To the eye of the expert the buildings of any ancient church or cathedral tell their story with simplicity and directness. Even to the eye of the inexpert in such matters, it is at once apparent that Canterbury is a growth of long ages, the handiwork of many generations of builders. The grey weather-beaten exterior, with its varied architecture, is evidently not the design of any single brain, and the dim, religious aisles and chapels echo with hints of memories of architects and masons into whose various hands came the glory of carrying on the work which their forefathers had begun and left for them to continue or to complete. It is believed that on this same site there stood once a Roman or British church, which was granted to Augustine by Ethelbert, and by him consecrated and reconsecrated “in the name of the Saviour, our God and Lord Jesus Christ, and there he established an habitation for himself, and for all his successors”; in short, he founded the monastery of Christ Church. To this church additions were made by Archbishop Odo toward the end of the tenth century, concerning whom is narrated a pretty monkish legend: “The roof of Christ Church had become rotten from excessive age, and rested throughout upon half-shattered pieces: wherefore he set about to reconstruct it, and being also desirous of giving to the walls a more aspiring altitude, he directed his assembled workmen to remove altogether the disjointed structure above, and commanded them to supply the deficient height of the walls by raising them. But because it was absolutely necessary that the Divine Service should not be interrupted, and no temple could be found sufficiently capacious to receive the multitude of the people, the archbishop prayed to Heaven that until the work should be completed, neither rain nor wind might be suffered to intrude within the walls of the church, so as to prevent the performance of the service. And so it came to pass: for during three years in which the walls of the church were being carried upwards, the whole building remained open to the sky; yet did no rain fall either within the church, or even within the walls of the city, that could impede the clergy standing in the church in the performance of their duty, or restrain the people from coming even to the beginning of it. And truly it was a sight worth seeing, to behold the space beyond the walls of the city drenched with water, while the walls themselves remained perfectly dry.”[1] Of this Saxon building it is not likely that there are any remnants in the present church, though it is barely possible that there are some relics of it in the west wall of the crypt.