Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/85

Rh seven beautiful small pictures on glass, square and not in colours, brought from the continent; supposed to have belonged originally to a convent in Germany. The chancel contains a cinquefoil ogée-headed piscina. There are also two similar recesses in the north and south walls of the nave just without the position of the chancel screen, as indicated by the roodloft door, still existing in the north wall though built up. The above-mentioned recesses may imply small altars to have been near them, but the circumstance is very unusual. In the western gable is a circular foliated window, not in the centre. The porch is good Perp. In the churchyard are two iron grave slabs, 1726 and 1730, probably from the foundry formerly worked in the parish. The registers of Cowden are perfect from the early date of. 1566.

83. .— A.D. 960 this church was given by Queen Edgiva, daughter of the lord of the manor of Cowling, to the church of Rochester. (Kilburne.) Part of the old castle is yet standing.

84. .— Here is a large church consisting of chancel, nave, north and south aisles with chancels shorter than the central one, south porch, and large square west tower with battlements and stair turrets. Both aisles have battlements, and the northern a stair turret also. Part of the north wall is more ancient than the remainder, the masonry being rubble. Perhaps some E.E. work exists; beside which there are Dec. and Perp. portions, the latter prevailing in the nave and windows. The porch and lower part of the tower have groined roofs. The great east window contains much coloured glass, principally fragments collected from elsewhere, and placed there in utter confusion. The north window of the chancel also retains a little. In the chancel are a grave slab once enriched with a cross fleurée in brass, and part of another, both bearing Longobardic inscriptions. In the south chancel is a piscina with a flat-sided arch. There are a few brasses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The old nave roof has been removed, but the slender bearing shafts belonging to it still remain attached to the walls. This church, like very many others, is sadly disfigured by whitewash.— At Milkhouse Street, a populous hamlet in this parish (near which stand the remains of Sisinghurst Castle), a chapel, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was founded and endowed by John Lawless, toward the end of the reign of K. Henry VI; which was suppressed 37th of K. Henry VIII. (Hasted.) Some scanty ruins of the chapel were removed