ent Abbey Church was as imposing as
any we have left to us, but not a vestige remains except the
fragmentary wall on Gold's Hill and the foundations quite recently
uncovered and surveyed. One of the most interesting discoveries is
that of a twisted column in the floor of the crypt that is thought to
be part of the martyr's shrine.

[Illustration: GOLD HILL, SHAFTESBURY.]

Shaftesbury once had twelve churches, but one only of the old
structures remain. This is a fine Perpendicular building of simple
plan, chancel and nave being one. The tower is noble in its fine
proportions and the north side of the nave aisle is beautifully
ornamented and embattled. Holy Trinity and St. James' are practically
new churches, although rebuilt on the ground plans of the original
structures. On the west side of the first-named is a walk called "The
Park" that would make the fortune of any inland health resort, so
magnificent is the view and so glorious the air. The hill on which the
town is built rises abruptly from the valley in a steep escarpment, so
that the upper end of High Street is 700 feet above the sea. There is
therefore only one practicable entrance, by way of the Salisbury road.
Of actual ancient buildings there are few, although at one time there
was some imposing medieval architecture in this "city set on a hill,"
if we may believe the old writers. It once boasted a castle besides
the Hostel of St. John Baptist and its many churches. It may have been
in this castle that Canute died in 1035.

The station for Shaftesbury is Semley, just over the Wilts border, but
it is proposed to take the longer journey to Gillingham, nearly four
miles north-west, which is the next station on the South Western main
line. This was once the centre of a great Royal "Chase," disforested
by Charles I. It was also the historic scene of the Parliament called
to elect Edward Confessor to the throne, and at "Slaughter Gate," just
outside the town, Edmund Ironside saved Wessex for the Saxons by
defeating Canute in 1016. The foundations of "King's Court Palace,"
between Ham Common and the railway, show the site of the hunting lodge
of Henry III and the Plantagenet kings. Gillingham church was spoilt
by a drastic early nineteenth-century restoration. The chancel belongs
to the Decorated period. There are several interesting tombs and a
memorial of a former vicar over the arch of the tower. He was
dispossessed as a "malignant" during the Commonwealth, bu