g a tower belonging to pre-Conquest times, and the only
structural relic of the Saxon town now in existence. The church was
for a considerable time the chapel of Corpus Christi, and the ancient
tower still rises picturesquely over the roofs of the old court of
that college.

Without the tower, the church would be of small interest, for the nave
and chancel are comparatively late, and have been rather drastically
restored. The interior, nevertheless, is quite remarkable in
possessing a massive Romanesque arch opening into the tower, with
roughly carved capitals to its tall responds. Outside there are all
the unmistakable features of Saxon work--the ponderously thick walls,
becoming thinner in the upper parts, the "long and short" method of
arranging the coigning, and the double windows divided with a heavy
baluster as at Wharram-le-Street in Yorkshire, Earl's Barton in
Northamptonshire, and elsewhere.

Next in age and importance to St. Benedict's comes what is popularly
called "the Round Church," one of the four churches of the Order of
Knights Templar now standing in this country. The other three are the
Temple Church in London, St. Sepulchre's at Northampton, and Little
Maplestead Church in Essex, and they are given in chronological order,
Cambridge possessing the oldest. It was consecrated the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, and was built before the close of the eleventh
century, and is therefore a work of quite early Norman times. The
interior is wonderfully impressive, for it has nothing of the
lightness and grace of the Transitional work in the Temple, and the
heavy round arches opening into the circular aisle are supported by
eight massive piers. Above there is another series of eight pillars,
very squat, and of about the same girth as those below, and the spaces
between are subdivided by a small pillar supporting two semi-circular
arches. Part of the surrounding aisle collapsed in 1841, and the
Cambridge Camden Society (now defunct) employed the architect Salvin
to thoroughly restore the church. He took down a sort of battlemented
superstructure erected long after the Norman period, and built the
present conical roof.

After these early churches, the next in interest is Great St. Mary's,
the University Church, conspicuously placed in the market-place and in
the very centre of the town. It has not, however, always stood forth
in such distinguished isolation, for only as recently as the middle of
last century did