Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/225

 WOTTON HUNDRED

��WOTTON

��stones to the family of the late Sir Edward Vaughan- Williams. The most interesting of the older monu- ments is a beautifully-carved urn, of white marble, bearing cherubs' heads, which marks the grave of William Glanville nephew of John Evelyn, on the north side of the churchyard.

The church is largely covered with ivy, especially the tower ; and however picturesque the covering, it is much to be regretted, as causing slow but sure injury to the fabric, and hiding interesting features and marks of age. The walls are for the most part constructed of hard yellow Bargate stone rubble, still covered generally with a thin coat of ancient plaster or mortar, with dressings of Bargate stone and fire- stone. The modern parts are faced with the same rubble and with dressings of a ruddy sandstone and Bath stone, the vestry on the north being of old red brickwork. The roofs are still covered with Horsham slabs, except the porch and vestries, which are tiled. From the fiat conical roof of the tower rises a pic- turesque square wooden superstructure, also covered with a flat-pitched conical roof.

In plan the church consists of a western tower, 1 1 ft. from east to west internally, by 1 5 ft. from north to south ; nave, 3 3 ft. long by 1 8 ft. wide ; chancel, 1 9 ft. long by 1 5 ft. wide ; a short aisle opening by a single arch from the north side of the nave at its eastern end, 17 ft. 6 in. long by 1 3 ft. 6 in. wide, and com- municating with the Evelyn Chapel, on the north side of the chancel, 1 9 ft. long by 146. 6 in. wide. From this again a comparatively modern door opens into a second mortuary chapel recently turned into a parish room for vestry meetings. On the south side of the tower is an exceptionally roomy porch, rebuilt, but upon old founda- tions, and a modern vestry on the south side of the chancel. With all these alterations and additions, the plan of the simple tower, nave, and chancel of the early church re- mains.

The walls of the nave are of exceptional height (over 1 8 ft.), and they and the lower part of the tower are in all probability of pre-Conquest date ; other indications of this period being the huge stones of which the quoin on the north-west of the nave and the piers of the tower arch are constructed. The plain, rude arch itself, of exceptional height and of flattened horseshoe outline, springing from a point about 6 in. within the line of the jambs, with rudely- chamfered imposts, returned at the ends, is quite consistent with this early date. Both arch and piers are square-edged. The comparative thinness of the east and west walls of the tower (2 ft. 4. in.), taken with their height, and the piers and arch being built of through stones all tooled with the pick, instead of the axe or chisel are other indications of the early date claimed, which may well be about 1050. The upper courses of stones in the piers are in Bargate

��stone, all the rest being in firestone." In the south wall of the tower, to the west of the later doorway, is a small early window, now blocked, unfortunately invisible on the outside owing to the ivy. The north and south walls of the tower are considerably thicker than the east and west over 3 ft. on the north and 3 ft. on the south and there is a set-back of a few inches at a height of about 8 ft. from the floor. As usual in early towers, there is no staircase. The upper windows are plain, square-headed openings, much hidden by the ivy, but perhaps of 13th-century date.

A peculiar and very puzzling feature is the blocked arch in the west wall of the tower, corresponding to that in the east wall. It is a few inches north of the centre of the tower, and while the piers have cham- fered imposts similar to those of the eastern archway, the arch itself is obtusely pointed. This, however, may be due to its crown having been reset at the time when it was blocked up and the early 13th-cen- tury window inserted within it. The puzzle is into what this arch originally opened ; and as all traces above ground of the building have vanished, the suggestion can only be offered tentatively that a por-

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���PLAN OF WOTTON CHURCH

ftV/,such as has been found in this position at St. Peter's, Barton-on-H umber, and other pre-Conquest churches, may have stood here on the western side of the tower. A little excavation would throw light on the nature of this annexe.

The two buttresses at either disengaged angle of the tower appear to be ancient features modernized, excepting, possibly, that on the south face, which may be original, but here again the ivy prevents any examination. The north wall of the nave is blank for more than half its length, but a careful search might disclose an original window behind the plaster.

The south porch, which is built against the wall of the tower, is modern in its present form, but is upon the lines of an older structure. The well-known reference in Evelyn's Diary to his having been in-

��65 The masonry of the piers has some- thing of the appearance of 'long and short' work, a well-known characteristic of pre-Conquest building. Some of the

��' long ' stones are over 2 ft. in height, the ' short ' ones being less than half that dimension. There is a close resemblance between this arch and the early chancel

'59

��arches, of horse-shoe shape (both pre- Conquest or late iith century) at Elated and Chithurst, Sussex.

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