Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH ARCADE OF NAVE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM THE NORTH TRIFORIUM.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BAY OF THE TRIFORIUM, SOUTH SIDE.]

The #South Aisle# is much more elaborately decorated than the north.

Along the south wall runs a fine Norman arcade, the arches ornamented with billet and cable moulding. The window in the western bay is the original Norman one; the others were altered either in Early English or Decorated times, and are now filled with modern tracery in the Decorated style designed by Mr Ferrey. In the third bay is a holy water stoop, and in the fifth a large aumbry or recess, entered by a door; in this used to be kept the bier and lights used at funerals. Along the walls of each aisle runs a stone bench. There is no arcading on the wall of the north aisle. The vaulting of both aisles is Early English, dating from the time of Peter, the third prior, who, as previously stated, built the clerestory. The tracery of the north aisle windows is transitional in character between Early English and Decorated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MONTACUTE CHANTRY.]

The #Transepts# are much enc.u.mbered by modern pews and galleries, and it is only by careful examination that much of the beautiful work that they contain can be seen. The arch opening from the south aisle into the transept is Early English, and the skilful junction of Early English and Norman work at this point is deserving of attention.

This transept was at one time covered by a stone vaulting, which was destroyed at the latter end of the eighteenth century and in the beginning of the nineteenth. Some of the bosses taken from this may be seen, piled up with the old font and other fragments, at the west end of the north choir aisle. The west wall of the transept contains a Norman window. A doorway into the slype remains in the wall, and communicates with a wall pa.s.sage. At the eastern side of the transept an arch opens out into an apsidal chapel, but pews block up the entrance. This chapel has been so completely restored that it has a thoroughly neat and modern appearance, and has lost all its archaeological value; round it runs a Norman arcade, and on the north side an aumbry may be seen. The north transept retains its Norman arcading, which, fortunately, has not been touched by the restorer's hand; how long it may escape is doubtful, as it is much mutilated. Still, as it is simply decorative, and not necessary for the stability of the wall, it would be well to leave it untouched, as genuine old work, even though it may have suffered at the hand of time or of former generations, is, from a decorative point of view, infinitely preferable to any modern reproduction. There are two small windows in the west wall to light the wall pa.s.sage to the clerestory, which is reached by a gallery running across the base of the north window. In the north wall, behind the back of the pews, is a thirteenth-century recess. From this transept access is gained to the circular staircase leading downward to the crypt and upward to the small chamber above the eastern chapels. This is popularly known as Oliver Cromwell's harness room, and marks are shown on the wall supposed to have been holes for the insertion of pegs whereon he hung his harness; but as the Protector never came to Christchurch, all this is purely mythical. On one of the walls Mr Ferrey, the architect, found a design for a window; this he copied, and used when designing the tracery of the window he inserted over the prior's door at the east end of the south aisle of the nave. This tracing chamber is lighted by a two-light window with a quatrefoil in the head in the eastern wall. The two chapels below are beautiful examples of transition work from the Early English to the Decorated style; they were built by the De Redvers, Earls of Devon, the last of whom died in 1263. The eagles of the Montacute and Monthermer families appear in this chantry. There are two windows in the eastern wall. The larger, on the north, consists of three lights, with three circles in the head; the foliation of these outside the gla.s.s forms cinquefoil openings; the smaller window is of a similar character, but consists of two lights only, with a single foliated arch above them. An archway, widely splayed, on the western side, opens into the transept, and another archway opens into the choir aisle; this has a panelled pier, standing a little apart from the eastern side, designed to support the arch, which probably was found to be giving way. The shafts along the eastern wall, the capitals of one of which is carved with a number of heads said to represent the twelve apostles, should be noticed; the vaulting ribs are also interesting, especially the joggled ribs seen over the window. A stone altar stood in one of these chantries until 1780. These chapels are sadly disfigured by a mean staircase which leads into the transept gallery; it is devoutly to be hoped that before long this may be removed, and the exquisite beauty of the chapels seen without any inharmonious and irritating feature such as this staircase undoubtedly is. Below the transept is an Early Norman crypt; it is thought by some, from the rudeness of the work, that it may be of earlier date than the existing church, and that it belonged to the original church which Flambard destroyed to make room for his more splendid edifice. In it were discovered a number of human bones, which were reinterred in the churchyard. It has a plain barrel roof, divided by broad flat arches rising from pilasters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORTH AISLE OF NAVE.]

