Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/468

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

A HISTORY OF SURREY

��at which time the chancel was rebuilt in a very irregu- lar way, its north wall preserving the line of the older chancel, while the south wall fell partly beyond that of the nave. The south aisle and south chapel were both built in the 1 6th century, but probably the aisle preceded the chapel by a few years ; the north aisle has been widened in modern times, the 13th-century north doorway moved out with the wall, while the stonework of the north arcade has been for the greater part either recut or renewed.

The external wrought stonework of the angles and window dressings has been renewed, for the most part in chalk, which is already in very bad condition ; the window tracery has been renewed in Bath stone, and the whole church except the tower is covered with modern plaster.

The east wall of the chancel is pierced by three 1 3th-century lancet windows, their inner jambs having detached shafts with moulded bases and capitals, and

���WEST HORSLEY CHURCH : WEST PORCH

pointed chamfered rear arches ; and there are two contemporary lancets, set close together, at the north- east and south-east, but these have no internal shafts ; a plain roll string-course runs along the eastern half of the chancel below the windows on both sides. The third window in the north wall is of three cinquefoiled lights under a pointed head filled with flowing tracery of mid- 14th-century style, the tracery being renewed, but the inner jambs are old and have moulded angles brought out square above the window- ledge by semicircular stops. Below the window is a contemporary tomb recess with a feathered cinque- foiled arch and a crocketed label containing a raised tomb on which lies the effigy of a priest in mass vestments ; his hands are broken off, and now lie loose on the figure. In the opposite wall is anarch opening into the south chapel and contemporary with it, of very poor late Gothic detail, four-centred, and of two chamfered orders. Across the chancel runs a step of Purbeck marble. The chancel arch dates

��from the 1 3th century ; it has double chamfered jambs and a pointed arch with chamfered bases and abaci. The south chapel has an original south window of three cinquefoiled lights in a four-centred arch ; the jambs are of equal depth inside and out, and are moulded with a wide casement moulding on both sides : there are traces of a vertical joint outside, marking its junction with the south aisle. The nave has a north arcade of four bays, the pillars circular, and the responds half round with water-moulded bases and moulded capitals. The westernmost of the three pillars is the only one that shows signs of age and pre- serves traces of red colour ; all the rest, together with the pointed arches, have a clean, sharp appearance and have been retooled or renewed. The south arcade has three bays with octagonal pillars, hollow-cham- fered bases, and capitals of a coarse section like those of the arch to the south chapel from the chancel ; the arches are four-centred and of two chamfered orders.

All the windows of the north aisle are modern, the eastern being set high up in the wall and having wheel tracery in a two-centred arch ; the two north windows are each of two trefoiled lights with tracery. The north doorway is of ijth-century date with jambs of three orders, the middle one with an edge roll and the other two chamfered ; in the arch the middle order has a keeled edge roll ; the label is grooved and hollow-chamfered. The porch is modern.

The three windows in the south aisle are coeval with the south arcade, and each of three cinque- foiled lights under a square head. All have been partly restored. The west window is a modern one of badly weathered chalk, of three cinquefoiled ogee lights under a two-centred traceried head.

In the west wall of the nave is a 1 3th-century doorway entered from the tower ; its jambs and arch are of two chamfered orders with a moulded abacus, and grooved and hollow-chamfered label. Over it is a modern doorway presumably to a former gallery. The tower is of three stages, setting back on the outside at each stage ; it is not bonded in with the west wall of the nave, its north and south walls being built against its plastered face.

The west doorway has jambs of two chamfers, changing in the pointed arch to a double ogee and wave mould. The tower is exceedingly plain, having single pointed openings in each face of the upper stage, and a curious shingled spire which is four-sided in the lower half and octagonal in the upper. The west porch is of wood set on a low wall of flint and stone repaired with brick ; and has a cusped barge-board ; the sides have lost the vertical studs which formerly closed them in.

The chancel roof is open-timbered and appears to be modern ; the nave and aisle have semicircular plaster ceilings with old tie-beams ; the north aisle roof is modern.

The rood screen is early 16th-century work with twelve traceried bays, four of which are over the central opening, which retains its double doors and a moulded cornice. On either side of the chancel are stalls, returned against the screen, and the south chapel is closed in by screens on the north and west. The font has a retooled 13th-century circular bowl with tapering sides on a modern stem flanked by four shafts with scalloped capitals.

��356

�� �