90 



There is, about ten miles southward from the two already 

 noticed, another dedication connected with prse-Saxon Britain, 

 and which is found not only in Cornwall, but in other parts of 

 the island where Celtic associations survive. This is at Farring- 

 don, or Winterborne St. German. Of this, although the church 

 is a ruin, it has still so much vitality as to confer upon the Rev. 

 W. Barnes the venerable dignity of a Pluralist. We must, how- 

 ever hesitate to include this within that compact ideal limit of 

 the district recognised by Athelstan. True, it was fortified from 

 the perils of the coast by the great natural rampart of the 

 southern downs of Dorset, but is separated from the hilly group 

 above described by the valley of the Frome and Piddle. It 

 would also include the town or city of Dorchester, too important to 

 have been comprehended in such a toleration or concession. No 

 doubt it shared, with the south of Dorset and the south-east of 

 Devon, of which the St. Pancras already mentioned near 

 Axmouth is another witness, an exemption from the earliest 

 western progress of the West Saxons ; but cannot be included in 

 that smaller territory of a more concentrated Welsh population 

 that is here being defined, and which could have exacted the 

 recognition of its national independence. At any rate, the 

 ethnical status of this prse-Saxon dedication may be most safely 

 left to the care of Mr. Barnes, who has the spiritual charge of it. 



So 'much for the testimony of the dedications. But there are 

 two other circumstantial and independent ancient witnesses, by 

 which it is thought to be strongly confirmed. The first of these 

 is, that among the interval annals in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 

 between the conquest of Sarum in 552 and the victory at Point- 

 ington in 658 ; is one which has involved, for the last two 

 centuries, one of those controversies that infest the topography 