It has often been debated whether or not the church ever possessed a central tower. There is no doc.u.mentary evidence bearing on the question.

It may be said that if a tower existed and fell, or was pulled down for any reason, some record would have remained; but the records connected with the building are fragmentary, and it by no means follows that the absence of record proves the non-existence of such a tower. In the case of Wimborne Minster the churchwarden's accounts contain no record of the building or of the fall of the spire, yet we know from outside testimony that such a spire did fall in 1600, and that a representation of it occurs on a seal. So here at Christchurch a seal is in existence on which the church is represented with a central tower of two storeys, the lower plain, the upper lighted by two round-headed windows and capped by a low pyramidal spire or roof with a tall cross on the summit. This is exactly what one would expect to find: a central tower is almost always found in Norman churches, especially collegiate churches; and the pyramidal roof was almost certainly the usual form in which these early towers were finished. The battlemented parapets which we so often meet with in Norman towers are in all cases more recent additions. Moreover, the ma.s.sive arches and piers at the corners indicate that a tower was contemplated, even if it were never built. In the east gable of the nave as it at present exists, two round-headed windows may be seen. It is highly probable that this gable once formed part of the east wall of the tower, and when the tower was removed this wall was converted into a gable. Everything to the east of the crossing being of late fourteenth or early fifteenth century date, indicates that extensive alterations were made at that time; and if a tower and spire had previously existed, it must have been removed before this date. In the centre of the carving over the doorway leading into the Draper chantry, dated 1529, there is a representation of a church with a central tower and spire. Of course, no such steeple existed at the time this chantry was built, but it may have been a copy of some then existing representation of the building as it had appeared in former times. There are also two other carvings of angels carrying a model of a church with a central tower--one near the Salisbury chantry, one on the choir roof.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRYPT.]

The nave is divided from the choir by a splendid rood screen 16 feet 6 inches high, 33 feet long, and 9 feet thick. The western face of this projects beyond the line joining the east walls of the two transepts; its eastern face rests against the eastern piers intended to support the central tower. It was extensively restored by Mr Ferrey in 1848, who considered that it may have been removed from some conventual church after the dissolution of the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII. and re-erected here. But there does not seem to be any real grounds for supposing that it was not expressly built for this church. Its character indicates a date somewhat late in the fourteenth century. In the centre is a narrow doorway and a pa.s.sage into the choir; from the north side of this pa.s.sage a flight of steps leads to the top of the loft. The base of the screen is plain; above this is a row of thirteen panelled quatrefoils on each side of the doorway--each containing a plain shield, over these a string course, then two rows of canopied niches, the upper row consisting of twelve, the lower, owing to the doorway occupying the central s.p.a.ce, of only ten. The lower niches have pedestals, each formed of four short columns with detached bases but with large capitals, which meet one another above; these capitals are richly carved with foliage.

No doubt, on the level s.p.a.ce thus formed statues at one time stood.

Woodwork screens with glazed doors and panels, made from an oak screen which formerly was placed across the south transept, run across the western ends of the choir aisles, so that when the doors of these and of the rood screen are locked, the eastern arm of the cross is entirely shut off from the rest of the church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROOD SCREEN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STALL SEAT. South Side.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STALL SEAT. North Side.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STALL SEAT. North Side.]

The #Choir# is entirely Perpendicular in character, and it seems to have been begun in the time of Henry VI. but not to have been completed until the time of Henry VII., and some of the carving of the stalls is of still later date. Leland says of it, "Baldwin, Earl of Devon, was the first founder, and his successors to the time of Isabella de Fortibus,[5] and at present the Earls of Salisbury are regarded as founders." Four large clerestory windows on either side light the choir.

The wall beneath these is continued downwards to the floor, but under each window a low obtusely-pointed depressed archway is cut leading into the aisles. Between the bottom of each clerestory window and the heads of these arches the wall is panelled as with window mullions and tracery, so that the appearance from the inner side may be best understood by imagining that each window extended from floor to roof, but that the upper part alone is glazed, the lower cut away for the arch leading into the aisle, and the lower lights beneath the transom blocked up with masonry. These lower arches are more or less blocked up.

