Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/46

32 and fig. 12. a window from the tower of Sompting church in Sussex.

The church of Sompting presents a very interesting specimen of what appears to be an Anglo-Saxon steeple, and one which seems to have preserved its original form, even to the roof. It is joined to a church of late Norman style, but apparently containing also some relics of an earlier building. From the difference of the stone, and its much greater corrosion by the atmosphere, in the steeple, we are at once led to believe it to be at least more than a century (perhaps two) older than the body of the church; and it is remarkable that Domesday bears witness of there being a church in this parish in the time of William the Conqueror, which must then have been old, to need rebuilding so soon as the middle of the twelfth century, which appears to be about the date of the body of the present church. There can be little doubt that the present steeple belonged to the older church, which was standing here at the time of the Conquest. It is very much to be desired that a list should be made of all the parish churches mentioned in the Domesday Survey, and that the churches now existing in the same places should be carefully examined. Among the illuminations of the manuscript of Cædmon, pl. 59, as published in the Archæologia, vol. 24, there is a rude but curious figure of an Anglo-Saxon church, the steeple of which bears considerable resemblance in form to those of which we are speaking. The date of Deerhurst tower