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BRIGHTON |
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Early Decorated style, all of Sussex stone, with beautiful clustered pillars and moulded arches. Some of the finest residential streets are in Hove, and it was here that Edward VII. stayed as a rule when he restored the royal patronage that ended for a time when Queen Victoria sold the Pavilion. While Brighton stands upon the chalk Downs, the greater part of Hove is built on low ground at the very end of the maritime plain, which has been getting narrower all the way from the Hampshire border, and here comes to an end.
At Preston, on the border of the Park that is now the property of the town, stand together the old manor-house and the little Early English church. The latter consists of small tower, nave, and chancel; it is late in the style and plain, but . with three sedilia on different levels and a piscina. The altar is formed by an old panelled tomb of the Shirley family. A recent fire greatly damaged the frescoes that represent, among other subjects, the murder of Becket. Buried here is Francis Cheynell, the Puritan divine, chiefly remembered for his disgraceful behaviour at the open grave of William Chilling worth, who in 1638 wrote The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way of Salvation, a work which had not the good fortune to meet with Cheynell's approval on account of its appeal to human reason. Chillingworth had been at Arundel during the siege, and in a very minor and ineffectual way had tried to play the part of Archimedes at Syracuse, not with burning glasses, however, but by constructing certain unsuccessful "machines after the Roman method." On his death-bed at Chichester Cheynell pestered him as to his religious views, and to tell the story in |
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