Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/23

Rh The report of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, from which Miss Lega-Weekes quotes, was made subsequently to the publication of my paper, and I therefore had no opportunity of referring to it, but I may now say, after reading it, that in the main its details accord with those I have given, though several of some significance are omitted. But in the matter of the two roof principals, which are therein assigned to the 14th century, and said by me to belong to the 15th, I should like, without being too positive as to my correctness, to draw attention to an important paper in the Archæological Journal (vol. lxxi. pt. 4) by Mr. F. HowandHoward [sic], A.R.I.B.A., on timber roofs, in which he gives,—in Figs. 17, 18 and 19,—examples of fifteenth century arch-braced west-country roofs, which show a very close similarity to that of this building. In the same footnote quotation from this Report (p. 237), Miss Lega-Weekes has accidentally given east part of the house' in mistake for west'; and she quotes 'oak-panelling ' as being therein mentioned as a 14th century detail, which I think is also a mistake, as I cannot find any passage in the Report that either states or implies this.

As to the stone-arch of the 'back doorway,' it should be noted that I also pointed out that it was of earlier date than the 15th century alterations.

6. —Genealogists are often puzzled and sometimes led astray by their inability to reconcile evidence taken from Parish Registers with data gleaned from other sources. In early days various methods seem to have been adopted by incumbents for entering up their registers. Some entered the particulars immediately after the ceremony had taken place; others seem to have done it periodically from rough notes, and some from memory—a very unsatisfactory procedure. From the fact that some entries have been cancelled we can only conclude that the entry was made before the ceremony. At Ottery St. Mary, during part of the 17th century, it was the practice of the Clerk to make the entry in a skeleton form and for the officiating clergyman to fill in the names, &c. This is evident from the fact that a number of entries are, in the main, in the same hand with blanks filled in by another