The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-25
What Societies and Churches Do
ANCIENT CHURCHES
IN GENERAL USE ALL OVER EU-
 ROPE.
Buildings that Date Back to the Eighth Century Make the oldest Ameri- Can Structures Seem Very
 Youthful.

try and the longest in continuous use, dating back to 1715. It simply goes to emphasize what new world America Is compared with that from which the royal gift came. a land in which churches are still in use that were DQflt six and seven centuries ago, buildings that still endure in compar- atively good condition and which give every indication of standing some hun dreds of years so stable has been their construction.
 A notable example of this Upleatham Church in Yorkshire, England, a dim inutfve building. that is at least 800 years old and is splendidly preserved. It Is the smallest church in the United Kingdom and from a distance looks to be mainly tower so tiny is the actual church portion of It. A heavy growth of ivy partically obscures 1t and pro- tects it from the severity of the winter The whole of the front is taken up by the entranceAand one window. neither of which is of undue size and the illumin- ation is further supplied by one other window. from which the size of the place may be gathered
 record of the Danish invasion of England is still preserved on an ancient stone in one of the side chap els of the Church ofLady St. Mary. at Wareham This church boasts of men, tion in the prayer book of the Church of England, for the calender records under date of March IS that here was buried King Edward the Martyr, who was treacherously stabbed by order of his stepmother, Queen Elfrida, as he was drinking a stirrup cup at the gates of Corfu Castle, four miles away.
 Even when wounded he put spurs to his horse and galloped on to seek the protection of the monks. but he fell R..H |. church fetched his body to the town. The Queen mounted her horse to att tend the funeral, but the beast persist ed in running backward so she had q horse litter prepared, and these anil mals also refused to move. The Kings body had been taken into a cottage by a blind woman, whose sight was in- stantly restored to her. These were regarded as miracles and attested the dead Kings right to be called saint and martyr.
 Two years after hls burial the monks asserted their right to have his re- mains in the monastery. and the marble cofin is still on view at the entrance to wareham Church.
 But this is not the only ancient church of the town. for in the Saxon Church of St. Martin, another ivy grown pile of stone, is the burial place 
 reigned in 800, and was poisoned by his queen. In St. Mary's Church of the | same old town are two stone altars | that were used by the Roman soldiers | ia the worship of their heathen gods. The records of the parish church of | Edgeware. London, go back to 1717 I That much has been known for years l but the still greater age of the church 1 has just come to light through an ordel i for the removal of bodies inferred un- l der the chancel.
 1 In summer the tiled floor had alwayi | appeared damp, but 1t was not unti 1 this year that the cause was learned On digging down about six feet 1t wal found that there were coffins actual, floating, and. in addition, there were l quantities of bones that gave evidenc' | of the burial of scores of persons I whose identity is lost through absence l of records.
 1 It was a shock to the congregation | It is supposed now that there are bodies beneath the holy table, foI there are bodies right up to the steps l of the table.
 The church is now to be closed, foI Tho other reason than the necessity oi | cleaning out this grewsome discovery the structure itself needing no repairs despite the certainty that now exists | of it's age. However, it Is not alway. the church itself that has centuries tC | its credit. For instance. there is ont of the stained glass windows of St Margaret's Church. at Westminster Engluand--a crucifix window whicf was only confirmed after a dispute
 iastical courts It was originally mad in Spain for King Henry VII, but ht | died before 1t reached England. e
 As 1t bore portraits of Prince Arthur and Catherine of Arragon 1t displease' Henry VIII, and was sent to Walthan
 Abbey where it remained until tn Dissolution, when & pious friend buried 1t. Afterward it was dug up, sold to
 Wiltshire squire for his private chape
 and finally buried 1t once, through ter
 Tor of his Puritan friends.
 Early in the eighteenth century
 was purchased for St. Margaret
 Church, where it now is.
 In the little village of Annchay
 France. in building that dates bacl
 to medieval days, is a holy wate ! stoup made of two parts of gian
 oyster found in the Malay Peninsula
 and this Is only one of many od
 shapes that the stoups of those day
 took up. The famous old Abbey o
 Buckfast, in the county of Devon, dat |. ing back to 760. has only just been ob
 liberated. In its place is now rising
 magnincent example or churcn arcnl
 lecture, for which the foundatio
 stone was only recently laid by tn
 Roman Catholic Bishop of Plymout
 and the Benedictine monks who are a
 work on the new building
 . i The predecessors of these monk
 worked uninterruptedly from 760 t 153S, when an anti-monastery way swept England. and the great place bC . came the residence of the family (
 Denys. and, after 1t, several others. ur
 til 1906, when parts of 1t were leveled.
 Seventy-four years later the Bent
 dictine monks of St. Marie de
 Pierre qui Wire acquired it once nor,
 They restored the tower of the ol
 buildings and continued to make us
 of the place until very recently, whe
 everything was swept clean to allo'
 of an abbey designed by Frederic
 Walters.
 Work has been started on the cho
 and transept, the monks doing ever
 portion of the building, some workin
 as common laborers, some as mason
 others as sculptors and others 8
 clerks of the work.