72 GORTON. 



documents call it an ecclesia, which is taken to mean a Rectory 

 Church a Parish Church. If so, I think it must rival St. 

 Leonard's, in the Isle of Wight, as regards the claim to be the 

 smallest Parish Church in the kingdom. I think this, for I am 

 not sure that we see the total original length of Gorton Chapel 

 westward. Its present length within, I make, by hurried measure- 

 ment, 21ft., its greatest breadth 12ft. The nave is 10ft. long. 

 The chancel, which nai'rows to 10ft. in breadth, is lift. long. 

 There is no chancel arch. The roof is a rough modern one, 

 thatched. On the north of the nave is a closed door, arched, 

 3rd pointed. On the south is a very quaint little doorway. 

 Inside it is an ordinary plain 15th century arch. Outside it is a 

 polygonal arch, of four straight-edged stones a quaint rude 

 affair, to which it is difficult to assign a date. On the same side 

 is a small one-light window, square without, arched within. In 

 the east gable is a blocked up, arched, two-light window of 

 ordinary good 3rd pointed style. But under this window stands 

 that which has led to this short notice of Gorton. It is what 

 appears to be neither more nor less than the pre- Reformation altar, 

 remaining untouched. If so, it is of course a very great curiosity 

 indeed ; being, as far as I know, the only complete unaltered 

 specimen in Dorset. The window sill in St. Aldhelm's is, indeed, 

 if I mistake not, an altar sill. But the altar at Gorton is, though 

 quite plain, a regularly constructed one. I have said that this 

 erection appears to be the altar. This is expressed advisedly. 

 For I am bound to say that I cannot detect the five crosses which 

 a Roman Catholic altar must of necessity bear, to be complete. I 

 cannot find them, to my great disappointment ; but then the dis- 

 integration of the Purbeck marble slab has in parts, particularly 

 the edge, been very great. I think that the crosses, if small, as 

 I believe they often were, might have crumbled away by age, not 

 unassisted by the hand of man. Anyway, it is difficult to see the 

 worn, archaic looking " stwonen tiable," as a ploughman called it 

 to me, without carrying back its date, crosses or no crosses, to 

 pre- Reformation times. It is 5ft. by 3ft., and stands on two plain 



