the Winged Ox was clearly traceable. Within the quatrefoil was a
seated Figure, with something like scales in one hand, apparently
representing our Lord in His glory. The central compartment was much
broken away, but there was the outline of a man whom one in a hairy
garment was apparently baptizing. The rest had disappeared.

These paintings surmounted three acutely-pointed arches, with small
piers, and square on the side next the nave, but on the other side
slender shafts with bell-shaped capitals, carved with bold round
mouldings and deep hollows. Two corbels supporting the horizontal
drip-stone over the west window were also clear and sharply cut; and
the doorway on the south side had slender shafts and deep mouldings,
in one of which is the dog-tooth moulding going even down to the
ground on each side. This is still preserved in the entrance to the
Boys' School.

These remnants date the original building for about the thirteenth
century. It may have been due to King Stephen's brother, Bishop
Henry de Blois of Winchester, who is known to have raised the castle
whose remains still exist on his manor of Merdon, where once there
had been a Roman encampment. So far as his work can be traced, the
first thing he would do would be to have a similar embankment thrown
up, and a parapet made along the top, behind which men-at-arms would
be stationed, the ditch below having a stockade of sharp stakes. In
the middle of the enclosure a well was begun, which had to go deeper
and deeper through the chalk, till at last water was found at 300
feet deep--a work that must have lasted a year or more. Around the
well, leaving only a small courtyard, were all the buildings of the
castle meant for the Bishop's household and soldiers. The entrance
to it all was probably over a drawbridge across the great ditch