YETMINSTER CHURCH. 140 



call your attention to the handsome battlemented tower, porch, and 

 aisles in the latter period of the Perpendicular style, with the 

 disproportionately long chancel, constructed in a poor imitation of 

 Early English, which are now before you. I say " a poor imitation 

 of Early English," for it is scarcely possible to suppose, with 

 Mr. Christian, that the Prebendaries of Yetminster in the 13th 

 century, having before their eyes the superb example of that style 

 in their Mother Church of Sarum, could have erected the chancel, 

 which now stands eastward of the nave. The ill-fitting heads of 

 the windows, the poverty-stricken chamfers in lieu of mouldings, 

 the want of uniformity in the lights of the east window, and the 

 general roughness of the work would have been an abomination in 

 the eyes of William de Len, or Tancred, or whoever they were, 

 who occupied these Prebends at the date when the Early English 

 style was in vogue. A glance at the base of the E. E. font, recently 

 recovered, with its delicate mouldings, will show us what these 

 early builders would have done, had their hands been given to the 

 work. 



Briefly to indicate the principal points which were to be observed 

 before entering the church, I may mention the numerous external 

 crosses (viz., crosses patee within a circle) to be seen on three of the 

 tower buttresses, on the buttress near the south door, on the jamb 

 of the window between the north porch and the tower, together 

 with a small cross patee also to be observed at the apex of the 

 tower door below the hood-mould the Holy water stoup hollowed 

 in the external buttress, near the south door and the five small 

 windows, blocked at the present restoration, viz., two in the east 

 gable of the nave, one near the eastern window on the north wall of 

 north aisle and on either side of the corresponding window in the 

 south aisle intended to give light to the rood gallery. 



In regard to the chancel, the west and south windows nearest the 

 nave have similar crosses to those already mentioned, and the eastern 

 buttresses also bear them, but one below and the other above the 

 plinth. It is noticeable that the crosses on these buttresses are cut 

 in what I am informed is Xettlecombe stone, the other dressings of 



