SOME DORSET CHURCH TOWERS. 249 



colouring of these bosses is somewhat lurid. The western 

 tower of the Minster is quite plain, and has very little of interest. 

 It is of Perpendicular character, and the only striking details 

 are some tremendous gargoyles of particularly grotesque design, 

 being principally animals. 



Dorset for its size is rich in monastic churches, and three of 

 them (Sherborne, Wimborne, and Milton) are in a splendid 

 state of preservation. The tower of Milton Abbey rises from 

 the intersection of the choir and transepts, and has the same 

 fault if one may call it so as at Sherborne ; it does not seem 

 adequate to so lofty and extensive a building. The style is pure 

 Perpendicular, with noble lantern arches deeply moulded and 

 recessed, buttresses carried up to the springing of lantern 

 arches and finished with long diamond-shaped crocketted 

 pinnacles. The whole is surmounted by a pierced quatrefoil 

 parapet ; at the angle of the staircase turret a door leads 

 directly on to a roof behind the parapets. The vaulting of the 

 interior, equally with that of the transepts, is very fine, and is 

 embellished with a great variety of bosses and escutcheons of 

 benefactors. 



Studland Church, near Swanage, of Norman architecture, is 

 particularly picturesque and quaint. There are broad, slightly 

 projecting buttresses and heavy stringcourses round the exterior 

 at various heights, being crowned by a ridge roof and gable ends 

 with water-tabling. The roof projects a great deal at the eaves, 

 giving the tower quite a domestic appearance, whilst immediately 

 under come the belfry windows, square-headed and simple in 

 outline and detail. The windows externally are quite small and 

 semi-circular headed. But it is the interior that is so fine. Its 

 strong piers, with square reveals and engaged circular shafts, 

 are a great feature, the capitals also being splendidly carved, 

 mostly of cushion shape, with the chevron, star, and other simple 

 ornaments of the Norman period. The hood moulding to the 

 chancel arch and the abacus to each pier have the chevron 

 mould. The windows, north and south, are strong and 

 characteristic, and the vaulting is massive. " Massive," perhaps, 



