§ 37. It has been noted that there was occasionally an altar on the first floor of a tower. One still remains in place at St Michael Penkivel, near Truro, where the church was appropriated to a college of four chantry priests, and was rebuilt early in the fourteenth century. Certain indications have lately been found of another at Tansor, near Oundle: the conversion of this tower chamber into a chapel explains the otherwise pointless addition of a stair at the south-east angle of the tower, which seriously weakened the fabric. While the term 'priest's chamber,' as applied to the room over the porch, is by no means accurate, it is probable that such a room may sometimes have been used by a chantry priest, or as has been said, by the deacon who occasionally assisted the incumbent of a church. The most curious instance of a habitation in connexion with a church is at Terrington St John's, in the Norfolk marshland, where the tower stands at some distance west of the south aisle, and is connected with it by a two-storied building, divided into chambers. There seems little reason to doubt that this dark and uncomfortable, but moderately roomy structure, with the first floor of the adjoining tower, was occupied by the curate who served the church. It is well, however, to look askance on the usual traditions which have led, for example, to the confident statement that the porch chambers at Grantham were the vicarages of the two rectorial portions of the church. Statements, also, with regard to the defensive use of church towers must carefully be guarded against, with the proviso that, in certain districts, there are indications that such an use was made of them. In some of the churches of north-west Yorkshire, from the end of the twelfth century onwards, towers were built with a strength which indicates that they might become strongholds in time of warfare; and there is positive evidence that the tower of Bedale church, in a district much exposed to the inroads of Scottish invaders, was intended to receive on occasion a body of defenders. The same thing is true of fortified towers, like that at Newton Nottage, on the coast of South Wales. In towers, again, like those of Llywel and Llanfihangel-Cwm-Du in Breconshire, and Llanfair-ar-y-Bryn in Carmarthenshire, the external construction speaks clearly of the uses to which such towers might be put in time of war, while the strong barrel vaults of the ground floors, the ample planning of the turret stairs, and the presence in one case, till recent times, of a fire-place on the first floor, are further indications which support the idea.