THE TOWN CELLARS AT POOLE. 13 



of the hammer beams had carved heads, which are figured in the 

 Proceedings (1888). This building, again, he considers to have 

 been a chapter house or a refectory, and that the Town Cellars 

 were the church proper. The arrangement of these buildings 

 is, however, somewhat out of keeping with this notion. For 

 example, the refectory would then have been right against the 

 east end of the church, and, as the doors are all on the south or 

 open side, the brethren must have gone out somehow from 

 behind and come round outside their church to get into it at all, 

 and then under two low-arched doors. Nothing in the nature of 

 a processional service was possible under these conditions. And 

 all this on an open and very much exposed Quay, and in an age 

 when no seaport was safe from foreign foes, for it was during the 

 Hundred Years War with France. 



Taking the whole matter into consideration, the theory of 

 Sydenham seems to fit in with all that is certainly known, and 

 with the arrangement of the building itself. The name of St. 

 Clement's may be only a survival from other days like the St. 

 Crispin's at Christchurch, and the carved heads are not of 

 necessity ecclesiastical any more than the pointed doorways and 

 the cusped windows on the Town Cellars. 



One word may be said as to a picture on which some stress is 

 laid in the oft-referred-to paper. This picture existed most 

 probably only in the fertile brain of the engineer who spoke of 

 it. The accurate details reported by him are, to say the least of 

 it, highly suspicious. Probably he saw a picture with some of 

 the features mentioned and localised it with a few additional 

 touches. The date 1612 and the full details so clear after 

 40 years do not give one an impression of critical veracity. 



As at present advised, then, the problem of the Town Cellars 

 remains unsolved. When the Field Club made its all too short 

 visit to Poole, two years since, the present writer proposed it to 

 the members of the Club, and he still hopes that some far more 

 competent enquirer will give us the solution. 



