Some, and upon woolpacks, according to others.
But this is not supposed by those who know that the whole country
is one rock of chalk, even from the tops of the highest hills to
the bottom of the deepest rivers.
They tell us this church was forty years a-building, and cost an
immense sum of money; but it must be acknowledged that the inside
of the work is not answerable in the decoration of things to the
workmanship without. The painting in the choir is mean, and more
like the ordinary method of common drawing-room or tavern painting
than that of a church; the carving is good, but very little of it;
and it is rather a fine church than finely set off.
The ordinary boast of this building (that there were as many gates
as months, as many windows as days, as many marble pillars as hours
in the year) is now no recommendation at all. However, the mention
of it must be preserved:-
"As many days as in one year there be,
So many windows in one church we see;
As many marble pillars there appear
As there are hours throughout the fleeting year;
As many gates as moons one year do view:
Strange tale to tell, yet not more strange than true."
There are, however, some very fine monuments in this church;
particularly one belonging to the noble family of Seymours, since
Dukes of Somerset (and ancestors of the present flourishing
family), which on a most melancholy occasion has been now lately
opened again to receive the body of the late Duchess of Somerset,
the happy consort for almost forty years of his Grace the present
Duke, and only daughter and heiress of the ancient and noble family
of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, whose great estate she brought
into the family of Somerset, who now enjoy it.
