Sturminster is a small and ancient town on the eastern bank of the Stour. "Newton" is on the west side of the river and looks as old as its neighbour. The two are connected by a medieval bridge of six arches. Sturminster Church was almost entirely rebuilt, except for the tower, nearly a hundred years ago. Newton Castle was once a stronghold of the Kings of Wessex. A few scanty remnants of the fortress can still be seen close to the road and river. A road to the north passes by Hinton St. Mary, with a rebuilt church high up on a breezy hill, and reaches Marnhull, the "Marlott" of Thomas Hardy. The Early English church has some remains of an early Norman building and some later insertions. The tower is a landmark for many miles around. A careful restoration some years ago brought to light several interesting details that had been hidden for some two hundred years or more; including a stairs to the rood-loft, a squint, and the piscina. The alabaster effigies on a cenotaph are believed to represent Lord Bindon and his wives (about 1450). The following remarkable epitaph on a former clerk is said to have been written by his rector:

HERE UNDER THIS STONE
LIE RUTH AND OLD JOHN
WHO SMOKED ALL HIS LIFE
AND SO DID HIS WIFE:
AND NOW THERES NO DOUBT
BUT THEIR PIPES ARE BOTH OUT
BE IT SAID WITHOUT JOKE
THAT LIFE IS BUT SMOKE;
THOUGH YOU LIVE TO FORESCORE
TIS A WHIFF AND NO MORE.

A short distance to the north, through the hamlet of Flanders, is the fine sixteenth-century mansion called Nash Court.

An alternative road to the Blandford highway follows the river and rail through Shillingstone, an interesting village that had a year or two since (and may still have) a maypole; a beautiful village cross; and a much restored Norman and Early English church containing a pulpit presented by a Londoner who sought sanctuary from the great plague. The road then goes by Broad Oak and over Sturminster Common to Okeford Fitzpaine, Banbury Hill Camp being passed on the right about half way. Okeford has a church interesting to the antiquary. It has a Decorated west window that is said to have been turned inside out. Part of the ancient screen and rood-loft still remain, together with a piscina in the chancel. It is said that the upper part of the pulpit was at one time used as a font. The old font, restored, for many years formed part of the wall of the churchyard. The road continues up the long tongue of Okeford Hill with wide retrospective views. At the summit a by-way turns to the right along the ridge, which gradually increases in height until it reaches its summit three miles away at Bulbarrow Hill (902 feet) just above Rawlsbury Camp. The magnificent view up Blackmore Vale and northwestwards toward Yeovil is worth the journey to see. Rawlsbury is a prehistoric circular entrenchment with a double wall and ditch. Stoke Wake village is just below and Mappowder is about two miles away by the fields, but much farther by road. This last is an old-world hamlet eight miles from a railway, where curfew is still rung in the winter. In the church is an interesting miniature effigy that probably marks the shrine of a crusader's heart.

Continuing over Okeford Hill the road presently drops to Turnworth House at the head of a long narrow valley leading down to a string of "Winterborne" villages (or more correctly—Winterbourne). The situation of the mansion and village is very beautiful and very lonely. Few seem to wish to brave the long ascent of the hill and one can pass from Okeford to Turnworth many times without meeting a solitary wayfarer. Turnworth Church is Early English, rebuilt on the exact lines of the old fabric and retaining the ancient tower.

The first of the Winterbournes—Strickland, lies a long mile beyond Hedgend Farm, where we turn sharp to the left and traverse a very lonely road, sometimes between close woods and rarely in sight of human habitation until the drop to the Stour brings us to Blandford Forum, a pleasant, bright and clean town built within a wide loop of the river that here begins to assume the dignity of a navigable stream, crawling lazily among the water meadows, with back-waters and cuts that bring to mind certain sections of the Upper Thames. The two fine thoroughfares—Salisbury and East Streets—which meet in the wide market place are lined with buildings, dating from 1732 or later, for in 1731 a great fire, the last of a series, destroyed almost the whole of the town and its suburbs. The old town pump, now a drinking fountain, records that it was "humbly erected ... in grateful Acknowledgement of the Divine Mercy, That has since raised this Town, Like the Phoenix from its Ashes, to its present flourishing and beautiful State." Several lives were lost in this disaster and the great church of SS. Peter and Paul perished with everything that previous fires had spared. The present erection is well enough as a specimen of the Classic Renaissance, but need not detain us. At one time Blandford was a town of various industries, from lace making to glass painting, but it is now purely an agricultural centre.

