208 
ANTIQUITIES OE SELBOENE. 
height, and of much more modern date than the church; but old 
enough to have needed a thorough repair in 1781, when it was neatly- 
stuccoed at a considerable expense, by a set of workmen who were 
employed on it for the greatest part of the summer. The old bells, 
three in number, loud and out of tune, were taken down in 1735, and 
cast into four; to which Sir Simon Stuart, the grandfather of the 
present baronet, added a fifth at his own expense : and, bestowing it in 
the name of his favourite daughter, Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be 
cast with the following motto round it : 
" Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria : 
Illius et laudes nomen ad astra sono. " 
The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed as an high 
festival by the village, and rendered more joyous, by an order from the 
donor, that the treble bell should be fixed bottom upward in the ground 
and filled with punch, of which all present were permitted to partake. 
The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and would not be 
worthy attention did it not shelter a fine sharp gothic doorway. This 
is undoubtedly much older than the present fabric ; and, being found 
in good preservation, was worked into the wall, and is the grand 
entrance into the church : nor are the folding-doors to be passed over 
in silence ; since, from their thick and clumsy structure, and the rude 
flourished-work of their hinges, they may possibly be as ancient as the 
doorway itself. 
The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south side of the roof of 
the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles instead of tiles, on 
account of their lightness, which favours the ancient and crazy timber- 
frame. And, indeed, the consideration 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 without 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. 
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 
