ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 207 
BET ER LY: 
WE have now taken leave of the inside of the church, and shall 
pass by a door at the west end of the middle aisle into the belfry. 
This room is part of a handsome square embattled tower of forty- 
five feet in height, and of much more modern date than the 
church ; but old enough to have needed a thorough repair in 1781, 
when it was neatly stuccoed at a considerable expense, by a set of 
workmen who were employed on it for the greatest part of the 
summer. The old bells, three in number, loud and out of tune, 
were taken down in 1735, and cast into four; to which Sir Simon 
Stuart, the grandfather of the present baronet, added a fifth at his 
own expense: and, bestowing it in the name of his favourite 
daughter, Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be cast with the foliowing 
motto round it: 
** Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria: 
Illius et laudes nomen ad astra sono. 
The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed as an 
high festival by the village, and rendered more joyous, by an order 
from the donor, that the treble bell should be fixed bottom upward 
in the ground and filled with punch, of which all present were 
permitted to partake. 
The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and would 
not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine sharp gothic 
doorway. This is undoubtedly much older than the present fabric ; 
and, being found in good preservation, was worked into the wall, 
and is the grand entrance into the church: nor are the folding- 
doors to be passed over in silence; since, from their thick and 
clumsy structure, and the rude flourished-work of their hinges, they 
may possibly be as ancient as the doorway itself. 
The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south side of the 
roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles instead 
of tiles, on account of their lightness, which favours the ancient 
and crazy timber-frame. And, indeed, the consideration of 
accidents by fire excepted, this sort of roofing is much more 
