ON MILTON ABBEY CHtTECa. 85 



front. We know from Hutching^s that in 1700 a wooden gallery 

 wa? put up by Sir Jacob Banks to increase the accommodation 

 in the parish church, which this building was then, and tho 

 lower extremity of that gallery rested on this skreen. That 

 gaUery was afterwards removed when Lord Dorchester restored 

 the building in 1789, and as we know for certain that "Wyatt 

 was very fond of tinkering old buildings, that he did at that 

 time make great alterations in the interior, and committed many 

 acts of barbarism, sweeping away the chapel of St. John the 

 Baptist, it appears to me exceedingly likely that he then took 

 the old skreen in hand and made it what it now is — a sort of 

 heterogeneous composition, ornamented by the plunder of other 

 portions of the building. When Sir G. Scott examined this 

 church in March, 1862, prior to the restoration, I did my best to 

 persuade him to take down the upper part of the skreen, so that 

 the transept might be more conveniently used for public worship, 

 but he woijld not hear of it for a moment. I ought, however, 

 to add that the whole interior of the church was then plastered 

 over, and coloured free stone, so that it was quite impossible to 

 discover what lay beneath the surface. 



THE TABEENACLE. 



We now come to what may, I think, be considered as the most 

 remarkable object in the building, quite unique, I believe, and 

 without any parallel example in the kingdom, so rare, in fact, 

 that when the Cambridge Camden Society published in 1847 

 their "Handbook of English Ecclosiology " to be a guide to 

 antiquarians and to show them what they ought to look for in 

 old churches, this article of church furniture is not even men- 

 tioned by name ; it was utterly unheard of. This object stands 

 upon an iron bracket on the west wall of the south transept, 

 and there it has been for about 400 years, and seems to have 

 never once been removed except during the restoration, when it 

 was taken down for some slight repair it required. It is called 

 in England "a Tabernacle," but in Germany, where such con- 

 structions are numerous, it is named a " Sacrament-Haus," in 