Blandford St. Mary is the suburb on the west side of the Stour. The Perpendicular church has a tower and chancel belonging to a much earlier period. A former rector was an ancestor of the great Pitt, and one of the family—"Governor" Pitt, is buried in the north aisle. The family lived at Down House on the hills to the westward. A more ancient family, the d'Amories, lived at Damory Court near the town. The famous Damory's Oak is no more. Its hollow trunk served as shelter for a whole family who were rendered homeless by the great fire. An old barn not far from the Court is said to have been a chapel dedicated to St. Leonard; it still retains its ecclesiastical doors and windows.

The seven miles of undulating and dusty road westwards from Blandford, that we have partly traversed from Winterbourne Strickland, leads to Milton Abbas, a charming village surrounded by verdured hills and deep leafy combes. Here is the famous Abbey founded by King Athelstan for Benedictines. The monks' refectory, all that remains of the conventual buildings, indicates the former splendour of the establishment. The abbey church, built in the twelfth century, was destroyed during a thunderstorm after standing for about two hundred years; the present building is therefore a study in Decorated and Perpendicular styles. It is, after Sherborne and Wimborne, the finest church in Dorset. The pinnacled tower is much admired, but the shortness of the building detracts from its effectiveness. It is not certain that the church ever had a nave, though the omission seems improbable. The interior is usually shown on Thursdays, when the grounds of the modern "Abbey" are open to the public. Within the church the fifteenth-century reredos, the sedilia and stalls, and the pre-Reformation tabernacle for reserving the consecrated elements (a very rare feature) should be noticed. Two ancient paintings of unknown age, probably dating from the early fifteenth century, and several tombs, complete the list of interesting items. The ancient market town that once surrounded the Abbey was swept away when the mansion was erected in 1780, so that the present village is of the "model" variety and was built by the first Earl of Dorchester soon after his purchase of the property over one hundred and fifty years ago. Church, almshouses and inn, all date from the same period. Time has softened the formality of the plan, and Milton is now a pleasant old-world place enough, somnolent and rarely visited by the stray tourist, but well worthy of his attention. The church contains a Purbeck marble font from the abbey, but otherwise is as uninteresting as one might expect from its appearance. Milton was originally Middletown from its position in the centre of Dorset.

Three miles down stream from Blandford, near Spettisbury, is the earthwork called Crawford Castle. An ancient bridge of nine arches here crosses the Stour to Tarrant Crawford, where was once the Abbey of a Cistercian nunnery. Scanty traces of the buildings remain in the vicinity of the early English church. This village is the first of a long series of "Tarrants" that run up into the remote highlands of Cranborne Chase. Buzbury Rings is the name of another prehistoric entrenchment north of the village; it is on the route of an ancient trackway which runs in a direction that would seem to link Maiden Castle, near Dorchester, with the distant mysteries of Salisbury Plain.

For the traveller who has the time to explore the Tarrant villages a delightful journey is in store. Although there is nothing among them of surpassing interest, the twelve or fifteen-mile ramble would be a further revelation of the unspoilt character and quiet beauty of this corner of Dorset. Pimperne village, on the Blandford-Salisbury road, where there is a ruined cross on the village green and a rebuilt church still retaining its old Norman door, is on the direct way to Tarrant Hinton, just over four miles from Blandford. Here a lane turns right and left following the Tarrant-brook that gives its name to the seven hamlets upon its banks. Hinton Church is beautifully placed on the left of this by-way which, on its way to Tarrant Gunville, presently passes Eastbury Park, a mile to the north. Only a fragment of the once famous house is left. The original building was a magnificent erection comparable with Blenheim, and built by the same architect—Vanburgh—for George Dodington, one time Lord of the Admiralty. The property came to his descendant, the son of a Weymouth apothecary named Bubb, who had married into the family. George Budd Dodington became a persona grata at court, lent money to Frederick Prince of Wales, and finished, at a cost of £140,000, the building his grandfather had commenced. This wealthy commoner, after a career at Eastbury as a patron of the arts, was created Lord Melcombe possibly for his services to the son of George II. At his death the property passed to Earl Temple who was unable to afford the upkeep and eventually the greater portion of this "folly" was demolished. The lane that turns south from the Salisbury high-road goes through Tarrants Launceston—Monckton—Rawston—Rushton and Keynston and finishes at Tarrant Crawford that we have just seen is in the valley of the Stour.

