Note 494 — Chapter VIII · SCOURING THE WHITE HORSE
Reading edition
The oldest church in Ireland (the Oratory of Gallerus) is described as exactly like an upturned boat, and the nave or ship of every modern sanctuary perpetuates both in form and name the ancient notion of Noah’s Ark, or the Ark of Safety. The ruins of Newark Priory, near Woking, are situated in a marshy mead amid seven branches of the river Wey which even now at times turn the site into a swamp. There is a Newark in Leicestershire and a Newark in St. John’s Parish, Peterborough; here the land is flat and mostly arable. At Newark, in Notts, the situation was seemingly once just such a wilderness of waters as surrounded Newark Priory, in Send Parish, Woking. The ship of Isis, symbolizing the fecund Ark of Nature, figured prominently in popular custom, and the subject demands a chapter at the very least.