Before quitting the English towers it is well to note that the strength of many of them was tested during the Civil War. In Devonshire alone, a number of instances can be brought forward. The Parliamentary troopers turned the towers of Powderham and Ottery St Mary into temporary fortresses, while the Royalists annexed those of Tiverton, St Budeaux, and Townstall[294]. In Wiltshire and Yorkshire, again, several churches were used as shelter for men and horses. Thorold Rogers asserts that the Royalists garrisoned the parish church of a Hampshire town, the name of which, however, he does not give, and, thus protected, withstood a siege and cannonade[295]. The reader will doubtless recall many instances in which tradition tells of church walls battered by shot and shell. Making due allowance for exaggeration, it must be admitted that folk-memory has a sound basis in fact, and some, at least, of the damaged buildings may be genuine illustrations of the effects of assault by artillery.
It is all but impossible to bid farewell to defensive steeples without some reference to the famous round towers of Ireland. The disinclination to ignore the subject is increased by the knowledge that these structures afford collateral proof of the defence theory. For the best instructed modern opinion pronounces them to be fortresses as well as belfries. These towers, which have been the cause of an abiding controversy, are typically tall and slender, and are surmounted by conical caps. Their height ranges roughly from about 60 to 125 feet. The number of examples still remaining is given as 76, and they are found exclusively in association with some early church, or with some ecclesiastical settlement. The usual position is near the North-West door of the church[296]. This fact alone indicates their connection with early Christianity. A typical round tower, somewhat restored, is that of Devenish, situated on an islet of the same name in Lower Lough Erne, county Fermanagh (Fig. 28). In the vicinity is the ruined priory of St Molaise, as well as several other ecclesiastical remains.
FIG. 28. Round tower of Devenish, on Devenish Isle, Lower Lough Erne, near Enniskillen. Height, 84 feet; doorway, 9 feet from the ground; walls, 4 feet thick. The windows approximately face the Cardinal Points. A string course will be seen around the base of the conical cap. ]