Two roads run northwards to Shaftesbury from Blandford. One, the hill way, leaves the Salisbury road half a mile from the town and, passing another earthwork on Pimperne Down, makes for the lonely and beautiful wooded highlands of Cranborne Chase, with but one village—Melbury Abbas—in the long ten miles of rough and hilly road. The other, and main, highway keeps to the river valley as far as Stourpaine, and then bears round the base of Hod Hill, where there is a genuine Roman camp inside an older trench. Large quantities of pottery and coins belonging to the Roman period have been found here and are stored in various collections. The way is now picturesquely beautiful as it goes by Steepleton Iwerne, that has a little church lost behind the only house in the hamlet, and Iwerne Courtenay. The last-named village is off the main road to the left, but a by-path can be taken which leads through it. The poorly designed Perpendicular church (with a Decorated tower) was erected, or rather rebuilt, as late as 1641. The building is famous as the prison for those guerilla fighters of the Civil War called "Clubmen," who consisted mostly of better class farmers and yeomanry. They had assembled on Hambledon Hill, the great entrenched eminence to the west of the village, and seem to have been officered by the country clergy. At least they appear to have greatly chagrined Cromwell, although he spoke of them in a very disparaging way, and deprecated their fighting qualities. Iwerne Minster, the next village on the road, possesses a very fine cruciform church of dates varying from Norman to Perpendicular, though the main structure is in the later style. The stone spire is rare for Dorset. Iwerne Minster House is a modern mansion in a very beautiful park and is the residence of one of the Ismays of steamship fame. Sutton Waldron has a modern church, but Fontmell Magna, two miles from Iwerne Minster, will profitably detain the traveller. Here is an actual village maypole, restored of course, and a beautiful Perpendicular church, also restored, but unspoilt. The lofty tower forms an exquisite picture with the mellow roofs of the village, the masses of foliage, and the surrounding hills. The fine east window is modern and was presented by Lord Wolverton, a one-time Liberal Whip, who was a predecessor of the Ismays at Iwerne Minster House. The west window is to his memory. Compton Abbas, a mile farther, has a rebuilt church. The charm of the situation, between Elbury Hill and Fontmell Down, will be appreciated as the traveller climbs up the slope beyond the village toward Melbury Down (863 feet), another fine view-point. As the road descends to the head waters of the Stour, glimpses of the old town on St. John's Hill are occasionally obtained on the left front and, after another stiff climb, we join the Salisbury road half a mile short of High Street.

Shaftesbury is not only Shaston to Mr. Hardy, but to the natives also, and, as will be seen presently, it had at least two other names in the distant past. It is one of the most romantically placed inland towns in England and would bear comparison with Bridgenorth, were it not that the absence of a broad river flowing round the base of the hill entirely alters the character of the situation. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth it was founded by Hudibras, son of the builder of Caerleon, and was called Mount Paladur (Palladour). It was without doubt a Roman town, as the foundations of Roman buildings were discovered while excavations were being made in High Street about twenty years ago. Alfred rebuilt the town and founded St. Mary's Abbey, with his daughter Aethelgiva as first abbess. The removal of the body of the martyred Edward hither from Wareham, after his murder at Corfe Castle, gave Shaftesbury a wide renown and caused thousands of pilgrims to flock to the miracle-working shrine. For a time it was known as Eadwardstow and the Abbess was a lady of as much secular importance as a Baron. The magnificent Abbey Church was as imposing as any we have left to us, but not a vestige remains except the fragmentary wall on Gold's Hill and the foundations quite recently uncovered and surveyed. One of the most interesting discoveries is that of a twisted column in the floor of the crypt that is thought to be part of the martyr's shrine.

Shaftesbury once had twelve churches, but one only of the old structures remain. This is a fine Perpendicular building of simple plan, chancel and nave being one. The tower is noble in its fine proportions and the north side of the nave aisle is beautifully ornamented and embattled. Holy Trinity and St. James' are practically new churches, although rebuilt on the ground plans of the original structures. On the west side of the first-named is a walk called "The Park" that would make the fortune of any inland health resort, so magnificent is the view and so glorious the air. The hill on which the town is built rises abruptly from the valley in a steep escarpment, so that the upper end of High Street is 700 feet above the sea. There is therefore only one practicable entrance, by way of the Salisbury road. Of actual ancient buildings there are few, although at one time there was some imposing medieval architecture in this "city set on a hill," if we may believe the old writers. It once boasted a castle besides the Hostel of St. John Baptist and its many churches. It may have been in this castle that Canute died in 1035.

The station for Shaftesbury is Semley, just over the Wilts border, but it is proposed to take the longer journey to Gillingham, nearly four miles north-west, which is the next station on the South Western main line. This was once the centre of a great Royal "Chase," disforested by Charles I. It was also the historic scene of the Parliament called to elect Edward Confessor to the throne, and at "Slaughter Gate," just outside the town, Edmund Ironside saved Wessex for the Saxons by defeating Canute in 1016. The foundations of "King's Court Palace," between Ham Common and the railway, show the site of the hunting lodge of Henry III and the Plantagenet kings. Gillingham church was spoilt by a drastic early nineteenth-century restoration. The chancel belongs to the Decorated period. There are several interesting tombs and a memorial of a former vicar over the arch of the tower. He was dispossessed as a "malignant" during the Commonwealth, but returned at the Restoration.

