In the churchyard are tombstones to the memory of some of the passengers lost in the wreck of the _Halsewell_, off Durlston Head, on 6th January, 1786. The churchyard is large, and a walk round it allows a view of the whole of the north side of the church. On the south side a modern house and its grounds have displaced the cloisters and the domestic buildings attached to the foundation. Prominent features on the north side are a circular transept stairway, rich in diaper work, the arcading round the transept, the wide windows of the clerestory of the choir, and the upper portion of the Lady Chapel. The fifteenth-century tower is set so far within the nave as to leave two spaces at the ends of the aisles, one used as a vestry, the other as a store-room. In the spandrels of the tower doorway are two shields charged with the arms of the Priory and of the Earls of Salisbury. Above the doorway is a large window, and above this again a niche containing a figure of Christ. The octagonal stair turret is at the north-east angle. The north porch, much restored, is of great size, and its side walls are of nearly the same height as the clerestory of the nave. On the west side is a recess with shafts of Purbeck marble and foliated cusps. Around the wall is a low stone seat, used, it is said, by the parishioners and others who came to see the Prior on business. The roof has some very beautiful groining, much restored in 1862. Above the porch is a lofty room, probably used as the muniment room of the Priory. Entrance to the church from this porch is through a double doorway of rich Early English work. [Illustration: PRIORY RUINS, CHRISTCHURCH] An extraordinary epitaph is that on a tombstone near the north porch, which reads as follows:-- "We were not slayne but raysed, raysed not to life but to be byried twice by men of strife. What rest could the living have when dead had none, agree amongst you heere we ten are one. Hen. Rogers died Aprill 17 1641." Several attempts have been made to explain the meaning of this epitaph, one to the effect that Oliver Cromwell, while at Christchurch, dug up some lead coffins to make into bullets, replacing the bodies from ten coffins in one grave. This solution is more ingenious than probable, as Cromwell does not appear to have ever been at Christchurch. Moreover, the Great Rebellion did not begin until over fifteen months later than the date on the tombstone. Another and more likely explanation is that the ten were shipwrecked sailors, who were at first buried near the spot where their bodies were washed ashore. The lord of the manor wished to remove the bodies to consecrated ground, and a quarrel ensued between him and Henry Rogers, then Mayor of Christchurch, who objected to their removal. Eventually the lord of the manor had his way, but the Mayor had the bodies placed in one grave, possibly to save the town the expense of ten separate interments.