ff Durlston Head, on 6th
January, 1786. The churchyard is large, and a walk round it allows a
view of the whole of the north side of the church. On the south side a
modern house and its grounds have displaced the cloisters and the
domestic buildings attached to the foundation. Prominent features on the
north side are a circular transept stairway, rich in diaper work, the
arcading round the transept, the wide windows of the clerestory of the
choir, and the upper portion of the Lady Chapel. The fifteenth-century
tower is set so far within the nave as to leave two spaces at the ends
of the aisles, one used as a vestry, the other as a store-room. In the
spandrels of the tower doorway are two shields charged with the arms of
the Priory and of the Earls of Salisbury. Above the doorway is a large
window, and above this again a niche containing a figure of Christ. The
octagonal stair turret is at the north-east angle. The north porch, much
restored, is of great size, and its side walls are of nearly the same
height as the clerestory of the nave. On the west side is a recess with
shafts of Purbeck marble and foliated cusps. Around the wall is a low
stone seat, used, it is said, by the parishioners and others who came to
see the Prior on business. The roof has some very beautiful groining,
much restored in 1862. Above the porch is a lofty room, probably used as
the muniment room of the Priory. Entrance to the church from this porch
is through a double doorway of rich Early English work.

[Illustration: PRIORY RUINS, CHRISTCHURCH]

An extraordinary epitaph is that on a tombstone near the north porch,
which reads as follows:--

"We were not slayne but raysed, raysed not to life but to be byried
twice by men of strife. What rest could the living have when dead
had none, agree amongst you heere we ten are one. Hen. Rogers died
Aprill 17 1641."

Several attempts have been made to explain the meaning of this epitaph,
one to the effect that Oliver Cromwell, while at Christchurch, dug up
some lead coffins to make into bullets, replacing the bodies from ten
coffins in one grave. This solution is more ingenious than probable, as
Cromwell does not appear to have ever been at Christchurch. Moreover,
the Great Rebellion did not begin until over fifteen months later than
the date on the tombstone. Another and more likely explanation is that
the ten were shipwrecked sailors, who were at first buried near the spot
whe