us 



The Twentieth General Meeting. 



of Canterbury, which Mr. Fuller read. It was a very amusing docu- 

 ment, and purported to be a complaint from the church itself on the 

 bad state of repair it was in, being " very rusty for the want of white- 

 wash and the chancel unceiled like a barn."" The petition was en- 

 dorsed with the announcement that " My Lord Bishop of Gloucester 

 was requested to see into the matter."" It was no doubt a con- 

 sequence of this petition that the roof of the chancel had been found 

 lathed and plastered up. The ideas as to the desirability of battle- 

 ments were much altered, for he read an answer from the inhabitants, 

 in 1738, to a request by Bishop Benson to rebuild the battlements on 

 the church, which stated that they considered battlements were not 

 necessary nor useful, but better done without. As late as 1770 he 

 found a rate of bd. was levied for restorations. After an allusion 

 to the old seating of the church, and its select character, to the 

 great benefit of the doing away of the galleries, and to the uncovering 

 of some old paintings, the party then proceeded to examine the 

 interior of the church. 



Mr. Fuller was here again full of information. He illustrated his 

 previous remarks more fully and explained the various parts he had 

 alluded to. He pointed out the carved shields on the pillars, which 

 he said were those of families connected with the town, and which 

 had been coloured heraldically at the late restoration of the church. 

 The pulpit, too, had likewise been re-painted after its original style. 

 The pulpit, which is of stone, with open-worked panels, had been 

 turned in former days into a u three-decker/'' some two feet of 

 solid Grecian pannelling having been added, with a sounding 

 board; but these had been removed, and the pulpit itself alone 

 remained, restored after the old style. A point of great interest was 

 a half-pillar of the arcade dividing the St. John's chapel from the 

 Chancel, the base of which formerly belonged to a pillar of a Roman 

 building, the original mouldings still remaining on that portion 

 imbedded into the wall, while the other portions had been worked 

 down into Norman mouldings. The pillar was allowed to stand in 

 its present peculiar form to illustrate this interesting fact. Preben- 

 dary S earth, on the visit of the British Archaeological Association 

 to the church, said he did not know of another instance where Roman 



