96 THE POOLE TOWN CELLAR. 



house in this town, it seems rather to have belonged to South Pool, 

 or Pool (co. Devon), where there was a small priory." An old 

 seal of the Corporation of Poole from Mr. W. Bristow's collection, 

 of which the following is a correct description, is at Strawberry 

 Hill. It is a brass upright seal, about two inches high, with a 

 small trefoil handle. The field is circular, nearly an inch in 

 diameter, bearing, in high relief, a lion passant gardant, surrounded 

 by a scroll, inscribed with the following legend in old English 

 characters : " S. Contrar (otulatoris) de Pool," the seal of the 

 Controller of Poole. I have omitted to mention, by the letters 

 patent of Henry VI. in 1433, Poole was made a port of the staple, 

 and I have here an impression of the seal of the staple. With regard 

 to the two seals mentioned, Hutchins says after the account of the 

 seal of the Controller of Customs of Poole : " This seal, to which 

 both of the above notices refer, is now ascertained to have belonged 

 to Poole, in Dorset, and was afterwards presented to the Corpora- 

 tion, in whose possession it now is." The seal the Corporation has 

 is S. Contrar de Pool in old English characters, and I do not quite 

 understand how Contrar can be read convent. I rather incline to 

 the belief that Dr. Richard Rawlinson's was an old seal of the 

 monastery or convent of Poole, Dorset. 



I have now given you all the information I have been able to 

 gather. I regret it is not more authentic, but I think it is 

 sufficient to prove that the Town Cellar was the Church of the 

 Monastery of St. Clement's, that the Ship Inn was either the 

 refectory, or more probably the chapter room, that the house 

 bounding St. Clement's-lane and the buildings in Scalpin's Yard 

 were a portion of the monastery, and that the St. Clement's wall 

 was not the wall of Poole at all, but either the garden wall of the 

 monastery or a later erection from fragments of the monastic 

 buildings, and that the gate and wall built by order of Richard III. 

 was across Paradise Row. The monastery was founded by Ela, 

 Countess of Salisbury, between 1220 and 1261. (The period 

 of Early English architecture was from 1189 to 1272). In 1348, 

 owing to the plague, the population being decimated, the monastery 



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