Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/121

 BLACKHEATH HUNDRED

��ALFOLD

��Pollingfold." He left a sister and heir Elizabeth, a minor at the time of his death, and it was probably from her that it passed ultimately to the Dorrington family, who held it during the I yth and following centuries.* 9 Sydney Wood was purchased by Sir John Frederick, lord of Hascombe, with which manor it descended till the igth century.* 9 It was in 1903 the property of Mr. George Wyatt, but has since been bought by Messrs. J. E. Sparkes and H. Mellersh.

The church of ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH stands upon a knoll of rising ground in the centre of the village, flanked by a cluster of charming old tile-hung cotisges. The churchyard is prettily surrounded by trees, and con- tains several larches and one or two yews of some antiquity. 30 Dotted about among the graves are a number of cypresses and other evergreens, and in early spring the grass is thick with crocuses and daffodils. The churchyard has been extended con- siderably beyond its ancient boundaries.

The building in itself and with its surround- ings is delightfully picturesque, especially as viewed from the south-east.

Bargate stone rubble, plastered outside and in, has been employed for the walls, with dressings of the same stone ; but internally the hard chalk, or clunch, also quarried locally, has been used in the south arcade, the chancel arch, and the 15th-century features of the chancel. The chancel roof and the roofs over the aisles and porches are still ' healed ' with Horsham slabs ; the bell-turret and its spire are covered with oak shingles, and the porches are of oak.

In plan the church consists of a nave, 36 ft. 4 in. by 21 ft. z in., north and south aisles, about 7 ft. 5 in. wide (the south aisle is slightly longer than the nave) ; chancel, 1 7 ft. 5 in. wide by 1 6 ft. 5 in. long; north and south porches, and a vestry lately erected on the north of the chancel. The simple outlines of nave and chancel give the plan of the primitive church, erected perhaps about lioo, of which the only visible relic besides plain walling is the remarkable font.

The south aisle was added about 1 1 90, the old walls being pierced with three plain, square-edged, obtusely pointed arches, unrelieved by moulding, chamfer, or label, and springing from columns and responds circular in plan, on square plinths, and having capitals of an early circular form, simply moulded. 31 The western respond only has a circular moulded base with angle-spurs. The church must have re- mained with one aisle till about 1290, when that on the north wis thrown out. Its three arches were discovered blocked up in the north wall of the nave at the restoration of 1845 ; they were then opened and the aisle rebuilt on its old foundations. The

��arches, in rough Bargate stone, are moulded in three orders (a hollow between two wave-mouldings), and these spring direct from octagonal piers, without capitals, which have chamfered plinths instead of bases. 3 * The chancel arch is of somewhat similar design, but in a firestone, or clunch, and springing from plain square piers. The mouldings indicate a slightly later date c. 1320 to which period may be referred the south aisle windows, with ogee and reticulated tracery, and the outline at least of the east window of the chancel. The windows of the north aisle appear to be entirely modern, and are copies of those on the other side, but its doorway (c. 1290) has been replaced from the old north wall and retains the original oak door with very elaborate diagonally- braced framework on the back, a massive oak lock- case, and some good wrought-iron hinges and straps, partly ancient. The south door, less elaborate, is perhaps of the same date.

The two-light window and piscina in the south wall of the chancel, and the splayed opening with

���PLAN OF ALFOLD CHURCH

four-centred arch in the wall opposite, are of I Jth- century date, the piscina being a restoration. a The splayed opening now communicates with a modern vestry, but it is probable that it was originally an arch over a tomb or Easter sepulchre in the thickness of the wall, and the splays repeated on the outer face suggest that there was at one time a small chapel or vestry abutting upon the north wall of the chancel into which this arch opened. There is a small buttress at the south-east angle of the south aisle and a low one beneath the east window of the chancel, both perhaps dating from about 1320. Parts of the pic- turesque oak porches may belong to the same early

��*i Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccxlvii, 30. The Sydneys had held Baynards in Polling- fold (Inq.of 4 Edw. IV preserved at Loseley).

28 Aubrey (Hitt. and Antiq, of Surr. iv, 92) says that it was in the possession of Captain Dorrington in 1673. There is a memorial to Francis Dorrington in Alfold Church. He died 1693, aged 75. The monument was erected by his grandson Edward Dorrington.

as Manning and Bray, op, cit. ii, 69.

��80 The largest measures about 23 ft. in circumference at 4 ft. from the ground.

81 The general character of this arcade resembles the south arcade of Rustington Church, Sussex, while the curious features of the north arcade are exactly reproduced in the north arcade of that church. In each case these arcades correspond closely in date. The font, strangely enough, is very like that in Yapton Church, Sussex, within a few miles of Rustington.

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��83 Besides the north arcade of Rusting- ton Church, which so exactly resembles this, there are other arcades without capitals at Fetcham, Surrey, and Slindon and Coldwaltham, Sussex.

88 Cracklow's view of 1824 shows that the two-light window has been shifted to the eastward and raised in the wall at the 1845 restoration, being possibly shortened at the same time.

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