Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/61

 GODALMING HUNDRED

��COMPTON

��western part of the chancel proper are windows, one in either wall, of like date, within plainly splayed pointed heads. That on the south has, however, been altered externally in the I 3th century, so that it is now a low side window of two lights. Hard by a very carefully finished squint (c. 1 1 60) pierces the chancel arch pier. Its other end is blocked by the pulpit. In either wall to the east is a small doorway with a pointed head. The western jamb of the south door stands on an early base. That on the north now gives access to the modern vestry, but no doubt originally opened to a stair which led to the upper chapel, a purpose at present served by a modern staircase placed within the small building on the opposite side, which is entered by the other door. A wide lancet, of date about 1250, is found on either side of the chancel, westward of these doors, and a two-light window of about the same date remains in the south wall of the lower sanctuary.

The anchorite's cell, or watching-place, whichever it be, on the south side of the chancel has several interest- ing features : a tiny round-headed window apparently of 1 2th-century date ; a door opening outwards sug- gesting that there was a porch or out-building of timber attached to the southern side ; and a squint with a peculiar cross-shaped opening to the chancel. This squint, which would command a view of the altar, is high enough for a person to kneel within it on the cell side, and the oak board on its sill shows a depression worn by constant use. The squint also looks towards a nameless tomb, quatrefoil panelled, of 15th-century date, beneath a window of the same period in the north wall of the sanctuary, which prob- ably served as an Easter Sepulchre. In the recent underpinning of the chancel walls several male skeletons (one having abundant bright red hair on the skull), buried one above another, were found beneath this tomb, and it has been suggested that these were successive occupants of the anchorite's cell.

The present east window of the upper chapel is modern, and replaces one of three lights with four- centred or elliptical heads, probably of late 1 6th-cen- tury date. Standing upon a beam above the low arch which forms the entrance to the lower sanctuary is the unique piece of early wooden screen-work or balustrad- ing, placed here when the vaulting was constructed, about 1 1 So. 1 " It consists of nine semicircular arches, cut out of a single plank, resting upon octagonal shafts, having foliate capitals and moulded bases. A modern deal capping now crowns the top. The chancel roof is covered with modern boarding on the inside. In the nave and north aisle the roof timbers are ancient, perhaps of the I zth century : the south aisle roof has been largely renewed. Few churches possess such interesting early lyth-century fittings as the com- munion-table, rail and gates, with pierced scroll- carving, newels and balusters, the pulpit and sounding- board, also elaborately carved, and the chancel screen, now placed at the west end, and also enriched with pierced scroll-work and circular arches on baluster shafts. The seats in the chancel and body of the church are all modern.

In the southern window of the sanctuary is a beau- tiful fragment of early 13th-century glass representing the Blessed Virgin and Child. Other ancient frag-

��ments of grisaille or pattern-work have disappeared within living memory. The glass now in the west window of the south aisle, but originally made for the east window of the sanctuary, appears to be of I yth or 18th-century date, and its subject is the Baptism of our Lord.

The chancel walls have been re-plastered, but there may be ancient paintings under the whitewash in the nave.

Resting within the blocked north doorway, outside, is part of a late 1 2th-century coffin lid, bearing a floriated cross.

In the centre passage of the nave is a slab bearing the brasses of a civilian and his wife, dated 1508. The man wears a long fur-lined coat, with a girdle, from which hangs a gyfxtire. His hair is long and he has square-toed shoes. The lady is attired in a pedimental head dress and a tight-fitting gown with fur cuffs of a somewhat unusual shape, her waist being confined by a long ornamented girdle reaching to the feet. Beneath the husband are the figures of two sons, and one of a daughter, as appears by the indent, was originally below the wife's effigy. The inscription reads :

' Pray for the sowllis of Thomas Genyn and

Margaret hys wyfe,

the whych decesyd the yere of our Lord MCCCCC and VIII, on whos sowllis Ihu have marcy. Amen.'

Above the figures was a shield, now gone, but which, according to Manning, bore Argent on a fesse gules three bezants, for Jennings, quartering Gules a bull's head cabossed argent armed or.

From Manning we learn that a marble stone bore the following inscription, lost at the time when he wrote :

' Hie jacet Robertus Soule et Margareta uxor ejus,

quorum animabus propicietur Deus. Amen.'

Besides these, there are several slabs and monu- ments of the 1 7th and l8th centuries, including a stone at the east end of the nave inscribed to ' Eliza- beth wife of Peter Quynell, Esq., daughter and sole heiress to Edmund Grey, Rector of Woolbeding, 1684.'

Her husband, according to an entry in the register, was buried at Compton on 7 May 1666.

On a tablet in the south aisle are inscriptions to members of the Fulham family, 1 7th and 1 8th cen- turies. In the churchyard is the fragment of a coped coffin-slab bearing a cross, of izth or 13th-century date.

On a jamb-stone of the small blocked window in the south aisle is an incised sundial.

A rare detail is some ancient ridge- or crest-tiles on the nave roof. The registers date from 1639. The churchwardens' accounts begin 1570, and the book is bound up with part of an old processional belonging originally to the Abbey of Hyde, near Winchester.

The plate includes a fine communion cup and cover or paten, of 1569, with a somewhat unusual form of ornament on the paten ; another paten and a flagon of 1683 and 1687, given to the church by Dr. Edward

��13> Illustrated in V.C.H. Surr. it, 433. 23

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