Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/125

 9* s. v. FEB. io, 1900,] NOTES AND QUERIES.

117

Wedgwood,' pp. 584, 585. I have example, of this ware in my small collection.

CHAKLES DKUIIY. Sheffield.

I believe they claim to possess a photo graph produced by Thomas Wedgwood (sor of the famous potter) at the Free Library Stoke - upon - Trent. Chambers (' Encyclo psedia,' vol. viii. p. 146) says :

" The honour of having been the first to produce pictures by the action of light on a sensitive surface is now generally conceded to Thomas Wedgwood an account of whose researches was published ir 1802 in the Journal of the Royal Institution, under the title 'An Account of a Method of copying Paintings upon Glass, and of making Profiles by th< Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver ; with Ob servations by H. Davy.' "

The misfortune was that no attempts made either by Wedgwood or Davy to prevent the uncoloured portions from being acted on by light (or, as we now say, to " fix " the picture] were successful. B. D. MOSELEY.

Burslem.

"PETiGREWE"(9 fch S. v. 49). As the editorial note suggests, this word is only an old form of pedigree. Possibly it here refers to the table of affinity, showing that a man might not marry his grandmother, &c., which til] lately was commonly hung in churches. The etymology of the word itself does not appear to have been settled. I would observe that Fitzherbert in his 'Surueyinge,' 1539, speaks in ch. xiii. of a "conveyance of descent in manner of a petie degre." He is advising the stewards of manorial courts to enrol the names of heirs in the records of the manor. The word seems to mean a "little step," because in a short table of descent the con- necting lines are drawn in the form of a step.

S. O. ADBY.

'jjtiutllmtam.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. The Church Towers of Somerset. By E. Piper,

R.P.E. Parts XIII.-XVI. (Bristol, Frost &

Reed.)

FOUR further parts of Miss Piper's admirable series of etchings of the church towers of Somerset have seen the light, and the task is now Hearing com- pletion. First among the new designs comes the church of St. John the Baptist, Frome, the tower of which, apart from the spire, is squat. A sense of its insignificance is, however, diminished, since a small part only of the large arid very ornate edifice is shown. Mr. John Lloyd Warden Page, in whose competent hands remain the descriptions, holds that the church will look better when another hundred years shall have mellowed the restorations which at present have all but destroyed the sense of antiquity in a church founded in 680 by St. Aid- helm, and still containing some few cajven stones

of Saxon workmanship. St. Philip's, Norton St. Philip, seven miles south of Bath, comes next. Though modern, its tower is remarkably curious and striking. Of the church as a whole, Freeman says that " it is eccentric from beginning to end." The tower he proclaims " one of the most irregular

ever seen one that some man had devised out of

his own head without reference to any other tower." One of the most interesting and beautiful designs in the work, so far as it has reached, is that of the fine church of St. Mary, Brutori, with its noble tower, one of the finest specimens of the Somerset Perpendicular architecture. This tower, ninety- three feet in height, is curiously contrasted with the short, plain second tower like itself in three stages, but only fifty feet high which exists over the north porch. The church is remarkable in many respects, being built on a slope, and having no east window. Other notable particulars are men- tioned by Mr. Page. Witham Priory has perhaps no right to a place in the -work, seeing that it has no tower whatever, nothing but a bell-gable at the west. Its quaint physiognomy and its historical interest alone justify its inclusion. A hideous tower built in 1832 has since, in a becoming fit of penitence, been removed. The church of St. John the Baptist at Glastonbury, with its lofty tower of 140 feet, ranks next in importance, according to Freeman, to Wrington and St. Cuthbert's, Wells. The lines and proportions are eminently graceful. There is not a lover of ecclesiastical antiquities in the kingdom who does not include Glastonbury among the objects of perpetual pilgrimage, and to whom this lovely church is unknown. In striking contrast with the church mentioned and, indeed, unlike Somer- setshire churches generally is the not far distant church of St. Michael, Somerton. In this the topmost stage is octagonal. The proportions of the tower of St. John the Baptist, Y eovil, are fine, cmt the impression left is less strong than in the case of other buildings of less pretension. The present instalment of the work ends with All Saints', Martock, with the exception of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, the finest, and perhaps the largest, parish church in Somersetshire. We must leave
 * he reader to peruse for himself all that Freeman

las to say concerning its claims upon admiration. Of the nave, however, he says that it "embodies i perfect design of a parochial nave of the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth cen- turies," adding that it is " a thing only to be found 11 England, and in this part of England." Each successive part on its appearance inspires us with onging^for the summer time, in which alone these places can conveniently be revisited. Mr. Page Jie quaintest due to the self-exaltation of Master Billie.
 * ives us many quaint mottoes from bells, many of

The Upper Norwood Atheiunim: the Record of the Winter Meetings and Summer Excursions, 1898-9. TS. again accord a welcome to the Record of this iseful little society, which has just completed its wenty-third season, and now numbers a hundred nembers. We are glad to see that last year's ambles were to places full of suggestion, and iclude not only well-trodden paths, but also less amiliar spots. It is pleasant, too, to notice that he ramblers found the clergy ever willing to tell he story of their churches. At the annual dinner be President, the Rev. Lord Victor Seymour, rged upon members the importance of retaining the