CHURCHES IN THE RURAL DEANERY OF DORCHESTER. 45 



Conquest it would have become necessary to enlarge the church 

 and to add in the 12th century the transition Norman aisle (with 

 its interesting doorway and stoup). The piscina in the south 

 transept where an altar stood must have been added not long after. 

 Possibly attached to the transept was an anchorite's cell (ankerhold 

 or domus inclusi), perhaps a lean-to with a window overlooking the 

 altar to which this piscina belonged. This may have been enlarged 

 late in the 13th or in the 14th century by carrying up the walls, 

 incorporating the transept, and putting in a floor seven or eight 

 feet above the ground level, resting on corbels, one of which is 

 still to be seen in the south wall. The anchorite's cell frequently 

 had three windows one small window through which food was 

 received, a window opposite to admit the light, a third over-looking 

 the high altar ; the domus inclusi sometimes consisted of a single 

 cell, sometimes as here of more, in which case it afforded 

 accommodation for an attendant. It sometimes possessed an altar 

 of its own and oftentimes contained a fireplace. Perhaps the 

 Fordington cell was furnished with the latter convenience ; there 

 is a curved hollow channel in the wall which might have been a 

 flue. The earliest chimneys were not carried up above the roof as 

 ours are, but were cut in the wall to a few feet above the fireplace, 

 and were then turned out at the side of the wall as this one might 

 have been. It will be noticed that the face of the piscina has been 

 cut off. From the direction of the chimney this would have been 

 necessary to give room for the construction of the fireplace. It is, 

 however, more likely that the channel (chimney or not) was made 

 at the time of, or shortly after, the restoration of the church in the 

 15th century, and in this manner; the builders of the rood loft 

 staircase and doorway, finding the old wall of the transept out of 

 perpendicular, instead of pulling it down added to it on the inside 

 to make the wall plumb for their work, rounding off the addition 

 thus made into the old Avail at the top ; but leaving this channel 

 so that the back of it was the face of the old wall. Anchorites 

 when they took up their abode in cells were conducted thither and 

 installed with a solemn service, after which the doorway by which 



