Towers like those of St. Mary-le-Wigford and St. Peter-at-Gowts, or of
Bracebridge, may be regarded, on the strength of their different quoining
and their lack of any bond with the fabric behind, as final additions to
churches which, in point of date, we have provisionally classified with
Stow. Not infrequently, the tower and church were built together without
afterthought, as at Winterton, where the ends of the nave walls still
remain in bond with the tower, enclosed within the spacious church of the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. If we attempt to classify
these towers chronologically, however, we may try several standards. The
relative height and width of the tower arch affords no criterion; this
seems to be varied at the fancy of local masons. Again, rude attempts
at moulding, like that at Nettleton, tell us nothing; the moulded tower
arch at Corringham is so out of keeping with the tower itself that it
can hardly be part of the original design; the wide arch at Harmston
is clearly a reconstruction achieved comparatively late in the twelfth
century. But the absence of through-stone masonry, the approach to the
system of rubble core and dressed facing, indicate a growing assimilation
to “Norman” methods. The tower at Waith has a facing of rough ashlar,
which is found in no other Lincolnshire tower of the type. Another
tell-tale sign is the appearance of herring-bone work, which Norman
builders used freely in the walling of their earlier castles, and
builders of the pre-Conquest period certainly used little, if at all. The
“herring-bone” masonry of the tower at Marton is identical in style with
that in the curtain-wall of Tamworth Castle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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