Fig. 33. Cheriton church, Kent; an isolated hill-top church, of Norman or pre-Norman foundation, built on the edge of a steep hill overlooking the English Channel. The site was probably chosen so that the church would serve as a landmark for mariners and wayfarers.
On Brent Tor, Devon, at a height of 1130 feet, there stands a little church which overlooks the very edge of a precipice. The diminutive graveyard contains a few mouldering tombstones. The building, which was probably first set up during the Early English period, is, like so many others found on eminences, dedicated to St Michael, the tutelary saint of churches so placed. (Cf. St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall, with its former chapel and shrine ([Fig. 34]); Mont St Michel in Normandy, with its Benedictine Abbey; Mont St Michel at Carnac, with its chapel, calvary, prehistoric tumulus, and pagan legends.) The church was evidently intended as much for a landmark as for a house of prayer. To explain its exalted position, local tradition relates that a grateful merchant had a struggle with the Evil One concerning the site, and that mastery remained with the trader. To ask why the merchant desired to build in such an unfavourable situation is to supply at once the missing link of the chain.
Fig. 34. St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall. The present building on the top of the mount is almost entirely modern, little of the original Priory church of St Michael being traceable. In this church was the shrine of the saint.
“Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks towards Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”
Lycidas.
One may recall how, in the days when roads were execrably muddy, and pathways across the boggy moorlands were intricate and difficult to follow, it was customary to erect pillars, towers, and other guide-marks at suitable spots. For instance, Dunston pillar, in Lincolnshire, was reared (A.D. 1751) as a lighthouse to assist travellers in crossing the desolate, thief-ridden expanse of Lincoln Heath. The practice of building such towers continued until the nineteenth century, as is amply proved by the famous monuments and towers of the Isle of Wight and Somersetshire. Often the first intention has been lost, and the buildings are considered as mere prospect towers. It must not, however, be inferred that the beacon towers were never used for this last purpose, though the need of protection, and not pleasure, gave the impulse. A conspicuous church tower would serve the same object as a toot-hill. At Royston, near Barnsley, may be seen, below the belfry, on the West side of the tower, an oriel window, supported by a long corbel. The recess thus formed was locally called the “lantern” or “look-out,” and tradition says that a light was formerly burnt within it[311]. The case of the tower of St Nicholas, Newcastle, is especially instructive. It was furnished with a “lantern,” and was valued as an inland lighthouse by wayfarers over the moors. But the remarkable fact about the tower is that, from time immemorial, it has been repaired by the Corporation of the city. Legal opinion, to this very day, upholds the view of the liability of the Corporation[312].
St Michael’s church, poised on the summit of an outlier of Inferior Oolite at Glastonbury Tor (cf. [p. 16] supra), in Somersetshire, was doubtless, like so many other churches of that county, a day-mark for travellers. This section may conclude with a notice of a building which is usually considered solely as a “pilgrims’ church,” but which, I feel convinced, at one time served also as an important beacon. The church referred to is that of St Martha, Chilworth, near Guildford ([Fig. 35]). It stands on the top of a Greensand hill (720 feet), and is, for many miles around, an outstanding object, whether viewed from the distant heights or from the pleasant valleys below. Common belief ascribes the foundation to the Mediaeval folk who traversed the Pilgrims’ Way to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. There can be no question that pilgrims of those days would welcome such a church, both as a landmark and as a temporary resting-place. The name of the church, St Martha’s-on-the-Hill, is believed to be a perversion of “Martyr’s Church,” the martyr being St Thomas of Canterbury. But the structure, though rebuilt and modernized, has a foundation which dates somewhat earlier than the year of Becket’s death. For this reason, and because of contributory local tradition of a massacre of Christians, a high authority on church dedications urges that the name should be “Martyrs’ Church,” and that the spot is consecrated, not to one person, but to early Christians who suffered there[313]. It should be noted, in passing, that St Martha’s is technically called a chapel, but that it is really a church, as described above. It possesses all the customary parochial rights, and is used for the usual functions. Legally, the building is what is termed a “donative,” and is independent of episcopal jurisdiction[314].
