The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-20

came to know all tne uioiS o"N
 bulations of every one of them. when
 he died all the little shops in Church
 street and that part of Cheyne walk which struggles past the old church were shuttered. He was almost as well known a monument of Chelsea as the church itself. or its sun-dial on which appears ut vita. finis ita,
 motto that might have been accepted without fear by the old pastor. Ine
 church stands almost on the pavement and neither its tower nor the body or | the church nor it's huddled graveyard look as If they had much to do with | each other. A hundred years slipped away as the visitor pushed open the
 baize door. stepped into the aisle ana
 stood in the shadow of one Of the IT.
 regularly placed pillars. Some pews
 had red curtains on a brass rail- some
 red cushions and great hassocks so
 that when kneeling the worshipper
 was as high as the book rest.
 Through diamond paned windows sun
 light streamed to light up the old par
 ishioners and make clear the lettering
 same way the light poured in and the
 Thames murmured beside the church
 when Sir Thomas More and his daughter Margaret knelt here to pray.
 Margaret Roper sat there a wife and
 mother after her fathers death but
 did not long survive him. It Is said she buried the body of Sir Thomas in
 the old church and certain 1t is that
 an epitaph Is cut deeply on one of the
 monuments but no one knows where the body rests.
 Old Chelsea Church has preserved
 unbroken the serenity of its ancient years as its chained Bible shows and as those can testify who saw the aged minister read the Lesson through a bus fe1r -1a nA ct nAl
 to the long doctrinal sermon that fol- lowed.
 Whitechapel Parish Church is an other waymark of the old city. The present handsome edifice replaced the White chapel' of Stebonheath and was erected some thirty years ago at enormous cost by a brewer. In the l certain Tory rector wished to be re- venged upon White Kennel. the Whig pamphleteer, who had received the deanery of Peterborough as a reward fro his political apostasy. The rector. therefore. set up an altar-piece of the Last Supper in which Kennel, wearing full canonicals was depicted as Judas 1scariot. All London flocked to laugh at 1t until finally the Bishop interfer- | ed and Kennet's portrait disappeared. The creatures of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell cut short the his l tory of some of the noblest of the English abbeys. There is St. Albans that was once the center of a vast as- semblage of buildings. towns and ga- bles, courtyards and cloisters, kitchens and guesthouses. stables and ofices which stretched out to the south and west, veritable town of conventional structures. And there was the Church | of Sculac buried beneath the sand for century and only recently dug out. | To its two spires horses were tethered | in ignorance of what was below. It | was a find almost worthy of the great Munchausen. It is planned now to restore 1t and the work will not be as l great as in some less notable cases. On Chichester Cathedral alone has been spent some $s500o0. For two years the church officials have been repairing the famous ben tower which possesses unique interest in that it is
 the only detached campanile connect ed with a cathedral In England or Wales. Some 100 tons of stone have been used in the work of restorat tion
 most of 1t being of the green-sand species common to Ventnor and the
 Isle of Wight. The tower probably dates back to 1420 and 1t Is some- times said that 1t was built by the
 famuos Bishop Langton but the style
 seems to indicate that 1t was a cent
 ury too late for that notable church
 builder.
 The work of lightning will force re-
 pairs to pair of famous edifices. one
 being Boston's parish church and the
 other the old uarish church at Parra- combe. The Boston church. known as
 St. Rotolph's and dating from the fourteenth century Is one of the larg- est of the United Kingdoms many
 large churches. It's celebrated perpen-
 dicular tower 263 feet high is land
 mark not only over the fens but sea mark for mariners and its graceful
 octagonal lantern at one time served as a lighthouse It was this beauti-
 full tower that was nearly ruined by
 lightning. The church itself corres-
 ponds in many ways to the calendar.
 It has twelve pillars. fifty-two wind
 ows and seven doors to remind one of
 the months and weeks of the year and
 the days of the week The twenty
 four hours of the day are represented
 by the twenty-four steps in the porch by which the library Is reached. On
 each side of the chancel sixty steps lead to the roof. one flight denoting the hours divisions. the other the min
 utes parts. The four stories of the tower clearly show the four seasons The Parracombe church which was
 church of the family of R. D. Black
 more. author of Lorna Doone. By a
 sigle stroke of lightning. large DOT
 tion of the tower was torn away. the bench in the porch was smashed. thA pulpit reduced to splinters. every pane
 of glass broken and great stones were
 thrown around the neighboring fields
 some of them as far distant as one
 hundred yards
 Over in the west country is another | notable restoration but in being more lit for use once more. 1t has lost it's
 original purpose and is now a resi-
 dence where at one time 1t was fam
 ous as a pr!o1N. Back in the thir-
 teenth century there dwelt at Stavor-
 dale one Richard Lovel. afterward
 Lord Richard. who became the found
 CT of the priory of Stavordale. The
 first monks who found ample time for
 prayer and meditation in the still
 ness of the Forest of Selwood came
 form France. It had a precautions ex-
 estence down to the time of the dis
 solution of all the monasteries when
 it reverted to the king and was con-
 verted into a dwelling house. Its roof
 still shows the original stone bosses
 and the vauted roof of the little chap
 el it's beautifully groined. it's centres
 in quartered roundel being elaborately