A. O. Cooke The Pigeoncote

Somerset

Recrossing Devon into Somrerset we find ourselves on fruitful ground. Let us turn first to so well known and popular a place as Dunster, where is a dovecote which, besides being of considerable antiquity, is "beautiful for situation," while a tragic story clings to its old walls.

It stands in the garden of the ancient priory; a massive building, circular, and dating from the thirteenth century. The doorway is particularly worthy of notice. The building's height is about nineteen feet, and the diameter the same; the roof is covered with small slates. There are five hundred and forty nest-holes of varying and rather irregular shape. The potence also is in place.

The story above alluded to may best be quoted from the late Prebendary Hancock's Dunster Church and Priory. After describing the dovecote he goes on to say:

"A terrible tragedy is on record with regard to this dovecote. It is related that, when, one spring, it was full of birds, old and young (it would contain quite two thousand) some one shut up or forgot to open the window which gave the pigeons egress to find food for themselves and their young, and that all the occupants were starved to death."

An even finer tithe barn, with a stately entrance, buttresses, and narrow cruciform window-slits, is the near neighbour of the dovecote at the Manor House, Pilton. Both house and barn belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. The dovecote, standing in the yard, is a square stone building of no particular beauty, and is now attached to other buildings. The length is eighteen feet, the breadth some two feet less, and height to gable of the tiled roof twenty-five feet. Several hundred nest-holes are still seen within. This dovecote, like the one previously noticed, is buttressed. The suggestion that it is of very early date is confirmed by the good thickness of the walls - three feet four inches. One window faces south, another west. The doorway on the ground level is clearly a modern addition, the original entry having been by a small door placed high in the north wall, and doubtless reached by a ladder.

At Ivythorn Manor, Street, we have an oblong dovecote, measuring thirty and a half feet by twenty-one and a half. There is a gabled roof, the tiles on which have clearly been renewed in modern times. The whole north end has also been rebuilt, a barn-door being inserted, and the former nests removed. The three remaining sides contain nests to the number of over five hundred. The partitions between them are noticeable as being of a very porous limestone, known as "coral rag" and stated to be French. Ivythorn manor-house dates back for over seven centuries, but the dovecote is of less antiquity.

Another oblong dovecote occurs at Witham, near Bath. It formerly stood in the middle of other farm buildings belonging to Witham Priory, for it is mentioned in an inventory of the early part of the sixteenth century. Its old surroundings have now disappeared, a road runs through their site, and by this road the dovecote stands. Moreover, it has suffered drastic alteration as to purpose, being today the Parish Room.

It is a building thirty-one feet long by thirteen feet in breadth, with a height of twenty feet to the high-pitched roof. The roof is newly tiled, but still retains its ancient timber-work. The walls are three feet thick and are supported by four buttresses. The ancient doorway has now disappeared. The still remaining nests are of the orthodox L-shape.

There is an unusual internal feature for which it is difficult to account with any hope of certainty. This is a ledge or "drip" which runs all round the inside surface of the walls, four feet six inches from the floor. The suggestion has been made that it was meant to carry a wheeled staging to and fro across the house - a means of access to the upper nests. This seems hardly likely, such arrangement being unknown elsewhere.

A certain mystery attaches to the next dovecote on our list. This will be found at Stoke Courcy - commonly called Stogursey - near Bridgwater. It stands on sloping ground east of the church, in the yard of Priory Farm. It is of stone and circular, the walls being three feet thick, the internal diameter about fifteen feet, and the height to the eaves eighteen. The cone-shaped roof is thatched.

A modern floor divides the building into two stories, the upper one being reached by outside stone steps. A window in this upper story faces east, that in the lower looking towards the church.

The accounts received of it are somewhat discrepant. First comes a clear little woodcut, printed in a magazine some years ago, in which it is described as the "monks' barn" - an obviously erroneous account of a building at once circular and small. Then follows a correspondent who, while not supporting this theory, suggests that it was always what it is today; namely a store-house, or, as an alternative, a "game kitchen."

But doubt is seemingly dispelled by the present tenant of the farm, who, in a description of the building which is both minute and clear, states that though many of the original nest holes are blocked up, some still remain and others can be traced. They had an entrance six or seven inches square, and enlarged inwards.

This seems conclusive, and the Stogursey dovecote is, in consequence, entitled to admission here.