horse in the churchyard[443]. But the practice could not be stopped. Essex had an unenviable reputation in this respect, for Peter Kalm, in 1748, notes that in this county and in the part of Kent around Gravesend and Rochester, grazing the churchyard was customary. Horses, pigs, and donkeys, but especially horses, were pastured among the graves. The churchyard was also kept as a meadow for hay. Let the acts be reprobated to the uttermost, they could not be entirely brought to an end. During a tithe dispute between a Derbyshire prior and the parochial clergy, lambs and wool were placed in a church, and a free fight ensued[444]. This was before the Reformation, but if we turn to such a work as Mackarness’s edition of _Prideaux’s Churchwarden’s Guide_ (1895), we find a curious hesitancy in pronouncing definitely on a somewhat kindred matter. Should the parson “merely turn a horse or a few sheep into the churchyard to pasture therein,” the churchwardens may not feel called upon to interfere. But if he lets loose animals which turn up the soil, and profane the graves, or if, again, he converts the church-porch into a stable for his horse, he may rightly be censured[445]. The mounting-blocks already mentioned (p. 157 _supra_) show that these maxims must, in former times, have been indifferently followed in some parishes. Throughout the Middle Ages, there was prevalent another custom which is repugnant to modern ideas. This was the keeping of doves in or near churches. Most frequently, it is true, a separate structure seems to have been built to accommodate the birds, as at Garway, Herefordshire. The Garway dovecot, a fourteenth century building, would house 600 birds. Sometimes, as we have seen at Gumfreston (p. 115 _supra_), a portion of the tower was utilized as a pigeon loft, while again, as at Elkstone, Gloucestershire, a chamber was built over the chancel[446]. Incidentally, we may notice that the privilege of building a columbarium, or culver-house, as it was called, was confined to the lord of the manor, the rector, the heads of monastic houses, and freeholders. The existence of a culver-house is usually deemed a sign of Norman influence. The dovecot of Berwick, Sussex, shown in the illustration (Fig. 49), is doubtless several centuries old. A few Sussex culver-houses probably go back to the twelfth or thirteenth century, but such examples are generally in ruins. The Berwick dovecot can be traced back at least to the year 1622, when it was rented from the parson for five pounds a year.