on the 



of fesap <. JftkhaeV* 

 fe*age JUl Saints', 



READ AT THE WIMBORNE MEETING, SEPTEMBER 10TH, 1895.* 



By the Rev. Canon Sir TALBOT H. B. BAKER, Bart. 



GUSSAGE ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH. 



HE first object that strikes the eye, on entering the 

 churchyard, is a grand old yew-tree, which, wide- 

 spreading as it is, is said to have lost several large 

 limbs in recent years. 



The Church presents a curious, rather than a 

 shapely form, as viewed from the X. side. The 

 Tower seems unsymmetrically massive, and the 

 clerestory is disproportionately high for beauty, while the Porch, 

 though its niche and four-centred archway prove it to belong to 

 the Perpendicular, or even Tudor period, has been a good deal 

 modernised, and the Chancel rebuilt by the late Mr. Street still 

 looks crude by the side of the dilapidated old work. On the S. 

 your inspection of the building is constantly interrupted by masses 

 of ivy, allowed to run riot, even over the windows, and by coarse 

 young elder trees, rendering the walls, already too damp by 

 centuries of accumulation of soil, still damper. This, however, is 

 soon to be remedied under the careful superintendence of Mr. 



* This paper hats been altered in one or two particulars since it was read. 



