of modern work by applying to it a similar test, when it will be found impossible to trace out any original train of ideas, by which the author of the design has arrived at his conclusions, and consequently that the chief characteristics of the old work, honesty of purpose and skilful artifice, are conspicuous by their absence.

mere ornament.

But to return to our inspection of the exterior of Camrose Church. A few years ago there was in exist