Gillingham cannot show many old houses and it has the appearance of a busy and flourishing manufacturing town of the smaller sort without any of the sordid accompaniments of such places. Its commercial activities—pottery and tile-making, breweries and flour mills, linen and silk manufacture, are mostly modern and have been fostered by the exceptional railway facilities. In its Grammar school, founded in 1526 by John Grice, it still has a first-rate educational establishment with the added value of a notable past, for here was educated Clarendon, the historian of the Great Rebellion, and several other famous men.

The castle and estates had been acquired from the Grevilles by the Arundells, an old Cornish family, in the early sixteenth century. The Arundells were convinced Catholics, and the first of the family to own Wardour was beheaded in 1552 "as a rebel and traitor" or rather, "as his conscience was of more value to him than his head." As we see the building to day it forms a fine example of fifteenth-century architecture, despite its dismantled state. The walls are fairly perfect and the eastern entrance with its two towers, approached by a stately terrace, is most imposing. The gateway is surmounted by an inscription referring to the two Arundells of the Great Rebellion; above is a niche containing a bust of Christ and the words "SUB NOMINE TUO STET GENUS ET DOMUS." The entrance to the stairs, an arch in the Classic Renaissance style, is a picturesque and much-admired corner of the ruin.

Not much can be said for the aspect of the new Castle, a building erected in the eighteenth century. It is a museum of art and contains many treasures by Rembrandt, Holbein, Velasquez, Vandyke and other great masters and, most interesting of all, a portrait of Lady Blanche Arundell, the defender of the Castle. She was a granddaughter of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, and so came of an heroic and kingly line. Another famous relic is a wooden chalice made from the Glastonbury Thorn, and the splendid (so-called) Westminster chasuble is preserved in the chapel.

On the high road Swallowcliffe; Sutton Mandeville, with a partly Norman church; Fovant, nearly opposite Chislebury Camp and with another (restored) Norman church; and Compton Chamberlaine are passed, all being a short distance off the road to the left, before it drops for the last time into the valley of the Nadder. Near the last village is Compton Park, the home of that Colonel Penruddocke who, in 1655, led a small body of horsemen into Salisbury and proclaimed Charles II, at the same time seizing the machinery of law and government. But the "rising" was not popular; the Colonel got no assistance from the townspeople and the affair led to his death upon the scaffold.

The most profitable way of approaching Salisbury is to continue northwards from Ansty by a lane that eventually descends to Tisbury on the headwaters of the Nadder. This small town has a station on the South Western main line and a large cruciform church, situated at the foot of the steep hill on which the town is built. Its present nave is Early English, but an earlier Transitional building once stood on the site. The tower is more curious than beautiful and the quaint top story may be contemporary with the chancel, an addition of the early seventeenth century. The latter has an elaborately ornamented ceiling and is the resting place of Lady Blanche Arundell and also of Sir Thomas, first Lord Wardour, who distinguished himself as a late crusader in 1595 at the battle of Gran in Hungary, when he captured a Turkish standard. His helmet is fixed to the wall above his tomb. Place House, once a grange of Shaftesbury Abbey, at the end of the village, is an early Tudor manor. The fine gate-house and the tithe-barn at the side of the entrance court are good specimens of the domestic architecture of the period. The buildings form a picturesque group and the all too brief glimpse of them from the railway has probably caused many travellers thereon to break their journey.

A short two miles to the north of Tisbury, in a lovely district of wooded hills, is Fonthill Giffard. The church, erected in the Early English style in 1866, will not detain the visitor, though one might well be disposed to linger in the charming village. The great "lion" of this district was the famous and extraordinary Fonthill Abbey, an amazing erection in sham Gothic, built by Wyatt, that "infamous dispoiler, misnamed architect" to the order of the eccentric author of Vathek—William Beckford, heir of a wealthy London merchant who was twice Lord Mayor and died a millionaire. Contemporary prints are occasionally met with in curiosity shops that bring vividly before us this specimen of the "Gothic madness" of our great grandfathers. An enormous octagonal tower arises from the centre of the strange pile of buildings, which is in the form of a cross with arms of equal length. Pinnacle and gargoyles, moulding and ornaments, all clashing and at war with each other, are stuck on anywhere and everywhere; the nightmare dream of a medievalist. If this was the fruit of Beckford's brain nothing more need be said. If that of Wyatt's, we can but be thankful that he did not live long enough to have the commission for building the present Palace of Westminster. A pile that as it is, is only too reminiscent of the florid imaginings of the Gothic revival.

