x ki. WEST DORSET. 



BEAMINSTER CHURCH. 



The Vicar (the Rev. A. A. Leonard), formerly of Fordington 

 St George, had hoped to be present to welcome the Club ; 

 but he was unavoidably absent, and his place was taken by 

 the Rev. R. B. Goodden (curate), who was accompanied by 

 the Rev. W. D. Sargeaunt, Rector of Stoke Abbott, under 

 wooded Lewesdon, of which place, by the bye, that elegant 

 classical scholar and poet, the Rev. William Crowe, much 

 esteemed : : n his day and generation, was for a while incum- 

 bent. His poem on "Lewesdon Hill," the grandiloquent 

 opening verses of which must have occurred to some of the 

 party on gazing at that noble eminence, was described by 

 Lord Byron as " the finest descriptive poem in the language," 

 and it was also highly appraised by Samuel Rogers, the banker 

 poet. One lady of the party had brought with her a volume 

 of William Barnes's poems, that she might read on the spot 

 his tender if homely eulogy of this beautiful old town 



" Sweet Be'mi'ster, that bist a-bound 

 By green an' woody hills all round, 

 Wi' hedges, reachen up between 

 A thousan' vields o' zummer green." 



The chief building in Beaminster is its church, and the chief 

 feature of its church the tower. 



Mr. GOODDEN called attention to the principal features of the 

 tower, especially on the west front. It dates from the early part of 

 the 16th Century, when the Perpendicular style was becoming at once 

 somewhat florid and decadent. Originally there were 38 orocketed 

 pinnacles disposed about it at effective points, some of them rising 

 from corbel-stones carved to represent gargoyles, but not structurally 

 serving as gargoyles. Sir Frederick Treves is happy in his 

 detailed description of it as " a tower of many pinnacles, gargoyles, 

 and niches, endowed with as lavish a wealth of delicate carving as a 

 gold casket. Here are sculptures of the Blessed Virgin, the Crucifixion, 

 and Ascension, all in the same warm golden-brown stone." The party 

 duly noticed the figures of two local worthies carved as supporters 

 on the tower, probably in recognition of their munificent contributions 



