ON MILTON ABBEY CHURCH. 



By the Rev. R. ROBERTS. 



ITS OEIGIN AND FOUNDATION. 



llHEN tlie Arcliceological Institute came over from 

 Dorchester to see Milton Abbey, on the invitation of 

 Baron Hambro, it was remarked by one of the mem- 

 bers (Mr. Beresford Hope, I believe), in a very interesting 

 article which he subsequently contributed to the Saturday Review, 

 that Dorset is the only county in England which contains three 

 Minsters — Sherborne, Wimborne^ and Milton. I would add to 

 this statement that each of those Minsters was a Royal founda- 

 tion, Sherborne having been founded by King Ina, 705 ; 

 Wimborne by his sister, Cuthburga, c. 713; and Milton by 

 King Athelstan, after the great battle of Burnaburr, which 

 made him King of the whole of England, about the year 937. 

 In its original foundation it was not an abbey, as it became 

 afterwards, but a Minster, a religious house occupied, not by 

 monks, but by secular canons, and so it continued until the 

 reign of King Edgar, of whom it is related in the Saxon 

 Chronicle under the year 964: — "This year King Edgar 

 expelled the priests at "Winchester, from the Old Minster and 

 from the New Minster, and from Chertsey, and from Milton." 

 There has been much dispute respecting the motive of Athelstan 

 in founding Milton. It was asserted by some that he built it in 



