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370 THE SUSSEX COAST
tiled span-roofs of the same height; they extend together for three bays, and the chancel projects another bay towards the east, this part having a parapet with open tracery of cusped triangles, and under it is a little crypt with a tunnel vault having ribs on each side of the two little windows. A block of masonry, gable-topped, supports the east end of the north chapel by means of a flying buttress, and the corner is filled up by a small original vestry, recently restored. The side windows, of the most beautiful early Decorated character are three-light without but five-light within, the outer lights being blind; they have shafts both against walls and mullions, their arrangement is extremely unusual, the rubble walls were originally plastered. Moulded arches, the most magnificent of their kind, separate the chancel from its chapels, and they rest on banded clustered pillars, each with four large shafts of stone and four slenderer ones of black marble. The south chapel has three sedilia and a piscina with shelf, the former have cusped arches, pinnacles, gables and crockets, they are separated by clustered marble shafts, and there is diaper-work at the back. The chancel has similar but less elaborate ones, which, as well as the east window and other parts, were restored about 1850, a period when men were anxious to paint the lily, and imagined themselves called upon to restore old churches " to more than their original beauty," and the sanctuary suffered accordingly.
Against the side walls are the most glorious canopied tombs in the usual style of the period, when men built really beautiful sepulchres; the fronts of the altars have small canopied niches, and above, between pinnacles, tall enriched gables |
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