The Salisbury chapel blocks up the north-eastern one completely; the sedilia, no doubt, occupied the opposite one, where now a modern altar tomb may be seen. The next on each side to the west is open, and flights of steps under them lead down to the aisles; the woodwork at the back of the choir stalls close the remaining two on the inside, and on the outside chantry chapels, opening one into the north one into the south aisle, stand under the second arch on each side counting from the rood screen. The upper stalls number in all thirty-six, fifteen on either side, and six with their backs to the rood screen. There is, also, a lower range of stalls on the north and south. The prior's and sub-prior's stalls on either side the doorway in the screen looking east are canopied, as also is the precentor's at the east end of the south side. The arms of the stalls are quaintly carved with various grotesque figures, as are also the misereres; the upper parts of the panels behind the upper stalls are also carved in low relief; above these is a projecting cornice decorated with pinnacles. The stalls are late Perpendicular work, the wainscoting behind the stalls being later still, as we can see from the subjects carved on the upper part of each panel. Some of the misereres are, however, very old--one dates back to about 1200, another to 1300, others are of later date, and most of them belong to the same period as the stalls. The older ones were found lying about in the lumber of the church, and have been placed in recent years in some of the stalls the seats of which had been lost or stolen.

The older seats may have belonged to the original Norman choir. As the term "miserere" may not be understood by all our readers, it may be well to quote from Parker's "Glossary of Architecture" the following description:--"Miserere, Misericorde, Patience, or Pretella, is the projecting bracket on the under-side of the seats of stalls in churches: these, where perfect, are fixed with hinges so that they may be turned up, and when this is done the projection of the miserere is sufficient, without actually forming a seat, to afford very considerable rest to any one leaning upon it. They were allowed as a relief to the infirm during the long services that were required to be performed by ecclesiastics in a standing posture. They are always more or less ornamented with carvings of leaves, small figures, animals, etc., which are generally very boldly cut. Examples are to be found in almost all ancient churches which retain any of the ancient stalls--one of the oldest remaining specimens is in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster; it is in the style of the thirteenth century." When Parker wrote the last sentence the still older miserere now to be seen at Christchurch had not been discovered.

[5] She lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHOIR STALLS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISERERE ON STALL SEAT. (_Circa_ 1300.) NORTH SIDE.]

It is curious to notice the absence of reverence on the part of the mediaeval canons, according to our modern notions, that these quaint carvings indicate. One might have expected that inside the church the subjects would have always been of a sacred nature, rude perhaps, and grotesque from their rudeness. Such carvings are found in many places, but here at Christchurch we have satirical subjects, caricatures of contemporaries, some indeed of so objectionable a character that they have been removed of late years. A few examples of these carvings will be given. On the arm of one of the stalls a fox is represented preaching to a flock of geese, a c.o.c.k acting as clerk. On one of the misereres we have a pair of devils somewhat resembling monkeys tempting an angel, a goose bringing an offering on a plate to a quaint figure, a man with a hatchet employed in carving, a man with a hole in the back of his garments fastened with a pin, besides various animals, fishes, mermaids, and monsters. On the wainscoting we have the heads of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Catharine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Campeggio, the King of Scots, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy, who a.s.sisted Perkin Warbeck in his attempt to gain the crown of England, and two canons disputing over a cup, which is placed between their faces. This last carving probably has some reference to the granting of the cup to the laity in time of Henry VIII.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHOIR.]

The vaulting of the choir is of a somewhat unusual character: the pendants are especially worthy of notice. It is difficult to describe the manner in which they are placed, but the ill.u.s.tration shows their character and position. The short connecting ribs of the vaulting form a stellated cross over the presbytery. Some colour may still be seen on the carved work of this portion of the church, and the initials of William Eyre, prior 1502-1520, appear on the bosses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REREDOS.]

The east wall of the presbytery contains no window, but is occupied by a beautiful stone reredos carved with a representation of the tree of Jesse. It is divided into three tiers with five compartments in each, the central one wider than the two on either side; the s.p.a.ce above it and beneath the vaulting is occupied by a wall, in which a doorway now blocked up may be seen. The outer compartments of the lowest tier contain doors leading to a platform behind the reredos; between them stands an oak altar, the gift of A. N. Welby Pugin in 1831. Above the altar in the central compartment Jesse lies asleep, on the left hand David plays upon his harp, on the right sits Solomon deeply meditating.

