166 STUDLAND CHURCH. 



of foundation had been laid down, as if the workmen had set about 

 their task with line and square, but when the ecclesiastical 

 authorities arrived to lay the corner stone they ordered the rather 

 common " twist " to be observed. 



Many indications were discovered that all the faced stone inside 

 and out, even the plinth and thin stone foundation which bears it, 

 were additions to an earlier building of rubble-work. (PI. I., fig. 2). 

 The band of ashlar-work each side of the chancel was a thin face of 

 stone with no bond into the wall. This started our enquiries, and 

 we became more convinced as we proceeded. On the south side a 

 large window or doorway had been cut of the full size and deeper 

 than the ornamental moulding, and there an arch of brick was 

 turned which went through the wall. 



Blunders of the early builders came to light during the 

 excavations sufficient to account for the sinking of the fabric. The 

 early builders found that one part of the ground consisted of soft 

 red sand, so soft that no pickaxe was needed to remove it, and 

 another section of hard sand and ironstone. To obviate building on 

 such an unequal basis they threw in a layer of strong pipe-clay 

 about three feet thick and five wide, which appears to have been 

 well consolidated. Perchance they dreaded building " a house upon 

 the sand," though there was no fear of floods in this situation, and 

 neglected to notice that their clay was a part of the "house," and, 

 as it happened, the clay about four feet from the floor line became 

 soft and the worms (an example of the Darwinian observations) 

 made the clay a favourite haunt, and burrowed it through and 

 through, softening and weakening the whole foundation, threatening 

 the final collapse of the fabric. 



Upon this clay the foundations, formed of very rough sandstone 

 filled in with sand and earth without mortar of any kind, were 

 put in up to the ground line. Here were more relics (which, 

 see p. 177). 



Ecclesiastical customs further aided to endanger the church e.g., 

 the endeavour of the Monks to bury their dead near to the Holy 

 Place causing them' to dig the vaults and graves close to the 



