Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/320

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��nd spreading in width to 20 ft. at the east, the walls being 2 ft. 6 in. thick ; north aisle of the same length, 1 1 ft. 8 in. wide at the west, and 1 2 ft. at the east end ; a south aisle of the same length by 1 5 ft. 6 in. wide ; western tower 15 ft. from west to east by 14 ft. 6 in., the walls being 4 ft. 9 in. thick ; south porch I oft. by 7 ft. 6 in. ; chancel 446. 6 in. by 19 ft. ; north chapel 30 ft. by 1 5 ft. 3 in. at west and I 5 ft. 6 in. at east; south chapel 30 ft. 6 in. by 15 ft. 6 in. at west, and 1 6 ft. 3 in. at east. On the north of the north chapel is that comparatively rare feature a vestry, or sacristy, built in 1513, double-storied, 13 ft. 3 in. from north to south and 1 1 ft. 8 in. from east to west. From these figures it will be seen that the walls of the body of the church are not parallel, but diverge towards the east, and that this peculiarity is repeated in the outer walls of the north and south chapels. In Compton Church the divergence of the walls of the pre-Conquest nave is in the reverse direction, and in both cases it is so marked as to be evidently intentional, and not due to a mistake in setting out. The axis of the chancel inclines slightly to the north. Another peculiarity is the irregular spacing of the nave arcades, none of the columns of which are opposite to each other, the width between each pair on the north side being about I 5 ft., and on the south from 1 3 ft. 2 in. to 14 ft. 2 in. and this in spite of the fact that the two arcades must either have been built at once or within a few years of each other, the date of commencement being about 1 1 80, and the execution of the work probably occupy- ing about ten years. Three arches and three columns on the north, with the western respond, belong to this period, and four arches with four columns and both responds on the south ; the two eastern arches on the north side and the easternmost arch and half the easternmost column on the south representing an extension eastwards of the nave about two hundred years later. It would appear probable that the church before 1 1 80 consisted of an aisleless nave, the same width as the present, and about 70 ft. long, with a long chancel, possibly a low central tower and almost certainly shallow transepts. There is no proof of the early church, which was probably herein the llth and 1 2th centuries, having been of stone, excepting a fragment of interlaced carving preserved in the room over the vestry," 8 but it seems likely that the arcades were pierced through existing walls. 1 " There is practical certainty that they represent the church re- edified on an extended plan by Hamelin Plantagenet, half-brother to Henry II, who in 1164 acquired the title of Earl de Warenne and Surrey by marriage with Isabel, the first earl's great-granddaughter. The character of the work and its resemblance to the dated work (i 175-8) in the quire of Canterbury Cathedral sufficiently fix the date at about 1 1 80, and the south arcade as the later of the two. The western respond of this is a square pier, with very peculiar foliage to its square capital, exactly like a similar square respond- capital in the quire of Canterbury Cathedral. The column next to this, which is octagonal, has a singu- larly beautiful capital, with moulded abacus of octag-

��onal form, the bell of the capital being carved with foliage in a mixture of the English trefoil and the French ' Corinthianesque ' variety so well represented at Canterbury. The second column circular, with a round capital has ruder foliage of a more ex- perimental type curiously like one of the capitals at Carshalton Church, where the work generally resem- bles this and is evidently by the same masons." The third column is of a kind of quatrefoil plan, the four ' foils ' being flat segments of a circle joined by sharp hollows, which at first sight look as though intended to receive slender marble shafts, but the evidence of the capital, the necking of which is on the same plan, negatives this idea. Here the carving is an experi- mental sort of stiff-leaf consisting of a row of knops on separate stalks, and in this case alone the upper member of the abacus is square-edged in section, with pear-shaped members below, all the other abaci excepting that of the west respond of the north arcade having rounded or pear-shaped members, the work recalling in these and other respects the coeval quire arcades of New Shoreham Church, Sussex. The respond of this south arcade, of octagonal section, was turned into a whole pillar when the nave was extended eastwards in the J4th century, and the eastern half of the capital has been fashioned in accordance with the prevailing style, but a crosslet carved upon the south face of the cap is modern, having been cut by a workman in 1845 out of a projecting knob of stone originally hidden in the west wall of the demolished transept. Both arcades were prac- tically rebuilt stone for stone at the later restoration by Sir Gilbert Scott, and a piece of interesting evi- dence was then obliterated in the shape of a vertical joint from top to bottom of this hybrid pillar, by which the two dates were clearly displayed. The eastern arch, which has no respond, but dies into the chancel arch pier, is of two hollow-moulded orders, with a deep hollow between. What gives the original arches of this south arcade additional interest is that the outer of their two orders is carved with conven- tional palm-branches which form an ornamental band all round, exactly as in the arches of the north quire arcade at New Shoreham, the only instance of the employment of this ornament now remaining in Surrey, although formerly it was to be found as the hood-moulding to the prior's doorway at St. Mary Overy, Southwark." 1 All the bases have been restored, from evidence found by Sir Gilbert Scott. The arches themselves are pointed, and have a pear-shaped member on the angles of the inner order, and a quirked hollow to the outer order on the aisle side.

On the north side the arcade is somewhat differ- ently treated, and probably was not begun till the south arcade was finished. Its arches, also pointed, are of two orders, but with narrow chamfers in place of mouldings, stopped just above the springing ; the western respond also is semicircular on plan instead of square as on the south side, the three succeeding columns being alternately octagonal and circular, and the fourth or easternmost, which, with the two eastern arches, belongs to the period 13801420, is again

��318 Thi fragment may be only a piece of a coffin lid of gth or I oth-century date, re-uied as old material, and may well have been laid down originally within or out- side a timber church.

919 The advow3on was given by the .Kcond Earl of Warenne to the monastery of

��St. Mary Overy early in the 1 2th century, and the partially destroyed prior's door and the work in the western bays of the nave of the priory church, now South- wark Cathedral, bears a close resemblance to that of these arcades.

"" The capital referred to is one thrown

24.0

��out of the church at the recent enlarge- ment.

231 Crusading influence no doubt ac- counts for all three cases, as it does also for several instances which occur in Kent along the Dover road, as at Bapchild, Mil- stead, Frinstead, Rodmersham and Hartlip.

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