The expensive eccenticities of Beckford—he was a collector of everything costly—brought about the sale of Fonthill and a retirement to Bath. Not long after the new owner, a millionaire named Farquhar, had entered into possession, the central tower fell and ruined most of the "gingerbread" beneath. Perhaps the best thing Wyatt ever did was his architectural work in the foundations of this sham "abbey."

The present Fonthill House has a small portion of Wyatt's building incorporated with it. Half a mile away is the new Fonthill Abbey (so-called). It was erected by the Marquis of Westminster in 1859 and is in the Scottish Baronial style. The situation, overlooking a sheet of water formed out of one of the feeders of the Nadder, is beautiful in the extreme. To the north-west is Beckford's Tower—one of the many he built (he is buried under one of them at Bath)—from which there is a glorious view of the hills, woods and waters of this fair country side. Hindon, about two miles north-west of Fonthill Giffard, is a small town fallen from the ancient state that it held when it refused Disraeli the honour of representing it in Parliament. Its pleasant situation in the midst of the wooded hills that surround it on all sides, the quiet old houses and dreamy main street beneath the shady trees that were planted in honour of the marriage of Edward VII, make its only claim on the notice of the passing tourist. Not far from Hindon and about three miles from Fonthill Giffard is East Knoyle, the birthplace of Sir Christopher Wren in 1632. He was a son of its rector.

From Tisbury a road goes eastwards down the valley of the Nadder through the small hamlet of Chicksgrove to Teffont Evias, or Ewyas, the name of the former lords of the manor. This village is most delightfully situated on high ground above the Nadder. The sixteenth-century manor house, the rectory and the beautiful church, are all of much interest. The church was built in the fifteenth century and has a fine western tower and spire. The Ley Chapel contains a number of monuments to that family, and the mosaics representing the Angelic Choir over the east window strike an uncommon note for a country church. Beyond Teffont Magna, where there is a very small and ancient church, are the famous quarries which supplied some of the stone for Salisbury Cathedral and were almost certainly worked by the Romans. They are now roomy caverns, that, like Tilly Whim at Swanage, have every appearance of being natural.

Continuing towards Salisbury, the first village passed through is Dinton, the birthplace of Clarendon, historian of the Civil War. Then comes Baverstock, with a restored Decorated church, and lastly, before reaching Wilton, Barford St. Martin. Here is an Early English cruciform church with one or two interesting features, including an ancient effigy near the altar, in what appears to be a winding sheet. The road through these villages, or rather tapping them—the first two are slightly off the main route to the left—keeps to the north side of the Nadder valley, at first under the wooded escarpment of the Middle Hills where are the prehistoric remains of Hanging Langford Camp, Churchend Ring and Bilbury Ring: and then under the great expanse of Grovely Wood, which clothes the lonely hills dividing the valleys of Wylye and Nadder, covered with evidences of an age so far away that the Roman road from Old Sarum, traversing the summit of the hills, is a work of yesterday by comparison.

Wilton is an exceedingly interesting place if one considers its history. It took its name from the Wylye and gave it to the shire. It was the ancient capital of the Wilsaetas and antedated Old Sarum as the seat of their bishop. It only just missed being the first town of the county when Bishop Poore preferred an entirely fresh site for his new Cathedral after shaking the tainted dust of Old Sarum from off his feet.

The position of the town, on the tongue of land between the two rivers just above their meeting place, is ideal as a stronghold and an imposing position in other ways, but the Wilton of to-day is small and rather mean in its streets and houses and without any important remains of its ancient past. Its history begins with the battle of Ellandune between Mercia and Wessex, in which the victor—Egbert of the West Saxon line—made good his claim to be overlord of England. It was here that the greater West Saxon, Alfred, defeated the Danish invaders, and here again Sweyn turned the tables and burnt and slew in true pirate fashion. A house of Benedictine nuns was founded in Wilton at an early date and was enlarged and re-endowed by Alfred. St. Edyth, one of the nuns, was a daughter of King Eadgar and Wulftrude, who had been a nun herself. When the Queen died Wulftrude refused to become the King's consort, and eventually became Abbess of Wilton. The site of the Abbey is now occupied by Wilton House.

