82 



THE DOVER ROAD 



Chalk church is a very much unrestored building 

 of flint and rubble, dating from the thirteenth century. 

 Its south aisle was j)ulled down at some remote period. 



There still remains, and in 

 very good preservation, 

 too, a singular Early English 

 carving over the western 

 door representing a grinning 

 countryman holding an 

 immense flagon in his two 

 hands and gazing upward 

 towards a whimsically-con- 

 torted figure that seems to 

 be nearly all head and 

 teeth. Between the two is 

 an empty tabernacle which 

 at one time before the 

 destruction of '' idolatrous 

 statues " would have held 

 a figure of the Virgin. The 

 two remaining figures prob- 

 ably illustrate the celebra- 

 tion of " Church ales," a 

 yearly festival formerly 

 common to all English 

 villages, and held on the 

 day sacred to the particular 

 saint to whom the church 

 was dedicated. On these 

 occasions there was used to 

 be general jollity ; feasting 

 and drinking ; manly sports, 

 such as boxing, wrestling, 

 and games at quarter-staff, would be indulged in, and 

 the day was held as a fair, to which came jugglers and 

 players of interludes and itinerant vendors from far 

 and near. The Church, of course, being the original 

 occasion of the merry-making, looked benignly 

 upon it, and provided the funds for the malt 



ANCIENT CARVING— CHALK. 



