in, laid down floors, built walls, and indeed destroyed the very habitations of their forefathers in a manner

not unlike that of Men today. Accordingly, I ordered my workmen to examine carefully the materials they exhumed and noted the opinions of the more trustworthy. In this way were revealed floors of Following their repast the Bishop of Barchester, Dr. Proudie, led the dinner plaster (as are still used in the humbler cottages), walls of stone, the very party through a fine old door to the sheltered garden at the west end of the foundations of long-forgotten buildings, and many other tokens of building and Bishops Palace. decay. Mr. Harding kindly sketched these relics and also drew the strata It is indeed remarkable, he commented, as they admired the preserved in the sides of our diggings. hollyhocks, that Bishops and their guests have taken their leisure in this The Bishop, fearing lest his wife and Mr. Slope would further prolong pleasant garden for so many centuries. the controversy, rapidly took up the conversation. And did you find that Even this innocuous remark, carefully prepared to give no offence to any Barchesters bishops have enjoyed the same degree of comfort as that offered by of the strong-willed clergy by whom he was surrounded, became a cause of our present Palace? some dispute. As to their comfort, I cannot speak, responded Dr. Grantly, although I Why, my dear Lord Bishop, interjected Eleanor Bold, you must have doubt they dined quite as well as we this afternoon. Certainly where we now heard of the diggings undertaken by Dr. Grandy while his father was the incumbent. Indeed, less than ten years ago this garden was completely uprooted stand has not always been endowed with the beauty of flowers, for I uncovered numerous evidences of buildings laid upon the rubble of others, and in various by workmen hired to find relics of fine bishops. places we found coins struck by our English monarchs, and even those of great Surely those relics are most aptly displayed in our own cathedral, Roman Emperors, so that one could look upon the face of those known to us responded Mr. Slope. I have made some small study of the fabric of that great from Gibbons work. For my part I am sure that the earliest Bishops did not live edifice. At its east end the small windows set in their rounded arches must be in the self-same palace which you enjoy today. the work of the conquering Normans, while the soaring pointed arches of the Mr. Slopes visage displayed a concealed agitation. "The conferral of a nave indicate a later Gothic addition. knighthood on a geologist is symptomatic of the decline of the authority of the Dr. Grantly turned reluctantly to the participants in this exchange. "The history of our little community and its cathedral has been admirably set forth in Church, he responded heatedly and those principles upon which you delved have lead him to infer an age for creation of the earth far in excess of that a pamphlet by our Dean, although Mr. Slope may not yet have perused its acceptable to any reasonable person. One needs look no further than the Palace contents. Documents in the Chapter House show that the Norman invaders built on the site of a Saxon church, which, being of timber, was burnted to the ground itself for proof that our conclusions are erroneous. If one inspects the wall through which we passed to this garden there are plainly displayed the Norman by an over-zealous baron. It is true that the nave of the cathedral was rebuilt in and Gothic windows and show the present Palace to have been occupied since the fourteenth century by Richard of Coventry in a gothic style, but Bishops the Norman invaders arrived on our shores. If one could only remove that ugly have lived about a quarter of a mile from the cathedral on the site of this very square-headed window, added no doubt in the sixteenth century, this wall would Palace from the days of the Venerable Bede. My aim in undertaking the stand as a fine example of Medieval craftsmanship. excavations was to discover the nature of their earlier residents. Perhaps you would like to examine the short description of my work Mrs. Proudie felt her hold over the diocese weakening. Please explain, which appeared in Volume IV of the Barsetshire Antiquaries Journal, Dr. Dr. Grantly, how one could possibly discover anything about the history of our Grantly rejoined. Whatever you may think of my principles, you may hardly Bishops by degrading their gardens. The beauties of the Cathedral and the deny the sketches of Mr. Harding nor the evidence of the coins. Palace are their monuments, not the soil of the flowerbeds. The Bishop saw an opening for conciliation. An excellent idea, he said, As all members of the little party now turned to Dr. Grantly, he felt as it will allow us all to repair to the Library. obliged to explain his earlier behavior, which had in fact excited considerable comment some years previously when he had returned from Oxford to begin his * * * duties in his late fathers diocese. I took as my inspiration the work of Sir Charles Lyell, who believes Alas, Volume IV of the BAJ was missing from the episcopal shelves. The that all the features of the earth from the mightiest peak to the narrowest defile two disputants returned outside to examine the west wall (fig. 6.1); they later are the work of physical forces which are shaping our land even today. When huddled over sketches (figs. 6.2 and 6.3) and a list of coins recovered (table digging below this garden my workmen uncovered such a strange mixture of 6.1). It should not surprise our readers to learn that no consensus was reached. soils, walls, and courtyards that I was at a loss to understand their meaning. I then reasoned that Men in bygone times might have dug holes and filled them

Barchester

TABLE 6.1 List of Coins Found in Excavations at Barchester COIN LOCATION Shilling of Henry VII Under yellow brick floor Penny of Henry VIII 36 down in northeast corner Groat of Edward III In layer of sandstone fragments Penny of Henry I With chain and wooden bucket at the bottom of a deep hole Penny of William II In deep pit containing mortar Penny of Offa In pit to the west of the mortar pit Coins of Hadrian, Vespasian, Layers of gravel above diluvial clay and Constantine Using the conversation reported above, the Barsetshire Antiquaries Journal (if you can find it), and the sketches of excavations and the west wall of the Palace, construct as complete a sequence as possible for the garden of the Bishops Palace. Account for all layers, artifacts, architectural features discussed and reported by these eminent clergymen.