According to Leland "the chaunging of this (Icknield) way was the total course of the ruine of Old Sarisbyri and Wiltoun, for afore Wiltoun had twelve paroche churches or more, and was the hedde town of Wilshire." This refers to the new bridge built at Harnham to divert the route to the south-west through the new city. Still, the collapse was not utter and the position of the town was enough to save it from total ruin. Cloth making and the wool trade generally persisted for many years, and the making of carpets ("Wilton Pile") has persisted to the present day, despite competition and some anxious years for the manufacturers.

Of the few unimportant relics of the past may be mentioned the old Town Cross that stands against the churchyard wall, and the chapel of St. John in Ditchampton, part of a hospital founded in 1189 by Bishop Hurbert of Sarum. St. Giles' Hospital, originally for lepers, was founded by Adeliza, consort of Henry I, and rebuilt in 1624. Wilton church is as unusual as it is imposing. It was built by Lord Herbert of Lea while still the Hon. Sidney Herbert. Though the style seems out of keeping with an ordinary English countryside there is something about the high banks of foliage surrounding the town that gives the Italian campanile an almost natural air. The church is in the Lombardic style and the grand flight of steps, the triple porches and beautiful cloisters connecting the tower with the main building, are exceedingly fine. No less imposing is the ornate and costly interior. In its wealth of marbles and mosaics it is almost without parallel in England. The two handsome tombs of alabaster in the chancel are those of Lord Herbert of Lea and his mother. Not the least interesting feature of this unique church is the fine stained glass in the windows of the apse, dating from the thirteenth century.

Wilton House stands in a beautiful park that comes almost up to the doors of the town. The waters of the Nadder as they flow through the glades have been broadened into a long lake-like expanse spanned by a very beautiful Palladian bridge. This is the home of the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. Their ancestors were an ancient Welsh family and great friends of their compatriots, the Tudor sovereigns. Here, as constant and welcome guests, came Ben Jonson, Edmund Spencer and Philip Massinger, who was a son of one of the Earl's servants. Here As You Like It is said to have been played before James I, with Shakespeare himself as one of the company. Gloriana was a visitor in 1573 and attempted to flirt with Sir Philip Sidney, brother-in-law of the host, presenting him with one of her auburn locks. Here Sir Philip wrote a good part of the Arcadia. It will be seen that Wilton was a home for all who had the divine fire within them. Gentle George Herbert, a relative and esteemed friend, could often come from near-by Bemerton, and Izaak Walton, who was here collecting material for the "Life" of his hero, no doubt spent some happy days in contemplation of the clear waters of the Nadder. Charles I was another visitor, and by him certain suggestions are said to have been made for some of the alterations and additions of the seventeenth century. The original building which followed the dismantled Abbey was designed by Holbein, but this has almost disappeared except for the central portion over the gateway. Wyatt was allowed to stick some of his sham Gothic enormities over the older work about the time he was designing Fonthill, but an era of better taste soon got rid of these and the present fronts are Italian in style and very lordly and imposing. The great hall contains the Vandyck portraits for which Wilton is preeminently famous, but there are other great masters, including Rubens, Titian and del Sarto to be seen by those interested, besides a collection of armour hardly to be surpassed in the country. These treasures are shown at certain times.

Although a pleasant and retired little place, Bemerton would not be of much interest were it not for its associations with the "singer of surpassing sweetness," the author of The Temple. George Herbert became rector here in 1630 and died two years later, aged 42. He lies within the altar rails of the church and the tablet above is simply inscribed G.H., 1633. The lines on the Parsonage wall and written by the parson-poet were originally above the chimney inside. They run thus:—

"If thou chance for to find
A new house to thy mind,
And built without any cost,
Be good to the poor
As God gives thee store
And then thy labour's not lost."

In the garden that slopes down to the river there was quite recently, and may be still, an old and gnarled medlar planted by Herbert. The well-known painting "George Herbert at Bemerton" by W. Dyce, R.A., in the Guildhall Art Gallery, gives an excellent picture of the calm grace of the surroundings and of the heavenly spire of the Cathedral soaring up into the skies a mile away. The fine new memorial church at Bemerton is used for the regular Sunday services and Herbert's little old church for worship on weekdays. It is pleasant to think that the bells which sound so sweetly across the meadows, as we take the footpath way to Salisbury, are those that were rung by Herbert when he first entered his church.

The City of Salisbury, or officially, New Sarum, is a regularly built, spacious and clean county capital that would be of interest and attraction if there were no glorious cathedral to grace and adorn it. As a matter of fact, cathedral towns away from the immediate precincts suffer from the overshadowing character of the great churches, that take most of the honour and glory to themselves. This is, of course but right, and the discerning traveller will keep the even balance between the human interest of court and alley and market place and the awed reverence that must be felt by the most materialistic of us when we come within the immediate influence of these solemn sanctuaries, of which Salisbury is the most perfect in the land.

