Page:Sussex archaeological collections, volume 9.djvu/128

98 in the Decorated period, as is evident from the fine tracery of the east window, now unfortnnately stopped up. In the south wall, near the east end, are a broad sedile, under an ogee arch, and a canopied piscina, of excellent work and in good preserva- tion. The Font, which strongly resembles that at St. Anne's, Lewes, in its basket-like form and ornamentation, is well known to ecclesiologists, and is engraved in Horsfield, and elsewhere.

Of early monuments Denton possesses but one. It is a slab incised with an inscription round the verge in Lombardic characters, some of which only are legible, namely, the words

HlC JACET WlLLELMUS D£ * IRB* **.... MlLLIO CCCLXVIII.

To this relic of ancient times the words of the poet are strictly applicable —

" And monuments themselves memorials need " —

a thing much to be regretted in this instance, because there is no doubt from the situation of the slab, close to the north wall, in the eastern part of the building, that the person com- memorated was a benefactor or re-founder of the church. The date of his death, 1368, agrees sufficiently with that of the introduction of the great east window, which I have little hesi- tation in assigning to him.

In connection with Newhaven and Denton, to both of which parishes the river Ouse forms a boundary, it may not be amiss to add a few words relative to the early history of the port of Newhaven.

Down to the reign of Henry VIII. the Ouse, after passing southward from Lewes to a point near the village of Meeching, took a sudden and almost rectangular turn to the south- eastward, nearly in the direction of what is now called the Tidemill Creek, and so forward in a line almost parallel with the seashore, and only divided from it by a strip of shingle, to the town of Seaford, where it found its outfall to the English Channel, at a point just westward of the cliff. A slight glance at a map, however, will show that the true and natural de-