600 Tisbury Church. 



wood, as that was the almost universal material employed hy the 

 Anglo-Saxons, notwithstanding the fact that there are some notable 

 pre-Norman stone buildings extant. Still they are few and for 

 the most part of late date, and further they nearly all show by 

 their construction that the men who built them were carpenters 

 rather than masons. Also, in places where a stone building existed 

 before the Norman times one generally finds a few of the stones 

 re-used, and nearly always with their carved faces put outward, 

 but in this Church there is not the smallest trace of any stone 

 earlier than Transitional Norman, nor has any pre-Norman work 

 ever been dug up in the churchyard. One of my reasons for 

 thinking that a Church existed, and probably on the site on the 

 present one, is the fact that when the Transitional Norman Church 

 was built, it was necessary to make a receptacle for bones. This 

 crypt will be alluded to later on. No great battle is known to have 

 taken place at or near Tisbury so late as Norman times, therefore 

 I would suggest this bone house became necessary owing to the 

 disturbance of burials in the churchyard when the larger Church, 

 was begun. This Transitional Norman Church apparently consisted 

 of a nave of the same length and width as the present one, with 

 narrow aisles and probably a north porch, a north and south 

 transept with a central tower, terminating in a spire — not probably 

 the one which was struck by lightning in 1762 — and a chancel of 

 the same width as the nave, but of what length cannot now be de- 

 termined. It most likely had a flat ceiling. The nave may have 

 been sub-divided into a greater number of bays than the present 

 one, or have had the same number but with much more massive 

 piers, which is the more probable. It was a good deal lower, but 

 had a clerestory, I think, as the space between the old aisle roof 

 and that of the nave was too much for only a blank wall. Possibly 

 it had either single or double lancet windows over each arch, some- 

 what like the early window now remaining in the west end of the 

 south aisle. The south transept may have had an aisle on its 

 western side. This would account for the remains of a coping 

 over the present arch leading to the south aisle. The earliest work 

 now to be seen is of late Norman date, in the style usually called 