Above Jesse we have in one carving an amalgamated representation of the birth of Christ and the visit of the Wise Men. On the left hand sits the Virgin Mary with her Child, fully clothed in a long garment, not wrapped in swaddling clothes, standing in her lap; behind her stands a man, probably Joseph; and before her kneels one of the Wise Men offering his gift of gold in the form of a plain tankard; on the right behind him stand his two fellows, one carrying a pot of myrrh, the other a boat-shaped vessel, probably intended for a censer containing frankincense. On a bracket above the head of the kneeling Wise Man, the shepherds kneel in adoration; nor are the flocks that they were tending forgotten, for several sheep may be seen on a hill-top above their heads. Thirty-two small figures may be counted in niches in the b.u.t.tresses dividing the compartments; crockets, finials, and pinnacles decorate the various canopies over the carvings. This reredos is apparently of late Decorated date, and therefore earlier than the fifteenth-century choir. Possibly it was an addition to the Norman choir before this was removed to make room for the existing one. Mr Ferrey was of opinion that it may have once stood across the nave between the second piers from the east, thus forming a reredos for the western part of the nave, which was used as the church of the parish. Below the presbytery is a Norman crypt, now converted into a vault for the Malmesbury family. It has already been mentioned that there are doors on either side of the altar, leading to a kind of gallery or platform behind the reredos; these were designed to allow certain ceremonial compa.s.sings of the altar, and it is possible that steps led down from the platform to the ambulatory. On the east side of these doorways there are corbel heads under the arches, and the walls of the platform are panelled. Within the altar rails is a slab bearing the name of Baldwin IV., the seventh Earl of Devon. On the south side is the monument of Lady Fitzharris, who died in 1815; it is a statue by Flaxman representing the Lady teaching her two sons from the Bible. Farther to the east is the altar tomb of the Countess of Malmesbury, who died in 1877, occupying the place of the sedilia; and on the north the exquisite chantry of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the last bearer of the royal name of Plantagenet, whose tragic fate and horrible execution is one of the foulest stains on the memory of Henry VIII. She was the daughter of "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence" and of the kingmaker's eldest daughter Isabella, and was mother of the celebrated Reginald Pole who, being ordained deacon at the age of sixteen, was appointed Dean of Wimborne a year later, and rose in time to the high rank of Cardinal-Archbishop of Canterbury, and played an important part in history in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Mary. She erected this lovely chantry as her last resting-place, wishing to lie after her troublous life in this quiet spot, but it was not so to be. Her son, by the publication on the Continent of a violent attack on Henry VIII., incensed the king to such an extent that he laid his hands on all the kindred of the Poles he could find in England; some were tried and executed, others attainted without trial, among them the Countess of Salisbury, who was at the time over seventy years of age. She refused to lay her head upon the block, and the headsman hacked at her neck as she stood erect; her body was not allowed to be buried in the chantry which she had erected for herself,--so far did the spite of Henry go,--but she lies among the ambitious and unfortunate, the aspiring, and unsuccessful of many a sect and party in the cemetery of St Peter's Chapel in the Tower. Hers was an ill-starred race. Her grandfather was slain at Barnet, 1471; her father murdered by his brother Edward IV., 1478; her own brother, the Earl of Warwick, imprisoned by Henry VII., and subsequently beheaded on Tower Hill, 1499; her eldest son, Lord Montagu, was executed for high treason; and Margaret herself met a like fate on May 27, 1541.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SALISBURY CHANTRY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF THE SALISBURY CHANTRY.]

