The finest of the English spires now existing constructed of timber and sheeted with lead is that of Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, the highest, oldest, and most perfect. The stone tower with octagon projections at the angles, is 25 feet square and 65 high, standing free from the church to which it is attached by one angle only. The flèche itself is 85 feet from the eaves to the top of an enormous relic “pommel” some four feet in diameter, which is thus 150 feet in the air. The four octagonal projections carry large pinnacles 25 feet high, which at a little height disengage themselves wholly from the great flèche, but with consummate art all lean their axes inwards towards it as much as two feet. The wooden framing, carefully measured by Mr. Austin,[7] shows that this grouping of the lines was as much done from set purpose as the inclination of the lines in the Parthenon of which we hear so much. Each face of the leading has the rolls arranged in a double row of herringbone, and the faces of the pinnacles have the leading slanting in one direction only. Altogether it is a most interesting and most beautiful work of the thirteenth century. [7] _Spring Gardens Sketch Book_, vol. v. [Illustration: FIG. 11.--Spire, Barnstaple.] The drawing here given is of the fine old steeple at Barnstaple, which was saved from destruction by the good advice of Sir Gilbert Scott--and lack of funds! It is a delightfully careless and cheerful looking object, like that at Chesterfield, warped and nodding, which outrages the precise sensibilities of the townspeople; it was erected in 1389, as appears from the accounts and was repaired and altered in the seventeenth century (as shown by a date and initials, “1636 W. T.”), at which time the spire lights were opened out. The external bells are unusual in England. There are two other spires of village churches in the neighbourhood at Braunton and Swymbridge. The spires at Chesterfield, Godalming, Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, Wrighton in Northumberland, and Harrow (1481), are among the finest that remain. Of the destroyed church at Reculver the west towers, which are retained as landmarks, had lead spires. In some spires in Norfolk, about Cromer, two or three feet of the leading is omitted, thus forming an open band through which the timbering and a bell hung here may be seen. In some of the spires the lead is laid in vertical strips, as at Minster in Thanet, and a sketch given from a church in Hertfordshire shows the lower part in a way arcaded by an ingenious arrangement of the rolls. At great Baddow Church, Essex, vertical rolls run up about two-thirds of the spire, and the rest is plain. Generally, however, the lead work is arranged in herring-bone with careful irregularity and change so as to get a texture in the surface so different to the dead and dreary accuracy we should attain to. Low square spires at Ottery St. Mary are good examples of lead texture for those who see some beauty in the