Leaving Lincolnshire, we notice a Bedfordshire example, that of Clapham. Here the church has a massive Saxon tower, which possesses an exterior door at a height of twenty feet from the ground. There is no window opening in the lower portion. It is not an insignificant fact that this tower overlooked a ford across the Ouse, which was approached by an ancient road[285]. The striking position of the door at Clapham has many parallels. The old tower of Swanage parish church, Dorset, had no door lower than the second story, and access was probably gained by ladders, which could be afterwards drawn up if required. At Norton, Derbyshire, the doorway of the tower, which is supposed to have been erected about A.D. 1300, is six feet from the ground, and was formerly reached by an external staircase of stone[286]. Occasionally, the external door was absent altogether. This was originally the case at Rugby church, the tower of which could be entered only through the nave[287]. This tower, which dates from the fourteenth century, is of square outline, and is devoid of buttresses. Its loftiness is conspicuous, for it reaches a height of 63 feet. The windows are narrow, and the lowest is twelve feet from the ground. Consider, again, the little church of Swindon, near Cheltenham, with which the writer was once very familiar. The tower is of hexagonal shape, and the walls are thick and substantial. The only windows, a quarter of a century ago, were mere loopholes, splayed without and within, and placed near the top of the structure. A doorway on the North-East gave access to the tower; were this entrance blocked, one could only gain admittance by an exterior staircase on the West side.
Fig. 25. Oystermouth church, Glamorganshire, from the South-West. The tower is less lofty than is usual with the churches of Gower, but it has several “defensive” features. It batters from the base, and has the characteristic battlement. There are no buttresses, but a flat staircase-turret will be noticed. Except the debased West window, the openings are all of very insignificant size.
The defensive tower, however, is perhaps seen at its best in South Wales. In the district of Gower, in Glamorganshire, twelve out of sixteen towers are believed to have been erected as much for defence as for beauty; each is a stronghold as well as a campanile[288]. Generally these towers have no buttresses, and frequently, as at Oystermouth ([Fig. 25]), they “batter,” or slope a little from the base upwards. This battering is also met with in the castles of South Wales. Again, the towers have an overhanging embattled parapet, supported on corbels. Where exterior doors are now found, they are usually later insertions. The original doors, where they exist, resemble those of keeps in being situated some height from the ground. The tower, too, opens into the nave as often by a mere doorway as by a belfry arch. Instead of belfry windows, there are insignificant slits, and the rest of the wall is quite blank, and destitute of architectural or decorative features. In short, as Freeman expressed it, the essential military character of the towers is stamped on every stone[289].
The churches of South Pembrokeshire are not less remarkable. The study of these buildings is rendered more attractive because the area in which they are found corresponds roughly with the territory occupied by the non-Welsh folk of “Little England beyond Wales.” This fact may indicate a period of severe struggles between the English and Norman intruders and the earlier settlers, but not necessarily; since the Gower churches, at least, would have to be explained somewhat differently. The raids of the Norsemen upon the Pembrokeshire coast seem to have come to an end with the eleventh century; hence dread of inland foes seems to have caused the erection of these strong towers. Professor Freeman, who carefully investigated the Pembrokeshire towers, and who wrote a painstaking account of their architectural details, observed, “Every tower is a fortress, designed to hold out as long as Zaragoza or Sebastopol[290].” Anyone who has examined these churches, will, after making some deduction for the literary form of expression, be prepared to endorse this opinion. Take, for instance, the church of Gumfreston, near Tenby ([Fig. 26]), already known to the reader through its medicinal spring ([p. 95] supra). This sequestered church is built on the inner slopes of that high ridge which, on the North, overhangs the lovely vale of St Florence. Almost enclosed by trees, with whose foliage the ivy-wreathed tower quietly harmonizes, the tall fabric is approached unwittingly, so that, when the visitor reaches the gate of the churchyard, the
Fig. 26. Gumfreston church, near Tenby, Pembrokeshire, a building with a defensive tower.