Her chantry is built of Caen stone, and the decoration is of Renaissance character. It is conjectured to be the work of the Florentine sculptor Pietro Torrigiano, who died in the prison of the Inquisition in Spain in 1522. He was engaged on Henry VII.'s tomb in Westminster, and other works ordered by Henry VIII. at Westminster and Windsor, from 1509 till 1517; and if this chantry at Christchurch is his design the date must lie between these two years. Two four-light windows with battlemented transoms look out on either side; to the west of these two doorways lead, one to the presbytery the other to the north aisle; on the east wall are three canopied niches, beneath which an altar stood or was intended to stand; the ceiling is richly carved with fan traceries and bosses; the latter have been mutilated--by order, it is said, of Henry VIII. A letter from the King's Commissioner thus describes the work done:--"In thys churche we founde a chaple and a monumet curiosly made of cane stone p^rpared by the late mother of Raynolde Pole for herre buriall, which we have causyd to be defaced and all the Armis and Badgis to be delete." On the north side are twelve tabernacles. This chapel stands on a richly carved panelled bas.e.m.e.nt, and all the walls are covered with minute carving; but here, as elsewhere, in late work we find the same forms repeated again and again, and we miss that wealth of fancy which gives each boss or capital carved by the earlier workers such a life and individuality. The side of this chapel that faces the north aisle is more elaborate than that facing the choir, and is necessarily more lofty, as its base rests on the floor of the aisle, which is lower than the floor of the presbytery. On the west face is one of several memorial tablets to members of the Rose family, who are buried in this aisle.

In the north choir aisle, at the western end, may be seen a kind of small museum of fragments from various parts of the church, collected at the time of the restoration, among them some bosses from the vaulting of the south transept, destroyed about a hundred years ago, and fragments of a Norman font. The vaulting of this and the corresponding aisle on the south side is of the same character as that of the choir, but is somewhat plainer, and is not decorated with crosses or pendants.

On the south side of this aisle is a late Perpendicular chantry, built in accordance with the will of Sir William Berkeley, dated 1486, to commemorate himself and his wife. Part of the inscription ... ARMIGERI MARGARETE QUE CONSOR ... can still be read on the frieze; on its flat ceiling are painted two large roses, one white, one red; it contains two brackets for cruets; over the entrance to it is placed an oval memorial tablet to one John Cook, who died in 1787. Eastward of this is the Salisbury chapel already described. On the north wall of the aisle is a monument, consisting of an altar-tomb with a front of carved quatrefoils and a purbeck slab, dating about 1550. The canopy over it is later, and the coat of arms beneath it is that of Robert White of Hadlow, Kent, who is commemorated on a board at the west end of the church as a benefactor who left 100 in land for the poor in 1619, thus fixing the date of this portion of the tomb. The scroll beneath the arms has the initials R. W., and the motto "Suffer in Tym." A chantry is formed at the eastern end of the aisle by the western end of the north wall of the Lady Chapel. It contains an altar tomb with the rec.u.mbent figures of Sir John Chidioke, a Dorset knight, slain in 1449 in the Wars of the Roses, and his wife.

This monument has occupied its present position only from 1791,--it previously stood in the north transept.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DRAPER CHANTRY.]

The east end of the south choir aisle is occupied by the chantry chapel of John Draper II., the last of the priors and t.i.tular bishop of Neapolis in Palestine, near the ancient Shechem in Samaria; it is dated 1529, and is formed by a screen of Caen stone stretching across the aisle. There is a central doorway with a depressed arch at the top, and canopied niches over it, and on either side are two transomed four-light unglazed windows under arches of the same character as that over the doorway; along the top of the screen runs a battlemented parapet. Within the chantry, on the south wall, is a very beautiful piscina, the finest in the church. Just outside the screen is a square-headed doorway.

Along the south wall of this aisle, as along the north wall of the corresponding north aisle, a stone bench-table runs. On the north side the panelled wall on which the Countess of Malmesbury's altar tomb stands is decorated with carvings of angels; the largest of these holds a shield with a death's-head. Farther to the west, beyond the steps leading down from the choir, is a Perpendicular chantry, known as the Harys chantry; it has open tracery above cusped panels, canopied niches, and a panelled bench table. Robert Harys was rector of Shrowston, and died in 1525; his rebus, a hare under the letter R, may be seen on the panels. On the opposite side of the aisle is the doorway leading into what is known as the #sacristy#. This is a thirteenth-century addition to the church, and is of irregular shape, as it is wedged in, as it were, between the apsidal chapel on the east side of the transept and the south wall of the choir aisle. In the south wall are triple sedilia with Purbeck shafts and foliated heads; in the north wall is a square opening or squint.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PISCINA IN THE DRAPER CHANTRY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SACRISTY.]

