On the left of the church, but at further distance, and pleasantly situated on an acclivity, is an immense well-built union workhouse, larger than either.
Strange company these, materially and metaphorically, and eminently characteristic of our modern civilization, the brewery and the workhouse, with the church between them, and suggestive of many thoughts;—of clamorous interest too even in this little town, in this passing hour, as announcements in large letters attest that meet the eye of the wayfaring man, tarrying here about.
But leaving these present-day regions of noisy morality, and all "burning questions" akin, to other disciples, be the purpose of our quiet enjoyment to-day of a fairer and more gracious kind, as we note peradventure the career, and seek it may be the association and historic companionship of one who trod the troubled path of life in the past, and endeavour—however imperfectly—to brighten his memory for a season.
A short leisurely stroll from the station leads us by the great shrine dedicated to the Bacchus of our modern Briton, and we halt in front of the gate opening to the path leading to the north porch of the large church immediately before us. But ere we enter, we pause to take a momentary glance at the long line of semi-ecclesiastical, almshouse-looking buildings with Tudor gables and high chimnies that skirt the opposite side of the road, and from one of which the civil custodian of the church, in response to our enquiries, emerges.
From him we learn that the house he dwells in was probably antiently the Priest's dwelling, who was perhaps a monk appointed by the Abbess of Shaftesbury to whom a large part of the manor of Tisbury belonged, if not also the patronage of the benefice. In making some excavations behind it a few years since, the skeletons of several persons were found, on one skull the hair remained very perfect, but subsided to dust the instant it was uncovered, as if shrinking from the sacrilege of the intrusive eye and curiosity of the present. The building may also have been a Cell attached to Shaftesbury Abbey, and this spot the last resting-place of the solitary religious, once resident within it.
The pavement of the path through the churchyard leading to the church is also strongly representative of modern destructive notions, and exhibits,—although it traverses what we should regard from its associations as sacred precincts,—a true example of the now-a-day "way of the world." It is floored with the older memorial stones of the departed that rest, now un-named, around, and the tear-wrought memories they were charged to perpetuate, callously trod under the foot of man, and in sure process of ruthless obliteration. "They are only very old stones," said our cicerone in answer to our protest,—"families all gone and no one to look after them,"—exactly so, thought we with a half-sigh mingling with the echo of the Ploughman's line, ringing a presaging knell over the fate of our possible memory, when, as here, some day and perhaps
"—no distant date,
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate,"
and this outrage on the memories of the departed, not the best preparation altogether for entrance into the temple of Him, whose love knoweth no change, and whose remembrance faileth not for the children of men, more enduring than Job's yearning for graven words with iron pen in the rock for ever, or even as vigorous Toplady puts it in glorious anticipation,—
"My name from the palms of His hands,
Eternity will not erase."
Inside, the church has a somewhat desolate look,[37] and no antient memorial catches the eye, except two small brass effigies of a Franklin or Merchant of Henry the Seventh's days, in long tunic with scrip buckled to his waist, and his wife with pointed head-dress and embroidered girdle, riven from their sepulchral stone and nailed to the wall; an early denizen it may be of the grand old domicile of Place. A noticeable and somewhat unique feature however must not be forgotten,—the cover of the font, pyramidal in shape, of oak panelled and crocketted, and richly gilded. There were formerly two screens across the transepts, but they have disappeared. There are fine roofs to the side aisles, on the bosses are the Sacred Names, and the date 1595. A curious circumstance here may be mentioned, the tower has three times been struck by lightning, once in 1762, again in 1795, and also of late years,—and this doubtless accounts for the incongruous style of its lantern-shape upper storey.