CERNE ABBEY BARN. 65 



all wrong for a church or hall. Thinking of the size of these 

 barns, of their majestic outlines, of their strong, everlasting 

 build of wall and roof, they set us wondering once more what 

 was indeed the mind of the men that planned them and made 

 them. Were they thus greater than we are in building, smaller 

 minded in everything else ? A dim idea may be here recorded 

 for what it is worth. " Murder will out." Poetry will out. 

 Poetry has no need always of rhythm, nor even of words. Is not 

 a Mendelssohn organ-fugue a poem ? Is not the Sistine 

 Madonna a poem ? Is not Salisbury spire an epic ? Is not this 

 Cerne Abbas barn a pastoral idyll ? Is it not the outcome, for 

 it would out, of the poetic heart of an old Benedictine, or, 

 maybe, of an itinerant Freemason ? Is it not his builded poem ? 

 However, it is not an essay on the mind of the mediaevals that 

 is here wanted, but a few sentences about this material result 

 thereof. It would, nevertheless, be out of place to say much 

 respecting the extremely admirable masonry and carpentry of 

 Cerne Abbas barn, because there is a paper on the subject in the 

 " Proceedings " of the Field Club, Vol. X., p. 187. To what is 

 there written only one or two small additions seem needful. In 

 that paper it is suggested that the light grey stone, which is 

 used for wings and other dressing, is of the Portland formation, 

 and perhaps from Portesham or Sutton Poyntz. But this has 

 since been doubted or denied by an expert. He thinks, as was 

 understood, that it is of a different formation and from Somerset. 

 Again, a word about what is the extraordinary feature of Cerne 

 Abbas barn the flint masonry which prevails outside and 

 within, too. The paper just quoted says that it may be doubted 

 whether any specimen of this masonry to beat that here could be 

 found in Sussex, Norfolk, or any other county noted for this kind 

 of work. Later the writer visited Norwich, a city abounding in 

 flint masonry more than any other in England. Of the forty-two 

 old churches there not one was noticed without that feature. 

 But what was pointed out as the crack sample of flint facing is 

 the wall of the Bridewell. This is very fine work. But the writer's 

 honest impression was that it is not quite equal in quality to this 