Behind the reredos is an ambulatory or processional path; from this may be seen, over the archway leading into the south aisle, the end of the "miraculous beam," lengthened, according to the legend, by Christ, when He appeared as a workman and took part in the building of the original church. How this came to be preserved, and how it came to occupy a position amidst the latest work in the church, is not recorded. The Lady Chapel is very beautiful Perpendicular work; it had its own altar and reredos under the east window. The reredos is much mutilated, but besides the part that is still attached to the wall, there are many loose fragments now set up on the altar. This is a slab of Purbeck stone, 11 ft. in length and 3 ft. 10 ins in breadth. On the north and south sides of the altar are the tombs of Thomas, Lord West, and Lady Alice West, his mother. These tombs are of Purbeck marble and of a form by no means uncommon in the churches of Wess.e.x. The ten shafts supporting the canopy of the tomb on the north still remain; from the other tomb such shafts as it had have disappeared. Thomas, Lord West, died in 1406, his mother in 1395: these dates fix within reasonable limits the date of the building of the Lady Chapel. Thomas West, in his will, directs that his body should be buried in the "_New_ Chapel of Our Lady in the Mynster of Christchurch." It is noteworthy to remark that the original arcading is cut away to make room for this monument, so that the chapel had been finished before he died. Both Sir Thomas West and his mother were benefactors to the church. Besides other bequests of money towards the building fund and for perpetual ma.s.ses, each of them gave about 18 for the singing of 4500 ma.s.ses within six months of the day of their deaths. On the south side of the chapel is the original doorway leading into the canons' burial-ground; a corresponding door is to be seen on the north side. The splays of the arches of the windows are elaborately ornamented with panelling. The arcading under the window, a series of ogee arches, is worthy of notice. The tattered colours of the "Loyal Christchurch Volunteers," one of the earliest regiments of volunteers, which was enrolled in 1793, hang at the entrance to the Lady Chapel. The vaulting is of the same character as that of the choir, with curious pendants in the form of church lanterns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MIRACULOUS BEAM.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOMB OF THOMAS, LORD WEST.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LADY CHAPEL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST MICHAEL'S LOFT.]

#St Michael's Loft# is reached by long flights of steps running up the turrets described in the last chapter. It is a plain, low room with a low-pitched tie-beam roof of oak. It was once a chapel, as the piscina in the east wall clearly shows. The site of the altar is now occupied by a disused desk of the character familiar to us in our own school days some half-a-century ago; it is a sort of pew with doors, within which the master sat enthroned and ramparted. This room was used as a public grammar school from 1662 till 1828, and subsequently as a private school, which was finally closed in 1869. The boys went to this school and returned from it by the staircase on the north side which has an entrance from the churchyard; the stairs on the south side were used when anyone had occasion to go into the church or to go from it to the room above.

An upper chamber or chapel is an uncommon feature in England. Remains of staircases give rise to the conjecture that there was a similar chapel over the Lady Chapel at Chester, and somewhat similar erections are to be met with on the Continent; but Christchurch Priory is unique in possessing such a perfect specimen. The dedication of the upper storey to St Michael, the conductor of souls to Paradise, is appropriate.

Churches built in elevated positions were frequently dedicated to him, and few if any mediaeval churches dedicated to this archangel are to be met with on low-lying ground.

Under the western tower stands a modern font. The fragments of a Norman font, with carvings representing various incidents in the life of Christ, may be seen, preserved in the north choir aisle. The fifteenth-century successor has been removed to Bransgore Church, four miles off.

Against the north wall of the tower stands the monument of the poet Sh.e.l.ley, the work of the sculptor Weekes. Needless to say, it is but a cenotaph. The "heart of hearts," "Cor Cordium," and the ashes of the poet cremated on the Tuscan sh.o.r.e, lie far away, hard by the pyramid of Caius Cestius, in the grave where the loving hands of Trelawney laid them in 1823. Here we have an ideal representation of the finding of the drowned body--not a pleasing one, but less ghastly than the reality; and below the inscription which tells his name and the number of his years and the manner of his death, the following stanza from his own "Adonais"

may be read:--

"He hath out-soared the shadow of our night: Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain, Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn."

The choice of Christchurch Priory as the site for this monument was due to the fact that the poet's son, Sir Percy Florence Sh.e.l.ley, who erected it, lived at Bos...o...b.. Manor, between Christchurch and Bournemouth.