It is impossible to give the merest outline of the history of Salisbury without first referring to that of Old Sarum, or Sorbiodunum, two miles to the north. The huge mound on the edge of the Plain was doubtless a prehistoric fortress, though of a much simpler form than the three-terraced enclosure of twenty-seven acres that we see there to-day. In Roman times the importance of this advanced outpost of chalk, commanding the approach to the lower valley of the Avon, would be appreciated. But it would appear from recent investigations that little was done to elaborate the defences. Nevertheless Sorbiodunum was an important Roman town and stood on the junction of two great thoroughfares—the Icknield Way and the Port Way. The recent excavations, interfered with to a large extent by the late war, have been so disappointing in the lack of Roman relics that a suggestion has been made by Sir W.H. St. John Hope that the true site of the Roman town may have been at Stratford, just below the mound to the north-west. It is possible that further excavations will settle the question.

After the Saxon invasion, Sarobyrig, as it was then called, probably assumed its present outline so far as the foundation of the walls are concerned. That a mint of Canute (who according to one tradition, died here and not at Shaftesbury) and again of Edward Confessor was set up, and that the town became the seat of the Bishop of Sherborne, was a proof of its established importance. The smaller central mound of the citadel itself would appear to have been a work of the Normans, who divided the space occupied within the outer defences into two parts; that on the east belonging to the military works, and the western half pertaining to the Bishop and having within it the original Salisbury Cathedral. Here was instituted by Bishop Osmund the new English ritual or "use of Sarum," and here commenced those endless squabbles between clergy and soldiers that at last resulted in the men of peace leaving the fortress city.

("Quid Domini Domus in Castro, nisi foederis arca
In Tempho Baalim? Carcer uterque locus,
Est ibi defectus aquae, sed copia cretae,
Saevit ibi ventus, sed philomela silet.")

The commission to inquire into the proposed change was appointed by the Pope in 1217, and from this year begins the rapid decay of Old Sarum. The Cathedral was dismantled and much of the material was used in the new structure in the plain. That the original was a noble building existing records and ultimate discoveries amply prove. The ground plan was well seen in the dry summer of 1834, when measurements were taken and the total length found to be 270 feet. The first church was seriously damaged by a thunderbolt five days after its consecration, and the original plan was much elaborated in the rebuilding—

"So gret lytnynge was the vyfte yer, so that al to nogt
The rof of the chyrch of Salesbury it broute,
Ryght evene vyfte day that he yhalwed was."

(Robert of Gloucester.)

Of the castle not so much is known. Leland says in 1540:—"Ther was a right fair and strong castella within Old-Saresbyri longing to the Erles of Saresbyri especially the Longerpees. I read that one Gualterus was the first Erle after the conquest of it. Much ruinus building of this castelle yet ther remayneth. The dich that environed the old town was a very deepe and strong Thynge," and again "Osmunde, erle of Dorchestre, and after Bishop of Saresbyri, erected his Cathedrale church ther in the west part of the town; and also his palace; whereof now no token is but only a chapel of Our Lady yet standing and mainteynid.... Ther was a paroch of the Holy Rode beside in Old-Saresbyri and another over the est gate Whereof some tokens remayne. I do not perceyve that there are any mo gates in Old-Saresbyri than 2; one by est and another by west. Without eche of these gates was a fair suburbe. On the est suburbe was a paroche church of S. John; and ther yet is a chapel standing. The river is a good quarter of a myle from Old-Saresbyri and more, where it is nerest on to it, and that is at Stratford village south from it. Ther hath bene houses in tyme of mind inhabited in the est suburbe of Old-Saresbyri; but now there is not one house neither within Old-Saresbyri nor without it inhabited."

It will be seen that in comparison with other English towns Salisbury is not old. Like several others its foundations were entirely ecclesiastical, for as soon as the builders of the new Cathedral started upon their work the civil population of Old Sarum migrated to the water meadows with as little delay as possible, and the Bishop's architects planned for them a town with regular streets and square blocks of dwellings all much of a size, a characteristic that will strike the most unobservant traveller and which differentiates this from most other English towns in a marked degree.

