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228 KIPLING'S SUSSEX
and sensitiveness, he replied that " I dare not close His chapel on such as care to attend." Kipling's writings, like his character, are a mixture of the grotesque and the sublime. The historical interest of Selsey is great. Here Wilfred, as first Bishop, founded his monastery and cathedral, and for nearly four centuries there were bishops of Selsey, until, after the Norman Conquest, the See was transferred to Chichester. Both the buildings now lie beneath the sea, which is still perpetually encroaching on the land. Thus an extensive deer park in Henry VIII.'s time is now a line of anchorage still called " The Park." The old church stands about two miles inland. In 1865 it was pulled down, all except the chancel, which remains in a lonely graveyard. The church was built, it is supposed, by Bishop Rede of Chichester, about 1369-1385. Here are several gravestones of Sussex marble, inscribed with a cross, memorials probably of the old Saxon priests, removed from the ruins of the ancient cathedral. Effigies of a man and woman, with figures of St. George and St. Agatha, their patron saints, commemorate John Lews, and Agatha, his wife (d. 1537). A gravestone in the churchyard to the memory of two young men drowned while rendering assistance to a wrecked vessel, bears an epitaph |
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