with slender marble pillars to the
windowes; and just so the church of Glastonbury Abbey, and Westminster
Abbey. Likewise the architecture of the church at Bishop's Cannings is
the same, and such pillars to the windowes.
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At Calne was a fine high steeple which stood upon four pillars in the
middle of the church. One of the pillars was faulty, and the
churchwardens were dilatory, as is usual in such cases. - Chivers,
Esq. of that parish, foreseeing the fall of it, if not prevented, and
the great charge they must be at by it, brought down Mr. Inigo Jones
to survey it. This was about 1639 or 1640: he gave him 30 li. out of
his own purse for his paines. Mr. Jones would have underbuilt it for
an hundred pounds. About 1645 it fell down, on a Saturday, and also
broke down the chancell; the parish have since been at 1,000 li. Charge
to make a new heavy tower. Such will be the fate of our steeple
at Kington St. Michael; one cannot perswade the parishioners to goe
out of their own way. [In another of Aubrey's MSS. (his "Description
of North Wiltshire"), is a sketch of the tower and spire of the church
of Kington St. Michael, shewing several large and serious cracks in
the walls. The spire was blown down in 1703, its neglected state no
doubt contributing to its fall. The following manuscript note by James
Gilpin, Esq. Recorder of Oxford (who was born at Kington in 1709), may
be added, from my own collections for the history of this, my native
parish.
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