332 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
pass by a door at the west end of the middle aisle into the belfry. 
This room is part of a handsome square embattled tower of 
forty-five feet in 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 
Simeon 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 a 
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 
door-way. 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 door-way itself. 
The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south-side of the 
roof of the middle aisle, are 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 acci- 
dents 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 oflT, 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 church-yard is very scanty; and especially as all wish to be 
