Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/283

Rh indicates the site of the establishment in the parish of Bosbury, and persons now living remember the walls of the chapel standing within the moat. Their badge of a cross-patee you recognised on a sepulchral stone in the parish church.

"Of the other preceptory at Garway little more can he said. The foundations of extensive buildings may be traced; only one building of any antiquity exists on the site; this is a circular dovecot, of which I send you an external and internal drawing. Whether this can be assigned to the Templars may admit of a doubt. The builder had no intention of leaving us in any uncertainty, for he placed on the tympanum of the south doorway an inscription with a date. Unfortunately the stone is of so perishable a nature that little of the inscription can now be deciphered. The abbreviation DNI, and the Roman numerals MCCC are distinguishable; but what decimals follow I am unable to discover. (See Woodcut in following page.)

"The wall is of stone, and four feet in thickness, with twenty-one ranges of holes for pigeons. The holes are made wider within the wall by cutting away the stones which form the surface. On inserting the hand into one range of holes, they would be found to open to the left, while the range above would be reversed. The building is further strengthened by a course of solid stone between every two ranges. The house is covered by a vaulting of stone, presenting a concave surface internally and externally. A circular opening in the centre of the vaulting affords the means of ingress and egress to the pigeons, while two doors, at the north and south, give the same facilities to unfeathered bipeds. The noble owner (Lord Southwell) has recently substantially repaired the wall, but it is very much to be desired that the roof should be replaced, for the concave form of the vaulting facilitates the effects of the weather, and allows the rain to find its way freely through the vaulting.