202 THE DOVER ROAD 



orders which he feared to disobey even more than 

 he had dreaded coming over the sea from smmy Italy 

 to convert the pagan Saxons. As first Archbishop 

 of Canterbury he died in a.d. 605 ; and when he 

 died he left the first Cathedral already built on the 

 site of an ancient Romano-British Church where the 

 present great Minster stands. But that was not by 

 any means the first Christian Church in England. 

 To the little village church of Saint Martin belongs 

 that honour, and to this day the hoary walls of that 

 building show the traveller unmistakable Roman tiles 

 which, having been originally built into a pagan 

 temple, remain to prove the humble beginnings of the 

 Word that has spread throughout the world. 



Saint Augustine's Cathedral was small, but, patched 

 and tinkered by generation after generation, it lasted 

 nearly five hundred years ; until, in fact, the troubles 

 of the Conquest practically ruined it. Lanfranc, the 

 first Norman Archbishop, rebuilt the Cathedral Church, 

 and now one rebuilding speedily followed another, each 

 one growing more elaborate than before. Lanfranc's 

 Avork was superseded in 1130 by a magnificent building 

 approaching the present bulk of the Cathedral. Henry 

 the First was present at its consecration, with David, 

 King of Scotland ; and all the ecclesiastical dignitaries 

 of the realm, together with a great concourse of nobles, 

 assisted. Conrad and Ernulf, Priors of Christ Church, 

 were the architects of the work, and so grand was it, and 

 so great was the occasion, that an old chronicler 

 described the ceremony of consecration as " the most 

 famous that had ever been heard of on earth since 

 that of the temple of Solomon." 



But, four years later, the " glorious choir of Conrad " 

 was burned down, and all the pious fervour and 

 exaltation that had raised these sculptured stones 

 and tall towers was wasted. People and clergy alike 

 " were astonished that the Almighty should suffer 

 such things, and, maddened with grief and perplexity, 

 they tore their hair and beat the walls and pavement 



