J. M. Neale.
THE TOWER
When the Vicar and the Squire met on their way to church the following day, the conversation of the previous evening was thus resumed:—
"You will, I am sure, agree with me," said Mr. Ambrose, "in regarding the church spire as ever teaching outside the building the same lesson that the open timber roof, as you so truly said yesterday, is teaching inside. It is always pointing the thoughts of thoughtful men up above the earthly temple."
"Quite so; and, as is the case with many other great teachers, the earthly fabric has, I believe, in both these cases, a very humble origin; for as the grandest cathedral roof is but a development of the simple tent which formed the early habitation of the once rude inhabitants of this and other countries, so has its lofty and elegant spire gradually raised itself from the low and unpretending roof which covered in the towers of our earliest parish churches.
"I am inclined myself to think that, as a matter of taste and beauty, no church tower is complete without a spire in some form[193], and it is a question whether, in every case, the tower was not at first built with a view to such an ornament. The termination with a flat or only embattled cornice does not harmonize well with pointed architecture; the spiral form seems to me the only appropriate termination; and, as you say, the symbolic teaching of this part of the building depends upon it. And yet, though it may almost seem a contradiction to what I have said, the spire always needs some object for the eye to rest upon at its summit. The time-honoured weather-cock which every body knows to be the emblem of watchfulness, seems by far the most convenient and suitable, though I am aware that other forms—such as a dragon, and a boat—are fixed to the summits of some spires."
"We do not generally succeed well," said Mr. Ambrose, "in our imitations of the Norman style of architecture. Its extreme massiveness, on which so much of its beauty depends, renders it very costly; and if this is abandoned, as it often is, for the sake of saving expense, and only the details of the style are copied, whilst the walls are thin and unsubstantial, the building has always a mean and cardboard appearance. But where the style is faithfully carried out, it is a matter of surprise to me that the round tower is not more often adopted. It harmonizes so well with the semi-circular arches and the apsidal termination of the chancel. We have, you know, many splendid examples of such towers[194]. It is true, indeed, that the architects may in some cases have adopted this form, in places where there was difficulty in obtaining the stone required for the corners of a square tower, as being the most convenient for a building composed of flint only; but that they did not always choose this form as a mere matter of convenience, and not for its own peculiar beauty, is evident from the fact that in the construction of some round towers not only flint, but also stone, is largely employed. The objection to these towers, founded on the supposition that they are not adapted for the use of bells, may, I think, be easily met by a little constructional arrangement of the interior of the belfry."