xlvii. 



SECOND SUMMER MEETING. 

 WIMBOKNE, BADBUKY RINGS, AND KINGSTON LACY. 



THE SECOND SUMMER MEETING was held on July 

 There was an exceptionally large party present, numbering about 

 190, which establishes a record in the annals of the Club. 



WIMBORNE MINSTER. 



Wimborne was the rendezvous, and, on arrival at the Minster, 

 the Rev. THOMAS PERKINS, Rector of Turnworth, and author of 

 of a handbook on the church, read the following paper : 



Of all the churches of Dorset connected with religious houses, Wimborne 

 Minster has been the most fortunate. Of Cistercian Bindon scarcely anything 

 remains, save a few low ruined walls covered with ivy, Cerne Abbas may still 

 boast of a splendid barn, a fine gatehouse, and some parts of the domestic 

 buildings incorporated in a farmhouse ; but no part of the church can be seen. 

 The still finer barn and a few unimportant remains is all that is left of Abbots - 

 bury. Shaftesbury has fared still worse. Of the great nunnery founded by 

 the greatest of the West Saxon Kings, Alfred, nothing was pointed out to me 

 when I went to live at Shaftesbury, more than a quarter of a century ago, 

 except some massive walls, reputed to be part of those that once surrounded the 

 convent grounds ; the site of the church was known, but the foundation lay 

 hidden beneath some gardens. These have been recently uncovered, and now we 

 can clearly trace the outline of the church. Of Milton Abbey, founded by 

 Athelstan, that portion of the fourteenth century church which was begun, though 

 never finished, after the deplorable fire which had destroyed its predecessor, 

 stands in surroundings of surpassing beauty. Sherborne, the church of the 

 cathedral city of the diocese carved off by Ina from the greater diocese which 

 comprised the whole of the West Saxon kingdom, after having its Bishop's stool 

 removed to Old Sarum, and having become only the Abbey Church of a 

 Benedictine Monastery, suffered from a fire caused by riots that originated in a 

 dispute between the monks and the laity ; and what we see to-day is mainly a 

 Perpendicular church, which was saved from destruction by the people of the 

 parish buying it from Sir John Horsey, to whom it had been granted. The 

 church of Wimborne Minster has had a happier history, and to-day you see a 

 building which, since its erection in Norman times, has never been swept away, 

 though, as occasion required, it was altered and added to ; but these solid tower 

 arches, the massive pillars of the eastern end of the nave, and the greater part of 

 the tower show by their style that they were built in Norman times. The 

 church has never ceased to be used for worship, and this day it may boast, in my 



