The great days of Dorchester are done, and the place is so quiet and slumberous, although on a high road, that the first part of the place-name might almost be held to derive from the French verb _dormer_, to sleep. The one street, long and somewhat picturesque, the fine stone open-balustraded bridge across the Thame, and the church: in that inventory you have an outline of Dorchester. The great parish church that was once an Abbey church, the successor of an early Cathedral, although an architectural and archæological feature of great interest, does not form so striking a picture as it should; for the building is long and low, with level, unbroken roof-line, and an ineffective tower at the west end; and it displays its inordinate length prominently to the road. [Illustration: SEDILIA, DORCHESTER ABBEY.] The cathedral that once stood here was that of the great bishopric of Dorchester, founded in A.D. 635 by Birinus, who had been sent by the Pope, Honorius, the year before, to preach Christianity to the Saxons. The see of Dorchester lasted, with some intermissions, until 1086, and comprised the greater part of England, including what are now the bishoprics of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Lichfield, Hereford, Worcester, and Oxford. A few traces remain of that abandoned Saxon cathedral, but they are such that only expert archæologists can point them out; and of the Early English Abbey church begun by the Augustine monks to whom it had then been granted, in 1140, the nave alone is left. The nave in an ordinary building would be an important item, but the Abbey church of Dorchester is an extraordinary structure, and of such a plan that the architectural features of its nave cannot well be very striking. The building was originally without aisles. It adjoined the Abbey cloisters, which were situated on the north side, and consequently the north wall of the nave has few openings. The choir was rebuilt grandly, in the Decorated style, about 1330; and at a slightly earlier date a north aisle had been added to it, _circa_ 1280. In 1300 a south-choir aisle was built, and twenty years later, a south-nave aisle. To this was added the Perpendicular porch. The tower was constructed about 1680, in a debased manner. Thus the northern wall, from end to end, is largely blank, and the architectural graces of the building are reserved chiefly for the south aspect. The remarkable east end is built upon ground abruptly sloping to the east, and is, moreover, closely set about with trees.