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32 THE SUSSEX COAST
prebendaries) in St. Richard's Walk, which is now modernised, and leads to the west end of St. Faith's, some ruins of which are of Decorated character; the site is partly occupied by a house. The cloister windows are of four lights each; their roofs are of Spanish chestnut, which spiders hate, the beams of arched form; their walls are plastered with tablets, and they greatly resemble the nearly contemporary cloisters at Winchester College. Looking through their unglazed windows at the graveyard they enclose, called Paradise, with the great mass of the Cathedral beyond, every stone bearing its message from the days of long ago, one feels a solemn stillness, the completest peace that this world can bestow.
A chapter-house at the Cathedral is mentioned in much earlier times; for instance, in the Chronicle of Battle Abbey. Either it was some building of which no memory has survived, or a chapel served the purpose, perhaps the one now used as library. No chapter-house was ever built in the usual position, opening from the east walk of the cloister; but over the sacristy was added a chamber that now serves the purpose. Whether it did so originally, or was merely the consistory jcourt, is keenly debated. Large buttresses were constructed to support the additional masonry, and a very wide newel stairway was made as its approach ; it is a pleasant panelled room, and in the west wall a shutter slides aside and opens into a small secret chamber over the south porch. (It has usually been assumed, perhaps wrongly, that it was here that in 1642 the Parliament soldiers found much of the treasure of the church, when Sir Arthur Haselrigg could not contain himself for joy, and vociferating, "There, boys, hark, it |
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