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140 THE SUSSEX COAST
earlier fragments) was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, the responds (one of them merely a large corbel) and much of the walls and windows being retained. It has four bays and is very little longer than the chancel. The north porch has a curious round opening in its western wall, whose use is far from clear, and it has been rather clouded than elucidated by discussion. The arcades have round pillars with octagonal caps and tall, pointed arches; each clearstory wall has outside a large cross of inlaid flint; the earlier roof was three or four feet lower, and its gable line can still be seen on the tower. Parts of the Perpendicular masonry are of slate-coloured stone.
There remain the corbels that held up the rood loft; it crossed the reconstructed arch in a very awkward way. Besides some fifteenth-century brasses there are two large monuments of Renaissance type. One is in the chancel, to the eighth Lord de la Warr (d. 1526), a fine work with fan-tracery vaulting and pendants under the canopy, very classic in feeling. The other, in the south transept, is to the ninth lord, carver to Henry VIII. among other occupations, who made for himself in Boxgrove Priory " a powr chapell to be buryed yn," but this was not to be. He died in 1554. His monument is simpler than the other, and has been shaved off in front, but some stiffly carved figures, arms, pendants, and bands of rose pattern remain wonderfully fresh. On the chancel floor is an old altar stone. The register begins in 1558; the early entries are neatly written in Latin; there are three columns for christenings, marriages, and burials, but the weddings are very few.
Nearly three miles north and high up among the Downs, reached through a region devoted to golf, |
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