OLD PORTLAND. 235 



in later times. Portions of the original chancel, east window, 

 chancel arch, and south exterior wall still exist. There is 

 little reason to doubt that the church had a small tower, 

 rising between the nave and the chancel, crowned with a 

 stunted spire springing from a corbel table. Portions of a 

 corbel table, and four corbels (three with animal faces and 

 one with a human face) still lie among the ruins of the church. 

 But, for reasons well known.there was a fatality about Norman 

 towers ; many of them fell within a few years of their erection. 

 This probably happened at Portland, for later on a plain 

 and moderately high Early English tower (detached from the 

 church nearly three feet) was built on the slightly raised 

 ground at the west and of the nave. (In 1552 the tower 

 contained two bells, and in post -Reformation times two more 

 were added, but all of them disappeared possibly during the 

 turbulent Cromwellian days at Portland and were never 

 replaced.) The tower (through the doorway of which the 

 people probably passed to get to the main entrance of the 

 church on the south side, there being no entrance on the north 

 side) was standing in the year 1732, as in that year several 

 pounds were spent on its repair, and this tower doorway is 

 still in existence and in situ ; it now serves as an entrance to 

 the southern portion of " the bleakest churchyard in Wessex." 

 The idea that Governor Penn placed this doorway in its 

 present position is not only incorrect, but very unlikely ; 

 he had quite enough personal troubles with some of the 

 islanders without irritating all of them by taking liberties 

 with the ruins of their old parish church. Another erroneous 

 idea (Hutchins starts it) is that the church was dedicated to 

 S. Andn w in the year 1475 ; but in tha year 1324 Nicholas de 

 Keirwent was presented to the " parochial church of S. 

 Andrew," and there is no reason why the church should not 

 have been dedicated at its foundation to the fisherman- 

 Apostle. The dedication was a popular one in Norman 

 times, and earlier. At any rate, Portland is not included 

 in the list of un-dedicated Dorset churches at the close of the 

 13th century. 



