26G 



Ckerhitt Gleanings. 



I made a plan of Cherhill Churchyard and took copies of all the 

 inscriptions upon the one hundred arid thirty-nine tombstones therein 

 contained, so far as it was possible to decypher them — and a very 

 interesting work it was. Sometimes I found an inscription which 

 seemed at first sight almost absolutely illegible, but of which, by 

 first writing down the few letters that I could make out, and then 

 gradually filling in the gaps, I was eventually able to recover the 

 whole. In other cases I have been quite unable to master an in- 

 scription in the ordinary light of an English day, but if by chance 

 that rare visitant — the sun — came out, the whole inscription has 

 come out too. And then in the ease of a stone so placed that the 

 sunlight could, not fall upon it, I have been able to obtain the same 

 help by reflecting the rays upon the inscription with a mirror. In 

 other cases, again, I have returned to my work after nightfall with 

 a small bulls- eye lantern, and have thus been able to fill up gaps 

 which, with all my care, I had been obliged to leave in the daylight 

 transcript. Nor did I ever hear it reported in consequence in the 

 village that a ghost had been observed to be haunting the church- 

 yard. Sometimes a rubbing on of chalk has helped me, and 

 sometimes a rubbing off with heelball. And I am quite sure that 

 I have obtained in this way, and preserved in my book, some in- 

 scriptions which in twenty or thirty years' time will have become 

 totally illegible, and a great many which will be so in a hundred 

 years' time. 



And now from the churchyard we pass to the large barn which 

 stands close to it on the south side, and which was, I presume, a 

 tithe barn. This is 111ft. long by 35jft. wide in external measure- 

 ment, and was formerly the largest entirely wooden barn (so far as 

 I am aware) in the county. It is built in the form of a parallelogram, 

 broken by four large stone porches, two on each side, which may, 

 indeed, almost be described as forming transepts. The interior 

 consists of seven bays, and is divided into a nave and aisles by a 

 row of large posts standing upon masonry bases, and running up 

 to the purlines of the roof. Across these came the collar beams, 

 and above again, smaller collar beams, with king posts between the 

 two. Supporting the lower collars are strong curved braces, and 



