Towers of the Marches T


ravel round Britain, and you


see regional differences between the


churches. Tink of flushwork in Suffolk or the Herefordshire School of Romanesque, for example. In what was for hundreds of years known as Montgomeryshire, but is now subsumed into Powys, a number of church towers feature two-stage timber belfry stages capped by pyramidal


tops. Tese


erections are oſten described as Montgomeryshire style timber-framed belfries; one suggestion is that owing to a shortage of good building stone locally, prevents


the bells


their use from


shaking poor-quality masonry. 1 2


Two good examples of the genre


can be seen at Llanidloes (1) and Kerry (2), where the towers are usually described as fourteenth century. Dendrochronology gives a date of c.1593 for the timber used for the belfry at Llanidloes. Te tower at Betws Cedewain (3) was constructed around 1520, and here the belfry stage may be contemporary. Tis design spills over into surrounding areas like Shropshire, with good examples at Clun (4) and More (5).


ND 3


4 16 ■ newdirections ■ June 2014


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