Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/133

 BLACKHEATH HUNDRED

��CRANLEIGH

��any ever existed, remains. A plain old lectern, after a period of banishment to the belfry, has now dis- appeared altogether.

The church, in 1 845, was found to have been exten- sively decorated with wall paintings, which were un- happily swept away to give place to raw modern plaster. These occurred over the chancel arch and in the spandrels of the nave arcades, but no records have been preserved as to the dates and subjects.

Until the beginning of the igth century there was an exceptional quantity of ancient stained glass of very fine design remaining. A Jesse-tree was almost com- plete in the window of the Knowle Chapel in 1798, but within a few years some fragments only were left, including, in the centre, a headless seated figure hold- ing a rose, a Crucifixion in the upper part, and, in Lombardic lettering, the names Josaphat, Ashur, Salomon, Ezechial, and Joathan. In 1841 scarcely anything of this remained, and some fragments had probably been removed by Lord Onslow to West Clandon Church, but, if so, they no longer exist there. When Manning and Bray published their History of Surrey in 180814 there also remained in the Vachery Chapel on the north side effigies of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin seated, and two angels censing. 78 The figure of the Blessed Virgin has dis- appeared, but those of our Lord and the two angels, together with some good pattern-work, have been worked up into the reticulated tracery of the modern east window of the chancel. Our Lord, seated on the throne in a green tunic and yellow mantle, has the right hand raised in benediction, while with the left He holds the cross and orb. The background is ruby, with a white border. Some of the pattern-work in the other quatrefoil figures of this window, con- sisting of crosses with fleur-de-lys ends, in white on red and gold on red, is also ancient, the date of the whole being c. 1340.

The font, standing to the west of the first pillar in the north nave arcade, is of doubtful antiquity ; if not new, severe re-tooling has robbed it of all appear- ance of age. The bowl is octagonal and quite plain, standing upon a large central drum and eight small shafts without capitals, having a cable-moulding twined in and out round them, for a base.

Outside, beneath the east window, is an early 14th- century coffin-lid, with a cross within a circle on a long stem carved in low relief. Manning and Bray and Brayley mention a slab in the nave floor, with the legend in Gothic capitals :

��WALTER KNOLL CIST YCY

BIT MERCI

��DIEV DE S ALME

��Also a brass plate, formerly existing in the chancel, to William Sydney, esq., who died 8 October 1449. Both these seem to have disappeared early in the i gth century.

Within the chancel rails on the south side is a brass half-figure of a priest " in mass vestments, with scrolls proceeding from his mouth, bearing the words :

ESTO MIHl PECCATORI : SANA ANIMX MEA QUIA PECCAVI T1BI

Up to the restoration of 1845 a good specimen of the combined altar-tomb and Easter sepulchre, in

��Sussex marble, remained against the north wall of the chancel. Most improperly, it was then demolished, and the brasses upon and over it were permitted to disappear. It bore the effigies of a man and woman with a child between them, all kneeling, each having inscriptions issuing from the mouth, the man's having the words : ' Have m'cy Jhesu in honour of thy gloriovs resvrreccion ' ; the woman's : ' And grant vs the merite of thy bytter Passion ' ; and the child's : ' Accipe parentes, et infantem, bone Xpe.'

Fortunately a facsimile of the plate on the wall behind is preserved in an engraving, probably of the size of the original, in Hussey's Churches of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. This, as is often the case in Easter sepulchres, was a representation of the Resurrection of our Lord, Who is stepping out of the tomb bearing the cross and pennon and displaying the bleeding wounds, while guarding the tomb are four soldiers. Detached from the tomb, on the other side of the chancel, was a shield bearing a merchant's mark and the initials R. H. ; and on the tomb itself, beneath the figures, was the imperfect inscription, which when complete read : ' Of your Charite pray for the soulys of Robert Hardyng late Alderman & Goldsmith of London and Agas his Wyffe whos body here lyeth beryed, And departyd this present lyfe the XVIII day of Febrvar y in the yere of ovre Lord God MCCCCC and III for whos Sowlys and all xpen we pray you say Paternoster and Ave.' Above the man's figure were the arms of Harding, which were : Argent a bend sable with three martlets or thereon.

Among the stones cast out of the church in 1845 were three inscribed :

' 1664. May 1 9 th Sir Richard Onslow, Bart., aged 6 3.'

' 1679. Aug' 27"" Dame Elizabeth Onslow hii widow, aged 78."

' 1688. July 21 st Sir Arthur Onslow, Bart., aged 67.'

On the outside of the south wall of the south aisle is a tablet of Sussex marble, very weather-worn, bearing the date 1630. A few others of no great age or importance have been re-fixed on the aisle side of the north arcade.

The bells are six in number, the oldest with the inscription : PRAIS GOD 1599 AW, and a coin. Two others have : 1638 BRYAN ELDRIDGE ; another is by Bryan Eldridge, 1 660 ; the treble by William Eldridge, 1709 ; and the third, re-cast in 1862, used to have the inscription : OUR HOPE is IN THE LORD R.E. 1605.

With the exception of a silver paten of 1789 the church plate is modern and uninteresting.

The registers commence in 1566 and have been somewhat irregularly kept. As might be expected, they contain numerous entries relating to the Onslow family.

The modern chapel of ease of St. Andrew, on the Common, was dedicated in 1900.

The origins of Cranleigh as a ADVQWSQN parish are unknown. In Domesday it is not recognized. It belonged to the extensive manors of Shiere and Gomshall, and when Shiere was divided in 1 299, the greater part of it was included in the manor called Shiere Vachery or

��" Manning and Bray, op.cit. i, 540. The late Major Heales, F.S.A., in his paper on this church in Surr. Arch. Coll. vi, 30, in

��recording the general disappearance of the old glass, omits to note that parts of these Vachery Chapel fragments still survive.

9'

��W Perhaps commemorating Richard Caryngton, rector, who died in 1507.

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