The town referred to by Thorold Rogers seems to be Alton.
[Page 161.] Arms taken to church. A few of the old oak seats in Clovelly church, Devon, are notched, and it has been supposed that the purpose was the accommodation of weapons. In one case there is a corresponding hole in the floor, rectangular in shape, which may have been intended to receive the butt end of a musket (cf. the stands in City churches for holding the sword of the Lord Mayor).
Respecting the rating of the clergy for armour, see Notes and Queries, 11th Ser., IV. p. 468.
[Page 167.] The Borsholder. The powers of this official are enumerated in William Lambard’s work, The Duties of Constables, Borsholders, Tythingmen, and such other lowe Ministers of the peace (1583), pp. 15, 16, 20, etc.
[Page 201.] Objects in churches. An enormous pole was formerly suspended in a horizontal position in the nave of Bosham church, Sussex. It was traditionally said to be the staff of a Mediaeval giant, Sir Bevis of Southampton, who was accustomed to stride across Bosham Harbour at one step, on his way to Southampton (K. H. MacDermott, The Story of Bosham church, Sussex, 1906, pp. 14-15). For a list of curiosities formerly preserved in pagan temples, see J. Beckmann’s History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, trans. by W. Johnston, 1846, I. pp. 283-4.
[Page 344.] Plan of churchyards. Additional examples of churches which have little space on the North side: West Tarring, Sussex; Northam and Clovelly, Devon; Hambledon, Surrey. Small South yards: Ferring and Lyminster, Sussex.
[Page 346.] Introduction of headstones. It is asserted that the churchyard of Grasmere, Westmoreland, was devoid of gravestones until the early part of the nineteenth century, and was used as the playground of the village school. Wordsworth thus refers to the churchyard in The Brothers:
“An orphan could not find his mother’s grave;
Here’s neither head nor footstone, plate of brass,
Cross-bones nor skull,—type of our earthly state
Nor emblem of our hopes: the dead man’s home
Is but a fellow to that pasture-field.”
[Page 405.] Tennyson and the yew. Two other lines from the same poem (In Memoriam, XXXIX. vv. 1, 2) deserve notice:
“Dark yew, that graspest at the stones
And dippest toward the dreamless head.”