Ixvii. 



THIRD SUMMER MEETING. 

 WAKEHAM AND LYTCHETT HEATH. 



THE THIRD SUMMER MEETING was held on July z^th. The 

 party numbered about 130. 



Arriving at Wareham the Members were met by the Rector 

 (the Rev. Selwyn Blackett), who kindly acted as guide during the 

 morning. 



ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH. 



Mr. Blackett first conducted the party to St. Martin's Church, 

 and then showed a ground plan of the building made by an 

 architect, and indicating by five colours the composite nature of 

 the present building, in which, according to the draughtsman, 

 no less than five styles of architecture are represented Saxon, 

 Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. 



Addressing the gathering, Mr. BLACKETT said that he made 

 no pretensions to being in any sense of the word an antiquary. 

 He was simply a parish priest who had "got up" the history of 

 his own parish ; and when he told them that such and such a 

 thing was of such and such a date they should please bear in 

 mind that he was only echoing what authorities had told him. 

 As to St. Martin's, they at Wareham held that they had, not a 

 Saxon church, but a church upon the foundations of a Saxon 

 church and still containing some of the original Saxon work. The 

 original church was said to have been built by St. Aldhelm, the 

 builder of the well-known Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon. 



Mr. Blackett referred to an article from the pen of Mr. Charles 

 Lynam, F.S.A., reprinted from "The Builder" in 1898. Mr. 

 Lynam, in the course of it, says " That the remains of the first 

 church are of the middle of the Eleventh Century no one can 

 reasonably doubt. Its diminutive area, its excessive proportion 

 of height to width, the extreme simplicity of its parts, the walls 

 having no trace of a buttress, with a plain chamfered base, the 

 footings showing above ground, the quoins at the angles formed 



