Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/342

282 roof of the parish church. (Holloway ut sup. 479, 485. Ib. 475) "The old chapel in Conduit Street" is incidentally mentioned, but I find no other allusion to or account of it, though it might be a portion of the friary spoken of below. A hospital of St. Bartholemew existed here, but the date of its institution is unknown. Mr. Holloway conceives the site to be at the back of Mountsfield House. (Ut sup. 396, 538, 539.) This however was the hospital sometimes described as in Playden: compare the Note above in that place. About the middle of the twelfth century, temp. K. Stephen, William of Ypres, Earl of Kent, "built the tower, which is still standing, and bearing his name, on the south-east side of the town." It is now the borough jail. Afterwards A.D. 1194, K. Richard I empowered the inhabitants by charter to wall and fortify the town. (Ut sup. 274.) Of these fortifications the Land Gate alone remains, being the entrance to the town from the London road.

218. .—Some remains of coloured glass are mentioned in the east window of the church. (Horsfield's Suss. I, 585.) (A.D. 1291) "Ecclia de Salhurst cum Udemere;" and the same in (N. R.), where it is called a parochial prebend, "prebenda parochialis."—The abbey here, which stood in the flat below the church, was an offset from that of Boxley in Kent, founded A.D. 1172, according to Lambarde.—A.D. 1176, one account says by Robert, another, more authentic apparently, by Alured, St. Martin. It was dedicated to St. Mary. (Monast. V, 666.) In (A.D. 1291), as well as in (N. R.), it is styled "Abbatia de Ponte Roberti,- the abbey of Robert's bridge;" which rather militates against the derivation of the name Robertsbridge, according to some persons, from the bridge here over the river Rother, as if "Robert's," corruptly for " Rother's-bridge." In Speede's Map of Sussex, engraved by Hondius A.D. 1610, both the town and abbey are called Rotherbridge. In the street of Robertsbridge was once "a chapel, dedicated to St. Catherine, beside a well yet bearing the name." (Horsfield's Suss. I, 584.)

219. .—The chancel of this church was rebuilt within forty years, principally, if not entirely, with brick, and with sashed windows. The nave has north and south aisles, between which last and the former are round piers with carved capitals,