THE ABBEY CHURCH OF DORCHESTER. 32U ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ABBEY CHURCH OF DORCHESTER* § 3. — Decay and Restoration of the Church. I WILL conclude my subject by a brief account of the disfigurements which the church has undergone in Later times, and of the efforts recently made to restore it to its original beauty. The church of Dorchester, as I before stated, was all along parochial as well as monastic, the nave belonging to the parish, the choir and its appurtenances to the abbey. This was also the case at Tewkesbury ; in both cases doubtless the parochial portion alone would have been left standing, just as was the case some years later with the collegiate church at Fotheringhay, had not private munificence rescued the conventual portion from destruction. The choir, &c., of Dorchester Church was purchased for 140/., by Richard Beauforest,of Dorchester,Gentleman, (a relation most probably of Abbot Richard Beauforest, who put stalls in the choir, where his brass remains,) and by him bequeathed to the parish by his will, dated 1554, with the curious proviso " that the said parishioners shall not alter or alienate the said church, implements, or any part or parcel thereof without the consent of my heirs and executors." I must leave to lawyers to decide the possibility of a future alienation of the choir of Dorchester Abbey ; as to the prohibition of any alteration, I am afj-aid I shall soon have to show you that here at least the wills of founders have not been too superstitiously observed. The condition of Dorchester Church is, even now, very deplorable, and it was still more so when the attention of the Oxford Architectural Society was first directed to it in 1844. It had shared the fate of almost every parochialised abbey church ; its size at once exceeding the means of a poor agricultural parish to maintain, and being also much larger than was actually necessary for church accommodation,
- Continued from p. 280.
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