Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/115

 BLACKHEATH HUNDRED

��house of Albury Park. It is a most picturesque build- ing, containing features of great archaeological interest. The chancel has for m.iny years been roofless, and the whole building is covered with masses of ivy, which is slowly but surely disintegrating the walls.

The church is constructed of ironstone and sand- stone rubble, with dressings of Bargate stone, clunch, and firestone, chiefly plastered. The nave roof is partly covered with Horsham slabs, the aisle and porch with tiles, the transept with slates, and the tower has a domed covering of shingles and lead.

The plan is unusual in several respects, consisting of a nave 30 ft. gin. by 19 ft. 4 in. with north porch, a south aisle 13 ft. I in. wide and 32 ft. 6 in. long, a tower to the east of the nave 1 5 ft. 6 in. by 14 ft. 2 in., a south transept opening out of the aisle and tower 20 ft. by 15 ft. loin., and a chancel 26 ft. 3 in. by 14 ft. 4 in.

In origin the nave is that of the pre-Conquest church, or at least of that mentioned in Domesday. The character of the north-east quoin and the lofty walls rather favours the former date, but all the original windows and other features have been replaced by later insertions, so that the evidence is meagre. The tower, between the nave and the chancel, either stands upon the site, or incorporates part of the walls, of the original chancel ; probably the internal area is that of the latter, and its walls have been thickened in an outward di- rection to 3 ft. 10 in., the two upper stages being decreased in thickness. There is no staircase, and the tower is now open to the roof. The walls are plastered ex- ternally. The ground story is lighted only by a small round- headed window on the north side, 6 in. wide, splaying out, without a rebate, to 2 ft. on the inside. In the next stage is a very interesting two-light opening in the north wall, under a semicircular arch, having a central shaft with scalloped capital and base, recalling those in the tower of Cobham Church in this county. 49 This and other features suggest a date of about 1140-50. On the east and south sides of the middle stage are other coupled lights, but with plain piers of masonry instead of the little column. Above these again, in the top- most stage (which was crowned with brick battlements about 1820), are two separate openings on each face, large, with square heads, on the west, and small and round-headed on the other sides. The round-headed arches towards the nave and chancel are in firestone, on square jambs, with chamfered and hollow-cham- fered imposts, each about 9 ft. wide, and high in pro- portion. The eastern has a quirked roll on the angle, with a chamfered hood-moulding having a plain sunk zigzag or hatched pattern on its outer face. The western arch has a similar roll-moulding with a hollow cut set on the angle, and above it a shallow ornament

��ALBURY

like a circular cusping, with balls at the points of the cusps. 50 The arch to the transept from the tower is of late 13th-century character, but it has been much modernized.

Of the izth-century chancel no trace remains, and the walls of the present chancel are apparently a good deal later. They incline markedly to the north on plan, and the partly-destroyed windows in the north and south walls and the gutted opening of a late tracery window in the east wall give no certain clue to the date, while no piscina or aumbry is now visible. Probably the 13th-century chancel was re-modelled in the i6th century.

A spacious south aisle was added to the nave about 1280, with an arcade of three pointed arches of two chamfered orders, on octagonal columns with moulded capitals, the eastern and western arches having a corbel of similar section in place of a respond." The bases of the columns are evidently spoil from some more ancient building, being circular capitals in Sussex marble, turned upside down and mutilated to fit their new position. These are mounted upon rough circular

���PLAN OF ALBURY CHURCH

plinths of Bargate stone, which may be older than the bases themselves, the mouldings of which indicate work of about 1 200. Upon the western face of both columns is a small shallow square-headed niche. All the windows of the nave and aisle have been robbed of their tracery, so that they present a very forlorn and gaping appearance. This is the more to be regretted, as, from the delicacy of the mouldings, they must have been very graceful examples of early bar tracery when perfect. They are built of a curious mixture of chalk, or clunch, and dark red-brown iron- stone. The window in the west wall of the aisle has been altered in the iyth century, its head being made circular. That in the west wall of the nave was of three lights, and above it in the apex of the gable is a plain circular opening, also devoid of tracery; another smaller one is in the corresponding gable-end of the aisle. The buttresses of the west and south walls, and the wide south doorway, appear to be all of

��49 The tower of the neighbouring church of Shere has a simitar two-light opening in its second stage, but with a square pier between the lights.

40 At in the doorway to the chapter-

��house, Oxford Cathedral, and New Romney, Kent. Something like it is found in the cusped ornament round the chancel arch at Eastbourne, and the arch to the inner chancel at Compton, Surrey.

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��51 Almost exactly the same as a corbel in the south aisle of Cranleigh Church, a, few miles to the south-west.

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