" Farther up High Street is a
cottage, creeper-clad and picturesque, where Wesley stayed while
preaching to the quarrymen. The best part of this stroll is towards
the end, where a space opens out on the right to St. Mary's Church and
the mill pond which is surrounded by as extraordinary a jumble of
queer old roofs and gables as may be seen in Dorset. The church has
been rebuilt and much altered and enlarged, but the tower is as old as
it looks and has seen several churches come and go beneath it. There
is no door lower than the second story and it must have been reached
by a ladder. It was undoubtedly built for, and used as, a fortress in
case of need.
Although there is little of beauty in the quarries that honeycomb the
hills to the west of Swanage, the industry that is carried on is of
much interest as a surviving guild or medieval trades union. One of
the laws of the "company," unbroken from immemorial time, is that no
work may be given to any but a freeman or his son who, after seven
years' apprenticeship, becomes a senior worker upon presenting to the
warden a fee of 6_s_.
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