ve buttressed on the north in the thirteenth century,
fifteenth-century chancel and western tower, and thirteenth-century
north porch--altogether one of the most glorious churches left to us
in England.

Its history, as I say, goes back far beyond the Conquest, when it was
served by secular canons, as it was at the time of the Domesday Survey,
when we find that twenty-four were in residence. But in the time of
William Rufus, Ranulph Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, his chief
minister, obtained a grant of the church and town of Christchurch, and
soon had suppressed all the canonries save five, and would have
suppressed them all but for the timely death of the Red King, which
involved the fall and imprisonment of his rascal minister. After an
interval, in which the church was governed by Gilbert de Dousgunels,
who set out for Rome to get the Pope's leave to refound the house, but
died upon the journey, Henry I. gave manor, town and church to his cousin,
Richard de Redvers, who proved a great benefactor to the Priory, and
established a Dean over the canons, one Peter, who was succeeded by
Dean Ralph. Then in 1150 came Dean Hilary, who as Bishop of Chichester,
petitioned Richard de Redvers to establish Christchurch as a Priory of
Canons Regular of St Austin. This was done; a certain Reginald was
appointed first prior, and he ruled Christchurch for thirty-six years
till, in 1186, he was succeeded by Ralph. It was not, however, till the
time of the third Prior that the high altar of the new church begun by
Gilbert and continued by Richard de Redvers and his priors was
dedicated upon the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury, 1195. This would
seem to prove that the Norman choir was not finished until then;
similar consecration of other altars would lead us to believe that
perhaps the vault and the clerestory of the nave were completed in
1234. At the same time the beautiful north porch was built and the
north aisle was buttressed. To the fourteenth century we owe the fine
rood screen restored in 1848, but the next great period of building was
the fifteenth century, when the Lady Chapel, with the chapels north and
south of it, were built, and later in the same century the great choir
was entirely re-erected.

Thus Christchurch Priory grew until the Reformation. It escaped the
first raid of Cromwell in 1536, but in spite of the petition of John
Draper, the last Prior, in 1539 the house was demanded of him and he
surrendered it. The