Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/323

Rh 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 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 nailed down ast 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