418 ANTIQUITIES 



instead of tiles, on account of their lightness, which favours 

 the ancient and crazy timber frame. And indeed, the con- 

 sideration of accidents by fire excepted, this sort of roofing 

 is much more eligible than tiles. For shingles well seasoned, 

 and cleft from quartered timber, never warp, nor let in 

 drifting snow ; nor do they shiver with frost ; nor are they 

 liable to be blown off, like tiles ; but, when well nailed down, 

 last for a long period, as experience has shown us in this 

 place, where those that face to the north are known to have 

 endured, untouched, by undoubted tradition for more than 

 a century. 



Considering the size of the church, and the extent of the 

 parish, the churchyard is very scanty ; and especially as all 

 wish to be buried on the south side, which is become such 

 a mass of mortality that no person can be there interred with- 

 out disturbing or displacing the bones of his ancestors. There 

 is reason to suppose that it once was larger, and extended 

 to what is now the vicarage court and garden; because 

 many human bones have been dug up in those parts several 

 yards without the present limits. At the east end are a few 

 graves ; yet none till very lately on the north side ; but, as 

 two or three families of best repute have begun to bury in 

 that quarter, prejudice may wear out by degrees, and their 

 example be followed by the rest of the neighbourhood. 1 



In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of the 

 east and west end, as if the chancel stood exactly true to 

 those points of the compass ; but this is by no means the 

 case, for the fabric bears so much to the north of the east 

 that the four corners of the tower, and not the four sides, 

 stand to the four cardinal points. The best method of 

 accounting for this deviation seems to be, that the workmen, 

 who probably were employed in the longest days, endea- 

 voured to set the chancels to the rising of the sun. 



Close by the church, at the west end, stands the vicarage 



1 This prejudice seems to have died out. But the objection to bury 

 behind the church is apparently not confined to a Hampshire village. 

 We believe that in many towns of the north of England, the same scruple 

 exists. ED. 



