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166 Old Memories of East-Bourne. [Chap. XIII.
named Hart, and he was succeeded by his son; then came his grandson, whilst his great grandson now performs the kindred duties of Verger, there being no longer a Parish Clerk or a Sexton.
I took a good deal of interest in the work of restoration in 1851, and being of an antiquarian turn of mind, carried home with me one day in great triumph, a substantial piece of wood with velvet and brass nails-attached to it, which had formed part of a coffin displaced during the repairs, but the home authorities thought it was not a fitting object to be added to my embryo museum. Many years previously to this, an uncle of mine, Walter Brodie, in his thirst for knowledge, inspected a vault inside the Church which had been opened for a burial, and he fell in and could not get out, so was obliged to remain there till the arrival of the funeral party, when his shouts disclosed the fact that he did not wish to undergo premature burial.
The Parish Church underwent further repairs in 1869, 1871 and 1872 at an aggregate cost of £3473, besides which at various times between 1853 and I860, £224 had been spent in the warming apparatus and gas fittings. Numerous painted windows had been put in at the expense of private individuals, and Lord R. Cavendish had defrayed the cost of reseating the chancel. The organ underwent many transformations. I think I may say, that counting the present one, I have known 4 organs : A small one in a W. gallery ; a larger one erected in 1854 on the floor of the tower ; that organ removed and reconstructed in the N. chancel; and the existing very fine instrument put up in 1908, but artistically much disfigured by its row of plain gilded pipes : looking for all the world like dummies.
The Parish Church has been so exhaustively described and discussed in Guide-Books and other books, that there is little that I need say on the subject here.
I find from my Diaries that in the course of years, I have heard in the pulpit, sermons by the following Clergy, who either when I heard them or later in their careers, had acquired some celebrity, but the number, it |
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