A NORMAN TOWER

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 14

A NORMAN TOWER

FALLING INTO DECAY AT BJJRY'

ST,-EDMUNDS.

'•''K-'-'Wffio go'oa-oid ■ town-'-of VBury St. Edmunds.". Mi-. JPickwick Had ,'his 'trying .• j experience in attempting ; to intercept the elopement of a young lady from- a fr6ai;Sing .school. Surely he thought less "of the-monastic ruins which are the cMefgpride~"oT'the:4own than of the JAigel 'where he interviewed Job Trotter, declares a ■• writerf.'in>the "Christian Science .Monitor..'''' It .remained for Car,lyle..ia;:v v !li ast, and .Present" to point to ■the.two gateways which, 'are still standing and say,;.; : "See-here .the ancient.massive Gateway, ofrarchitecture interesting to the eye of Dilettantism; and, farther pn,"that; other ancient •Gateway, now about to tumble, ; .unless Dilettantism in these very months, can subscribe money cramp it and prop it up." '■„ .Money found, and for many.years ;the Abbey Gateway, built 1337, and the Norman Tower, built 1090, have been ..almost "quite safe from the ravages of time. But the Norman Tower .recently began to show.signs of decay, and when investigation was made it was found that' it . had been, stripped of fits 1 lead .covering, ... "What enemy hath done this thing? None can say at present. But now, as before, money must be subscribed to ''cramp it and prop it," lest additional force be given to the question- of the Bishop Creighton, \Vho always asked when he^entered an English cathedral, "When did the Nojman Tower fall!" ,; This Norman Tower of Bury St. Edinunds"waa~ built by Abbot Baldwin to-1 ward the close of the eleventh: century. It rose immediately^"'"opposite ." the site of the western 'facade' 1 of the Abbey .Church;* and' in ■ appearance was not .'unlike the' I'keep of a Norman castle. •ItPhadi and has,' four stages. ; The '.lowest' stage is. pierced 1 with, an iarchway; rThe three other stages are enriched':witH- semi-circular arches of considerable sizd 1.."' All .thY work wasi'done with tKe;'axe and not .with the chisel. The \decay:- of time,-! and'the vandals who stole Jhe";lead, have wrought havoc on the Norman rTower.