of the tower is partitioned by a transverse wall into an eastern and western porch and upper chamber. It is therefore indisputable that the tower at Deerhurst was more than a bell-tower. Deerhurst was an important monastery: the size and plan of the church were exceptional; and the upper floors of the tower may have been used for special purposes in connexion with the monastic services. One may hazard the suggestion that the room on the east side of the first floor was used by the monk whose turn it was to keep night-watch in the church: the spy-hole in the east wall seems to afford ground for this. It has been suggested that the second floor chamber--and, like it, the first floor chamber at Brixworth--was used as an oratory by the lord of the manor and protector of the monastery; and this is possible, if the importance of the lord of the manor in connexion with early parish churches is taken into account. Almery-like recesses in the wall are found in this chamber at Deerhurst: such recesses, where they are found by themselves, as in the tower of Skipwith in Yorkshire, suggest little and prove nothing, and at Deerhurst no positive reason for their use can be given. In some medieval churches there are traces of altars on the upper floors of towers; and it is possible that such altars may have existed at Deerhurst and Brixworth, and the windows pierced in the wall behind them may have been given special decorative treatment. The western stair-turret at Brixworth was probably constructed for the sake of the important first floor chamber. Three other examples of a circular stair-turret projecting from the western face of a tower are found, one in Northamptonshire, two in Lincolnshire; but in none of these are there any indications of a particular use for the first floor of the tower. The only example of a spiral stair or vice built in an angle of a pre-Conquest tower is at Great Hale in Lincolnshire, and is a rude piece of work. Until the introduction of buttresses, the newel stair in the angle of the tower was uncommon. A ladder from the floor of the tower served for access to the upper stages. In rare instances, as at Kirkburn in the east riding of Yorkshire, a stone stair was built against the inner walls of the tower as far as the level of the first floor. Where angle-staircases have been added to early Norman towers, as at Tansor in Northants or in the central tower at Coln St Denis in Gloucestershire, the abutments have been seriously weakened.