ious members
of the Dunce family. This family, once great and powerful, whose great
house stood hard by on the north of the church--only the terraces of
which remain--is now, it is believed, extinct. The vicar thought that
he might be held responsible for the dilapidations of this old
chantry; so he pulled it down, and broke all the marble tombs with
axes and hammers. You can see the shattered remains that still show
signs of beauty in one of the adjoining barns. Some few were set up in
the tower, the old font became a pig-trough, the body of the church
was entirely renewed, and vandalism reigned supreme. In our county of
Berks there were at the beginning of the last century 170 ancient
parish churches. Of these, thirty have been pulled down and entirely
rebuilt, six of them on entirely new sites; one has been burnt down,
one disused; before 1890 one hundred were restored, some of them most
drastically, and several others have been restored since, but with
greater respect to old work.

A favourite method of "restoration" was adopted in many instances. A
church had a Norman doorway and pillars in the nave; sundry additions
and alterations had been made in subsequent periods, and examples of
Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of architecture
were observable, with, perhaps, a Renaissance porch or other later
feature. What did the early restorers do? They said, "This is a Norman
church; all its details should be Norman too." So they proceeded to
take away these later additions and imitate Norman work as much as
they could by breaking down the Perpendicular or Decorated tracery in
the windows and putting in large round-headed windows--their
conception of Norman work, but far different from what any Norman
builder would have contrived. Thus these good people entirely
destroyed the history of the building, and caused to vanish much that
was interesting and important. Such is the deplorable story of the
"restoration" of many a parish church.

An amusing book, entitled _Hints to Some Churchwardens, with a few
Illustrations Relative to the Repair and Improvement of Parish
Churches_, was published in 1825. The author, with much satire,
depicts the "very many splendid, curious, and convenient ideas which
have emanated from those churchwardens who have attained perfection as
planners and architects." He apologises for not giving the names of
these superior men and the dates of the improvements they have
achieved,