and Mercians. Twenty bishops sat here in almost Papal grandeur; and, though seven bishoprics were at length taken out of it, the see still continued the largest in England, till about the year 1086, when Remigius removed it to Lincoln. During the periods of its wealth and dignity, the city was the seat of council with several monarchs; but suffered much from the incursons of various coutending parties. At the period of the Norman Survey there were here "one hundred hides, save ten. Of these the bishop had in his farm sixty hides, save one virgate; and the knights thirty hides and one virgate of land." When Remigius, under William I. removed the see to Lincoln, this town, according to Malmesbury, who lived at that period, was small and ill-peopled; yet" the majesty of the church was great, either by the antiquity of the building, or the diligence of such as had lately repaired it." From Malmesbury's statement it is evident that the chief splendour of Dorchester was confined to the early Saxon ages, and that the place was not able to recover from the various ravages committed by the Danes. About the reign of Edward III. the town gained some accession of consequence from the construction of a bridge over the river Thame. Until this period the great road had passed through Wallingford. The traffic was now, propitiously for Dorchester, divided; but the inhabitants failed to derive any important advantages from the circumstance; and both Leland and Camden describe the place as destitute of trade, and reduced to the character of a village. The town was formerly encompassed by a wall, which Hearne traces through its whole progress," from Wally, half a mile north from the church by the abbey spring called Collwell, at the same distance from the town, where he places a fort. On the east is the village of Warborough.* The walls run between Overey; thence south, where the great road now is, quite to the • Gough submits a query as to whether this village was not originally term de Walborough. the present town, and so on to Dyke Hills." The foundations of the wall are still frequently turned up by the plough in several of the above directions, and many other vestiges of former consequence, though in the last and most obscure state of decay, are likewise discoverable. Hearne, in his account of some antiquities between Windsor and Oxford, says "that we are sure, even after the Conquest, there were at least four churches here, three of which stood on the south, and south-west sides of the Abbey Church." The greater part of this assertion appears to be formed only on traditionary authority; but, from the con curring testimony of many ancient writers, there undoubtedly were several churches in Dorchester during the periods of its greatest prosperity. On the north of the town, and on the right hand of the Oxford road, in a square piece of ground, termed the Farm-Field, may now be traced, in dry summers, the foundations of a building, which, by standing due east and west; and by the proportions, appears to have been one of these structures.* On the south side of the present church stood a castle, of which every fragment has now disappeared. The road evidently deviated towards the site of this building till the latter part of the past century; and tradition yet bestows an allusive name on the spot. To the south of the town is a circular field, which Browne Willis supposes to have been au amphitheatre; and, nearly contiguous, is a farm-house, called Bishop's Court, and the Gyld. On this latter spot the bishop's palace formerly stood; and, in Hearne's time, considerable traces of foundation remained. On the north side, at the distance of about half a mile from the town, are some ditches, called All Ridge, or All Ditch Banks. 2 B2 The word "Foundations of one of the churches," says Gough, in his additions to Camden, "might be seen as you turn up to the bridge, in the gardens of the clerk's house." We examined the premises in which it seems likely that the parish clerk lived at the period of Gough's visit; but could not discover any traces of such foundations. The cross mentioned by Gough as standing at the foot of the bridge, was taken down about thirty years back. word All seems a perversion of Old, and the ditches are, probably, the remains of some fortification made during the struggles between the English and the Danes. But the most interesting relic of past ages is contained in the extensive embankment termed Dyke Hills. This is a double intrenchment, about three quarters of a mile long, on the south side of the town. The banks are twenty yards asunder at bottom; and the perpendicular height is about twenty feet. The river Isis, in conjunction with the Thame, assumes some resemblance of a bow in this part of the neighbourhood of Dorchester, and the intrenchment ranges from point to point, as the string. The Dyke might, therefore, have been readily filled with water, and such an inundation does, in fact, casually take place when the river overflows its bounds. A road crosses the banks near the west end; and, having passed the river, proceeds up a hill, pointing to Sinodun Camp. The conjectures are various concerning the period at which these intrenchments were constructed. Plot very properly declines to suppose that they formed any part of a Roman way; but thinks" them rather a fortification, such as P. Ostorius, proprætor here in Britain under Claudius, is said by Tacitus to have made on the rivers Antona and Sabrina; or else some of the outworks of the fortifications on Long Wittenham Hill,” (a mile and a half distant, on the opposite side of the river, in Berkshire)" which, perhaps, was the Sinodunum of the ancient Britons." Dr. Stukely fancies them a British Cursus; and other writers ascribe them to the Mercians, Gough forbears to speak with decision, but says "that they may have been outworks to the station here; or may have belonged to King Ethelstan, son of Edward the Elder, who guarded the town against the Danes, and in 958, held a council in Dorchester." If we adopt the former notion, and believe the works to be Roman, we may observe, in support of our opinion, that a Roman road is said to have led to a ford at a small distance, near Shillingford, where piles and beams have been taken up. A considerable tract of land in the the adjacency of the Dyke Hills has been recently put under the plough, and some Roman coins, though not many, have been turned up. Near the termination of the intrenchment is a spot called Conygere, which Hearne thought the site of a royal mansion. Dorchester and its immediate neighbourhood have afforded an abundant harvest of Coins and Relics. Roman money of gold, silver, and brass, from Julius Cæsar to Heraclius, is discovered in unusual plenty. Several other articles of Curiosity are thus noticed by Gough: "In a garden behind the church was dug up, in 1736, a small ring of the purest gold, inscribed with the year of Birinus' consecration, 636. In it was set a cornelian, the figure on which was supposed a mitre on an altar, or pillar, by the late Mr. Bilson, a proctor of the University Court, and rector of St. Clements, Oxford, to whom the ring was given, and who, after refusing twenty guineas for it, left it to Mr. Applegarth, schoolmaster. † "In 1731, was dug up a small altar, with the following inscription, remarkable for the mention of the Cancelli, which. Mr. Ward supposes Rails to inclose it as an altar for Prayer only, and not for sacrifice, it having no Focus: At the west end of the south banks were found, some time back, a skeleton, a mattock, and part of a cross. The bones possibly were those of some Eremite, who had fixed his melancholy seclusion near this spot. This ring is now in the possession of Mr. Philips, a carpenter at Wallingford, Berks. 2 B3 i. e. i. e. Jovi optimo maximo De suo posuit. "There have, also, been found urns and lacrymatories; tessellated pavements; and part of the shoes and cope of gilt leather of a bishop, falsely supposed St. Birinus, for his body was removed by Bishop Headda to Winchester. Many of the things found here have the marks of fire, which some suppose to have occasioned the removal of the see to Lincoln." A part of a crosier has, likewise, been lately taken from the bed of the river Thame. In the year 1140, Alexander, the munificent Bishop of Lincoln, founded here an abbey of black canons. A part of this building, comprising a massive front wall, and a portion of an arched doorway, still remains, and nearly adjoins the present church. Some humble additions have been made to render this fragment tenantable, and it is now occupied by the master of a school instituted by the Fettiplace family, for the education of six boys, sons of the labouring poor of the parish. The master has a salary of ten pounds. At the Dissolution the abbey founded by Bishop Alexander was valued, according to Tanner, at 2191. per annum. Dorchester has now only one church, but that is a spacious and handsome building. In the opinion of Warton no part of the edifice is older than the reign of Henry III.; and, from the character of architecture, there is reason to believe that this opinion is correct, although it would certainly appear surprising that a prelate of so magnificent a spirit as Alexander should leave the abbey of his founding destitute of a suited place of sacerdotal ceremony. A great part of the present pile was originally |