From whichever side Salisbury has been entered; by either of the great roads; or by the railway that, from the east, makes a long tour of the north side of the town in kindly purpose, it would seem, to give the passer-by a good view—there rises before him the glorious spire that, whatever the boast of uniformity of style or perfection of design, really gives the exterior of the building its unique beauty and without which it would be cold and dull. To the Cathedral then, as its spire is calling so insistently, the stranger must inevitably make his way before troubling about anything else in the town. Our approach happens to coincide with that of the traveller who arrives by rail, and down Fisherton Street, an unusually winding thoroughfare for Salisbury, over the Avon bridge and through the High Street Gate we enter the most beautiful of those abodes of beauty—the English cathedral closes. The guide books advise the tourist to make the first approach by way of St. Anne's Gate, when the gradual unfolding of the north front of the building makes a perfect introduction to the Cathedral, but so does that of the sudden view of the whole, with the tower and spire as an exquisite centre, as we leave the row of well-ordered houses, mixed with a few quiet shops, that line the approach from High Street to the north-west angle of the Close. A pleasing presentment of Edward VII now looks down this old by-street from the High Street Gate and is Salisbury's tribute to that lover of peace. The Close is bordered by beautiful old houses, some quite noble in their proportions, but likely to be overlooked by all but the most leisured visitor. It is so difficult to look at anything but the tower and spire, and it is best to forget that another tower, a campanile, similar to that at Chichester, once stood on this greensward, to be wantonly destroyed by James Wyatt. This is said to have been garrisoned by the Parliamentary army during the Civil War. The Deanery, opposite the west door, is a quaintly charming building and the gabled King's House is said to date from the fourteenth century. No incongruous note ever seems to mar the serenity of the great green square. The passers-by all apparently fit their environment; schoolgirls in their teens, fresh faced and happy; clergy of the Chapter, true type of the modern intellectual priest; an occasional workman employed about the Cathedral, upon whom its impress has visibly descended; quaint imps in Elizabethan ruffles playing a seemingly sedate game upon the lawn while their companions are singing in the choir; the ordinary sightseers who, apart from bank holidays, always seem to arrive at the same times and in the same twos and threes, and put on, as do the inevitable butchers' and bakers' youths, a cloak of decorous quiet when they enter the guardian gateways.

The Cathedral was commenced in 1220 by Bishop Poore and took about forty years to build, but this period did not include the erection of the tower and spire which were later additions. The fine and generally admired west front is, from an architect's point of view, the only part of the exterior that is not admirable. It is in actual fact, fraudulent, just as the whole of the upper wall of St. Paul's Cathedral is an artistic untruth. The west wall of Salisbury is a screen without professing to be one. The porches are very small in relation to the great flattish expanse of masonry above them; the dullness of this was much relieved by the series of statues placed in the empty niches about the middle of the last century. The original medieval figures almost all disappeared through the zeal of the Puritans.

Even the most careless glance down the long outline of the walls, artistically broken by the two transepts, but never losing the regular continuity of design, will show the observer that this perfect Early English building was an inspiration of one brain and that the many hands that worked for that brain carried out their tasks as a religious rite. The glory of the tower as we see it was not part of the original plan, though that undoubtedly included some such crown and consummation of the noble work beneath. But although the tower and spire are of a later period—the Decorated, they blend so harmoniously with the earlier building that all might have arisen in one twelve months instead of being labours spread over one hundred years. The rash courage which raised this great pyramid of stone, four hundred and four feet above the sward, on the slender columns and walls that have actually bowed under the great weight they uphold, has often been commented upon. It has been said that the tower would have fallen long ago had it not been for the original scaffolding that remains within to tie and strengthen it. In the eighteenth century a leaden casket was discovered by some workmen high in the spire, containing a relic of our Lady, to whom the Cathedral is dedicated. In the summer of 1921 the steeplejacks employed to test the lightning conductor found that the iron cramps had rusted to such an extent as to split the stonework. A band of iron within the base of the spire in process of rusting is said to have raised the great mass of stone fully half an inch. The iron is now being replaced by gun-metal.

The great church is entered by the north porch, and the immediate effect of august beauty is not at first tempered by the impression of coldness that gradually makes itself felt as we compare, from memory, the interior with that of Winchester or even some of the less important churches we have visited. But this is perhaps only a temporary fault, and when the windows of the nave are rejewelled with the glorious colours that shone from them before the Reformation, the cold austerity of this part of the great church will largely disappear. The extreme orderliness of the architectural conception, the numberless columns and arches ranged in stately rows, vanishing in almost unbroken perspective, make Salisbury unique among English cathedral interiors. An old rhyme gives the building as many pillars, windows, and doors as there are hours, days, and months in the year.

In addition to his other questionable traits, James Wyatt must have had something of the Prussian drill-sergeant in his nature. Under his "restoration" scheme the tombs of bishops and knights that once gave a picturesque confusion to the spaces of the nave were marshalled into precise and regular order in two long lines between the columns on each side. For congregational purposes this was and is an advantage, but Wyatt actually lost one of his subjects in the drilling process and so confused the remainder that the historical sequence is lost.