Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/98

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��and some red brick, is employed for the new work. Before enlargement there was a nave 38 ft. 3 in. by 2 1 ft., and a chancel 1 8 ft. by 1 6 ft. 9 in., separated by an arch, and with a porch on the south of the nave. Rising out of the centre of the nave, was and happily still is a slender timber bell-turret, with graceful shingled spire standing upon four enormous baulks of moulded timber, which rest upon the nave floor, and are tied together with braces. The whole turret closely resembles that of the west end of Alfold Church in this neighbourhood, and the two were doubtless erected, about 1500, by the same hands.

Until about the year 1860 the proportions of the simple early building of about 1 100 remained unal- tered, save for the addition of this timber turret and spire (which, however, made no alteration in the area occupied by the nave and chancel); at that time the church received its first enlargement by the addition of a short aisle and a vestry on the north of the nave; new windows were inserted in the west and east walls and on the south of the nave, and the church was reseated, a gallery being retained at the west end. In 1883-4 the nave was lengthened westwards, and a transept, baptistery, and porch added on the south of the nave, the additions involving the removal of the old west wall and part of the south wall. The accompanying plan, drawn with the help of one taken before the 1860 alterations, shows some of the ancient features that still remain, as well as those that have been removed in the successive enlargements.

���CHANCEL ARCH, THURSLEY (FURNITURE OMITTED)

60

��The turret and its spire are shingled, and on the south side of the former is a large old sundial, in place of a clock, bearing the inscription, ' Hora pars vitae.' The body of the turret has been heightened 3 ft. Its timbers are remarkably massive as seen from within the nave. Four huge uprights, worked with a series of hollow chamfers, and measuring on the square about 2 ft. 6 in., rise from the nave floor, and great arches of oak spring from them and span the nave. These arches, which are four-centred or elliptical in outline, have a hollow chamfer on the edges, and between them are two other arches of similar shape, but rising from a beam on either side (north and south), carried by a low four-centred arch.

The nave retains only one of its original windows, a small round-headed opening, somewhat widely splayed, in the eastern part of the north wall. It was preserved when the church was enlarged, and now looks into the aisle. Originally there was a similar window to the westward and a small door between in this wall, probably matched by others in the opposite wall; and in the west end the outline of a round-headed opening was noticeable until the last extension. The south wall seems to have been altered about the middle of the 1 3th century, when a lancet and doorway took the place of the earlier features. Later still, perhaps in the 1 5th century, a two-light opening was inserted in the eastern part of the south wall, destroying another early window, and this and a similar insertion in the east wall of the chancel seem to have been fitted with wooden frames in place of the stone tracery early in the igth century.

The chancel arch, built of hard chalk, is of mid- 13th-century date. Its piers are square to a height of 4 or 5 ft. from the floor, and then rise in two chamfered orders, with pyramidal stops at the base, the chamfers continuing without any break round the arch. This arrangement suggests that there was originally a low screen stand- ing in the opening. There are at present the lower parts of a 15th-century screen, which has been deprived of its traceried upper half. The arch should be compared with one of similar date and character in West Clan- don Church, near Guildford. In the north-east angle of the nave is a moulded bracket of black marble which looks as if it had carried the beam for the rood, independently of the low screen.

The north wall of the chancel is strangely devoid of features, " there being no window, door, or aumbry therein. There is a break in the wall horizontally near the top, which is much thinner. In the south wall are two lancets of about 1250, the openings of which appear to have been widened at some time, and the western, which was a low side window and has

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