report of the vandals and sacrilegious persons who
received it is worth copying, if only to show their character. "We
found," they wrote, "the Prior a very honest, conformable person, and
the house well furnished with jewels and plate, whereof some be meet
for the king's majesty in use as a little chalice of gold, a goodly
large cross, double gilt with the foot garnished, and with stone and
pearl; two goodly basons double gilt. And there be other things of
silver.... In thy church we find a chapel and monument curiously made
of Caen stone, prepared by the late mother of Reginald Pole for her
burial, which we have caused to be defaced, and all the arms and badges
to be delete." It is consoling to note that one of the rascals that
signed that report, Dr London, was shortly afterwards exposed in his
true colours and openly put to penance for adultery before he died in
prison, where he lay for perjury.

The report stated that the church was superfluous. It was the only true
word written there. When a religion is destroyed, its temples are
certainly superfluous. However, there was a considerable influence
brought to bear by the people of the neighbourhood, and the church
itself was granted them for their use. The Priory, which stood to the
south of the church, was, of course, destroyed.

One might stand a whole month in that glorious building with this only
regret, that it is in the hands of strangers. The use to which it is
put is not that for which it was intended, and half the delight of the
place is thus lost to us. But no one can pass down that great avenue of
elms to the glorious north porch, a master-work of the thirteenth
century, without rejoicing that when all is said the church was saved
to us. The great Norman nave, with its thirteenth-century clerestory,
and alas, modern stucco vaulting, the Norman aisles and north transept,
are too reverent for destruction, the fifteenth-century choir and
eastern chapels too lovely.

A certain amount of the old furniture remains to the church in the
restored screen of the fourteenth century, and the reredos over the
communion table and another in the Lady Chapel; here, too, is the old
altar stone of Purbeck. The chantry of the poor Countess of Salisbury,
who was beheaded for high treason in 1541, so brutally defaced by Dr
London and his infamous colleagues, stands there too upon the north;
and close by in the north chapel is the tomb with fine alabaster
effigies of Sir John