Brockenhurst Church. 77 



in Domesday,* is built on an artificial mound on the top of a 

 hill, a little way out of the village, so that it might serve as 

 a landmark in the Forest. f The church has been sadly muti- 

 lated. A wretched brick tower has been patched on at the west 

 end ; and on the north side a new staring red brick aisle, which 

 surpasses even the usual standard of ugliness of a dissenting 

 chapel. On the south side stands the Norman doorway, with 

 plain escalloped capitals, and an outside arch ornamented with 

 the indented and chevron mouldings. The chancel is Early- 

 English, whilst the plain chancel arch which springs without 

 even an impost from the wall, is very early Norman. Under one 

 of the chancel windows rises the arch of an Easter sepulchre, 

 whilst a square Norman font, of black Purbeck marble, stands 

 at the south-west end of the nave. 



If the church, however, has been disfigured, the approach to 

 it fortunately remains in all its beauty. For a piece of quiet 

 English scenery nothing can exceed this. A deep lane, its 

 banks a garden of ferns, its hedge matted with honeysuckle, and 

 woven together with bryony, runs, winding along a side space 

 of green, to the latch -gate, guarded by an enormous oak, its 

 limbs now fast decaying, its rough bark grey with the perpetual 

 snow of lichens, and here and there burnished with soft streaks 

 of russet-coloured moss; whilst behind it, in the churchyard, 



* In that portion of it which comes under the title of " In Foresta et 

 circa earn." See chap. iii. p. 31. 



f All over England did the church towers serve as landmarks, alike in 

 the fen and forest districts. Lincolnshire and Yorkshire can show plenty of 

 such steeples. At St. Michael's at York, to this hour, I believe, at six every 

 morning, is rung the bell whose sound used to guide the traveller through 

 the great forest of Galtres; whilst at All Saints, in the Pavement, in 

 the same city, is shown the lantern, which every night used to serve as a 

 beacon. 



