The Sussex Coast - online book

A Literary & Historical travel guide to the Sussex Coast

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THE FAR WEST                         59
Bosham: kept possession of it as lorde by stronge hand, and having the testimony of his friends and followers, praysed in defence of the Kinge, the Archbishopp as the donor thereof and hee held it peacably." Thus did Bosham become the pro­perty and a usual residence of Godwin. The Bayeux tapestry represents his son Harold, after praying in the church and feasting in his house by the sea, embarking on his mysterious but momentous expedition to the Continent. The house has a large hall on the upper floor with
BOSHAM IN THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.
vaulted rooms beneath, the usual plan for a moderate-sized mediaeval residence. The church is more conventionally treated, but has an arch which slightly resembles those that open into the tower and the chancel of the present building.
The oldest parts of the church are certainly pre-Conquest, but they seem to be late and to display Norman influence. The chancel arch is a very remarkable composition; using the Roman bases already mentioned, its builders roughly imitated them for caps (or rather abaci), the clustered responds and the mouldings of the arch resemble Norman work, but are far from being identical with it. The Saxon chancel is said to have been apsidal like that of Worth in Sussex ; one of its
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