xtviii, 



risk of being thought a plagiarist. The suffix Minster suggests a church 

 of antiquity and dignity ; both qualities are united to a considerable 

 extent in the church of Charniinster, or the minster on the Char, a stream 

 •which, rising up the Cerne Valley, passes close to the graveyard of the 

 church in question and falls into the Frome above Dorchester. The 

 position of the church is pleasing. It is surrounded by a number of 

 small hills, on the slopes of which the houses of the village are placed. 

 The tower is said to date from 1500, and was built by Sir Tliomas 

 Treuchard, of Wolfeton ; it is excellent in proportion and uf beautiful 

 colour. The material employed in its construction is Ham Hill stone. 

 It has angle buttresses up to the battlements, and the effect of the three 

 finials by which each angle buttress on the corners is surmounted, 

 together with an intermediate finial from the wall space on three 

 sides, is very fine. The turret staircase is on the north-west corner and 

 surmounted by six small finials, three of which have disappeared. 

 This seems to be the only part of the tower needing much external 

 repair, for the coigns preserve their pristine sharpness, and very little in 

 the way of pointing requires to be done. The Louvre windows are very 

 noticeable ; they occupy the whole of the upper storey on each side. 

 They are of pierced stone, and are divided into three parts by two tran- 

 soms ; they are slightly recessed in each wall. The initials of the 

 founder (T.T.), which appear in several places on the western buttresses, 

 preserve his name, and Avorthy it is to be held in remembrance by all 

 ecclesiologists. The appearance of the body of the church, as seen from 

 the south, is less satisfactory. A Avater table on the east wall of the 

 tower points to the nave roof having been at some time lowered, while 

 a similar relic on the east wall of the nave defines the pitch of the original 

 chancel roof. The battlement of the nave roof is singularly plain. The 

 clerestory is low. Its windows are much cut about, so as to render it 

 difficult to determine what date to assign its construction to. But the 

 corbels under the flat ceiling inside point to its not having been part of 

 the original plan. The porch is entered by an arch of such clumsy con- 

 struction that one is led at once to conclude that it is not of original 

 Norman work, though nearly approaching the round. The piesent perch 

 roof, too, appears from its poverty to be a modern addition. There are 

 two corbels above the entrance door which suggest the possibility of the 

 porches having had a stone-groined roof, though they might have 

 supported figures. There is a curious set-off along the east wall— half- 

 way up — apparently of the same date as the wall, of which I am unable 

 to conjecture the purpose. There are two gurgoyles on either side 

 above you as you enter the iwrch, the south-east one renjarkable, 



