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100 THE SUSSEX COAST |
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there is an interesting church in the old village. The nave is Norman, and has two little original windows high up ; a north aisle has been built and destroyed ; the chancel is Early English, with large lancets. Between nave and chancel is an arched timber framework with pierced spandrels which seems a later insertion, and is an unusual feature. The west wall is late Perpendicular, and it appears to have shortened the church ; over the gable is a square wooden bell-turret of a kind not uncommon in Sussex.
The next village is Yapton, which some one has guessed, very plausibly, to be named from Eappa, one of Wilfrid's companions. The church has a very early font: it is cylindrical in shape and shallow incised arches enclose crosses; it may be Saxon. The south-west tower, with double lancet windows, and the arcades are late twelfth-century work, and parts of the walls are earlier. The pillars are round and octagonal, with foot ornaments and very stiff foliage, which on the south is left unfinished. The aisles are extremely narrow and low; the southern one has a little Norman east window and small later quatrefoil openings at the side. The chancel is Early English, later than the arcades. At the west end is a timber porch.
Two miles east of Felpham, on the flat and rather featureless coast, is Middleton, a village that has mostly gone under the sea. The old church was standing in 1805 (Gentleman s Magazine) ; before the ordnance survey of 1823 it was gone. While it was rapidly going it was visited by Charlotte Smith (1749-1806), successful in her day as a novelist, who also wrote some poetry. She may have no real place among English poets |
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