Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/357

Rh earlier than the chancel and tower. The font is octagon, perhaps E.E., and is engaged in the north wall of the church, evidently from a very early period. The entire exterior is so thickly coated with plaster, that not a stone of the masonry is visible.

248. .—One of the two Domesday churches most probably was that of Heene, an immediately adjoining place: see the Note.—West Tarring has a large and handsome church of chancel, nave, north and south aisles, north porch, and western tower with a shingled spire. The south and west doors are disused. The nave and aisles are E.E., the former very lofty, with narrow clerestory windows, hooded; much resembling those of Pevensey church. The east windows of the aisles are insertions, the north Perp., the south with a wooden frame. The porch has been partially rebuilt in the churchwarden style. The font has been repaired, and perhaps altered, but seems to have been originally a sand-stone basin supported by eight shafts round the main stem. The chancel and tower are Perp. The first has a large east window; it contains also a nearly perfect piscina, six oak stalls, some panelling, and benches with poppy heads.—West Tarring possesses an old church chest. (Cartwright.)—In the village street eastward from the church stand the remains of a palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury, popularly said to have been occupied by Thomas à Becket, who planted the fig orchard here, which adjoins the palace. This is now called the rectory, and used for the national schools. The southern portion is E.E., though it has evidently been altered, and some Perp. windows have been inserted. Of the original windows the interior openings were under very obtuse-angled arches, having light shafts with capitals of foliage at the sides. In one window, above the foliated capitals, are others resembling abaci, of very similar character to those at the east end of East Preston church. Other indications of the E.E. style may be perceived. On the western side of the existing building is a small hall, of which the door is probably original. This hall is Perp., and an addition to the earlier part. In the adjoining garden foundations yet remain, of which the mortar is said to be as hard as stone. "A range of buildings adjoining the premises of the rector, and still called the Parsonage Row, afford good specimens of domestic architecture of the reign of Henry VI." (Horsfield's Suss. II, 191.)

249. .—This place cannot be recognised among