WEST DORSET. xliii. 



towards the work. One is holding in his hand a woolcomber's comb. 

 The canopied niches, containing figures, hollowed out of the faces of 

 the buttresses, are extremely beautiful features, and so are the bands 

 of carved quatrefoils, like those seen on Magdalen College tower, 

 Oxford, and that of Cerne Abbas Church. 



Inside the church the HON. SEC. briefly indicated the principal 

 features of interest in the fabric and furniture the spacious 

 symmetrical Perpendicular church, with the soffits of the chancel 

 and tower arches panelled in Ham Hill stone, a hagioscope, the rood- 

 loft stairs, and a morthouse, the Jacobean pulpit, two handsome 

 monuments of the Strode family, late Jacobean and Georgian, and 

 some brasses of interest. Mr. PRIDEAUX, now a recognised authority 

 on Dorset church brasses, called attention to the small and rare 

 Reformation brass affixed to the pavement of the south aisle. The 

 inscription, in Old English lettering, runs : 



" Pray for the soule of Sir John Tone, 



Whose body lieth buried under this tomb, 

 On whose soul Jesu have mercy, 

 A Pater Noster and an Ave." 



Mr. Prideaux also pointed out the two external 18th Century brasses 

 nailed to the wall on the outside of the south aisle. It now seems 

 strange, somebody present mentioned, that this fine church of 

 Beaminster was, until as recently as 1849, only a chapel-of-ease to the 

 mother church of Netherbury. 



Before leaving the churchyard the party noticed, adjoining it, the 

 almshouse, built and endowed by Sir John Strode, for the support of 

 six poor people of the parish. 



BROAD WINDSOR CHURCH. 



If the fact that the Rev. William Crowe, poet and public 

 orator of the University of Oxford, was for awhile Rector of 

 Stoke Abbott, imparts an extraneous interest to that parish 

 and church, then Broadwindsor owes not a little to the name 

 and fame of the Rev. Thomas Fuller, D.D., the worthy 

 author of " Worthies of England," and " Church History," 

 and chaplain to the Lord Berkeley who in 1660 went to The 

 Hague to fetch Charles II. home. Fuller was Vicar here for 

 many years, and preached regularly from the self-same 



