Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/351

Rh portions of land, in a famous place called by the name of Winterburna, &c." This deed professes to have been granted in the tenth year of Edgar's reign, A.D. 966. The name of Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, appears as one of the witnesses. The knowledge of the above was obtained from Horsfield (Lewes, II, 214, and note), but the quotation is given, after personal examination of the original MS., somewhat different from that in Horsfield, as a comparison will show. It may also be discovered, that there is a small variation in the above citation from the same passage as printed by Kemble (Cod. Dipl. II, 420), but believing myself to have been very careful in the transcription, I make no alteration. It is very necessary to add, that this charter of K. Edgar is deemed spurious, or at the very least of doubtful authority.

234. .—This church is a mere fragment, greatly altered, of the original building, which, the low semicircular arches springing from heavy round pillars prove, must have been of considerable antiquity. It is dedicated to St. John Baptist, therefore totally distinct from the adjoining Priory of St. Pancras, commonly called the Priory of Lewes, which was founded by William de Warenne and his wife Gundrada, previous to 1086, because it is alluded to in (D.B.); it is stated A.D. 1077 or 1078. (Monast. VI, 1.) On the dissolution under K. Henry VIII the priory was most systematically, as well as ruthlessly destroyed, which will appear from the letter of Portmarus, inserted below; and the few portions of the walls left standing were, either then or at a later period, despoiled of their ashlar work, only some shapeless masses now remaining, insufficient to admit of tracing the arrangement of the establishment, though the excavations, in forming a railroad directly through the spot, have laid open various foundations of walls, &c., beside disturbing several interments. The area of a small room or two was uncovered, and some yards of leaden water-pipe were found, of which a portion was quite sound. Of the interments the most remarkable were two small leaden cists, with the names, indented on the exterior, 19