XXX. SECOND SUMMER MEETING 



SECOND SUMMER MEETING, 

 WIMBORNE MINSTER. 



The Second Summer Meeting was held on Tuesday, August 

 26th. The party numbered between 60 and 70. The meeting 

 place was Wimborne Minster. 



The Hon. Editor, CANON FLETCHER, Vicar of Wimborne, 

 acted as guide during the day, and welcomed the members of 

 the Club at the entrance to the Churchyard. Amongst the 

 company assembled were the President, the Hon. Secretary, 

 Mr. A. Pope (Vice- President), Col. and Mrs. W. D. Dickson, 

 Capt. and Mrs. Carr Glyn, &c., &c. 



THE MINSTER. 



After alluding to the 'remains of an ancient Roman Temple, which had 

 been unearthed during the great restoration of 1855-57, but had been 

 covered up and still existed beneath the flooring of the nave, CANON 

 FLETCHER traced the history of the Church from its first foundation as a 

 | Benedictine Nunnery, by St. Cuthburga, sister of Ina, the great Saxon 

 law-giver, sometime before the year 705; and to the period of the wars with 

 the Danes, by whom it was destroyed in the early part of the llth century. 

 Some few years later it was refounded- -probably by Edward the Con- 

 fessor, the founder of Westminster Abbey as a College of Secular Canons 

 with a Dean at their head. Its royal foundation would doubtless account 

 for its having been for so many centuries a Royal Chapel. The College 

 was dissolved in the reign of Edward VI, and its estates were confiscated. 

 Some portion of its property, however, was restored to it by a Charter at 

 the commencement of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and by the same 

 Charter the Minster was to be served by three J " Presbyters " or 

 " Ministers," who had equal authority, and each with his own clerk. The 

 Charter also provided for an organist and choir. For upwards of 350 years 

 the Minster has had a surpliced choir and a cathedral service. For various 

 reasons the triple control was not satisfactory, and under a scheme of the 

 Charity Commissioners it was abolished in 1883, from which time the 

 Minster has had its sole Vicars, of whom the speaker was the second. 

 The architectural features were next pointed out the Norman lower 



* D.F.C. Proceedings, Vol. XXXIX, p. 30. 



t D.F.C. Proceedings, Vol. XXXII, p. 199, and Vol. XXXIX, p. 31. 



t D.F.C. Proceedings, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 98. 



D.F.C. Proceedings, Vol. XXVII, p. xlvii, &c.; Vol. XXXI, pp. 126, 127. 



