Church. 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE DORSET FIELD CLUB ON 

 JULY 25ra, 1888. 



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



E stand in a church, the walls of which, for the 

 most part, and excepting the west end and the two 

 porches (which are palpably modern), date back 

 from our late Norman, or early Plantagenet, kings. 

 Let us note the significance of that fact. On 

 these walls have beaten the storms of, at the very 

 least, 700 years. The action of frost and thaw, of rain and sun- 

 shine, destructive of any stone but the hardest, especially when 

 rapidly alternating (as so constantly happens in our variable 

 climate), has been attempting their disintegration, either directly on 

 their surface, or indirectly, through whatever roofing may have 

 covered them, which, from disrepair, assuredly at times has let 

 damp into them. Ignorance or fanaticism might have been elements 

 in their destruction, or the taste or fancy of succeeding builders to 

 the great, the mostly unknown, architects of the Norman style. 

 The latter is a constant cause of the comparative paucity, indeed, 

 the rarity, of entire Norman churches. The Perpendicular archi- 

 tects were the chief offenders in this way. Take Winchester and 

 Gloucester Cathedral naves e.g., and see how their massive piers are 



