PITT.

No. 30.

"Where'er I roam in this fair English land

The vision of a Temple meets my eyes."

(Lyra Apostolica, p. 1.)

OR many years a service was held once a-week in a cottage at Pitt, which is an outlying hamlet of Hursley, about three miles distant from the parish church, and two from Winchester. By this arrangement many persons (especially the aged) were enabled to join in the Church service who would otherwise have been deprived of it. Still the author of "The Christian Year" was hardly satisfied that God's service should be publicly celebrated in a cottage; and his wish for a worthier place in this little hamlet was gratified in the year 1858 by the liberality of the author of The Heir of Redclyffe," who spent about £800 of the profits of her well-known talent, upon the erection of a school-chapel, designed by W. Butterfield, Esq. In this chapel, which was licensed for divine service on the 31st March, 1858, a day-school is kept for the children of the hamlet, and public service is celebrated every Sunday by one of the Hursley clergy. There is also a residence for a schoolmaster, which was built soon after the chapel, by the joint exertions of several contributors.

The chapel is built of flint with brick and stone dressings. On the south side a cross is formed in the wall by means of the stone and brick, and another is formed by the timbers of the roof of the porch. There is an arrangement inside by which the east end can be cut off from the rest of the building, while the west end is being used as a school-room. The high pitch of the roof, and the good proportions of the three-light east window, and of the porch, render this an ornamental building, although perhaps the want of a bell-turret might by some persons be considered to give a degree of flatness to the external appearance of the roof: the bell being suspended beneath an overhanging portion of roof at the west end.

The walls of the schoolmaster's house are composed of brick, forming a pleasing and suitable contrast to the walls of the chapel.

"Sundays the pillars are

On which Heav'n's palace arched lies :

The other days fill up the spare

And hollow room with vanities:

They are the fruitful beds and borders
Of God's rich garden; that is bare

Which parts their ranks and orders.

"The Sundays of man's life

Threaded together on time's string,

Make bracelets to adorn the wife

Of the eternal glorious King:

On Sunday Heaven's gate stands ope;

Blessings are plentiful and rife,

More plentiful than hope."

(George Herbert, from the Book of Praise.)