Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/767

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

BOROUGH OF GUILDFORD

��An iron fence now divides it from Quarry Street along its east boundary, and from the other surrounding south and west roads ; entrance gates are at the south-east corner and to the north-east. The church- yard formerly extended farther east, Quarry Street being a mere bridle-way till 1755, when the roadway was widened. In 1825, the road being still very narrow, the east end of the chancel was taken down and rebuilt 1 2 ft. shorter with the original stones. Before this an old plan shows windows on the north and south of the chancel close to the east end. The church rate was doubled for the year, and there was a voluntary subscription besides.

The original church of HOLT TR1N1TT, to judge from imperfect pictures and a plan of Guildford, had a square-ended chancel and apsidal side chapels like St. Mary's, and a tower with a spire on the south side. The south side chapel was called the Lady chapel, and its vaulting survived the fall of the tower. The old church fell down in 1740 owing to the arches under the tower having been taken away to improve its acoustic properties when the church was repaired in the previous year. The present building, which was erected on the old site (i.e. on the extreme edge of the ancient town) in 1749-63, consists of an apsidal chancel with north and south chapels and a wide aisleless nave with a tower and porches at the west end and a south-west vestry. It is partly modelled upon St. Katherine Coleman, Fenchurch Street. In 1869 the galleries were removed, and the windows altered from two rows to one. The church was enlarged by the addition of the chancel and chapels in 1888. What is now the vestry was formerly a chapel which belonged to Sir Richard Weston (who received a grant of Sutton Place in 1521) and his descendants. It has restored walls of flint and stone set in a chequer pattern, and its two south windows have late I 5th-century moulded jambs, four-centred heads and labels. The last of Sir Richard Weston's family who was buried in the chapel was Mrs. Melior Mary Weston, who died in 1782.

The tower is of three stages with an embattled parapet and contains a ring of eight bells, seven being cast by Lester and Pack in 1769, and the eighth, cast in 1748, was recast by Pack and Chapman in 1779. Mr. Peter Flutter, Mayor of Guildford, paid for recasting the bells, one of which bears the inscription ' Peter Flutter gave me.' There is an hexagonal oak pulpit with sounding-board and inlaid soffits.

The chancel and apse walls are covered with paintings, and are separated from the chapels by arcades with Corinthian columns. The north chapel, known as the 'Queen's Chapel,' contains memorials con- nected with the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. A feature of the nave is the very wide span of the roof. The timbers are hidden by a panelled plaster ceiling, but the extremely ingenious way in which the roof is hung from the rafters can be seen by going above the ceiling.

The fragments in the porch under the tower include 12th-century scalloped capitals and mouldings of 1 3th and 14th-century dates. There is also a part of a stone coffin lid, on which is carved a foliate cross, probably of 14th-century date.

The church contains a number of monuments which belonged to the old building. The most important is a large Renaissance tomb, in the south-

��east chapel, to George Abbot, Archbishop of Canter- bury, who was born in 1562 and died in 1633. It is of grey, white, and black marble. The sides h.tve plain marble panels, and the end is carved with a grating, inside which are represented skulls and human bones. On the top of the base is a recumbent effigy of the archbishop in cap, rochet, &c., and holding a book in his right hand. From projecting pedestals around the base rise six classic columns which support a large canopy having scrollwork gables on each side. In the end gable is an inscription. Round the canopy are shields bearing Canterbury and others impaling Gules a cheveron or between three pears or a molet for difference. The back of the tomb stands against the east wall and is divided into three panels, the centre one containing an inscription ; the north one a figure of the sun over which are the words ' Hinc lumen ' and the south one another female figure holding a chalice, over which is ' Hinc gratia.' The tomb was erected by Sir Maurice Abbot, Lord Mayor of London, the brother of the archbishop, in 1640, and was placed in the Lady chapel of the old church, the roof of which withstood the fall of the tower in 1740. It was removed into Abbot's Hospital during the rebuilding, and was again removed to its present place, east of the place where the arch- bishop is buried, in 1888.

On the north side of the porch under the tower is another large monument to Sir Robert Parkhurst, a Guildford man, sometime Lord Mayor of London, who died in 1637, and to Lady Parkhurst his wife, who died two years later, and to the wife of his son who put up the monument. The third figure is now missing. The front of the base is divided into three panels, the centre one containing an inscription recording the erection of the monument by his son, Sir Robert Parkhurst, who died in 1651, and its decoration by Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Robert, in 1 68 1. The other two panels contain brass shields which clearly do not belong to it. On the top of the base is the reclining figure of a man in plate armour, over which he wears a cloak and ruff and his chain of office. Near his feet is the headless figure of a kneeling woman. The back of the tomb is flanked by classic columns and contains the original inscription, 16368. Above it is a stone shield with mantled helm and crest. The arms are almost defaced. This tomb stood in the north side of the chancel of the old church, and after the ruin was piled with other fragments under the western gallery.

On the opposite side of the porch is another box tomb which has no inscription, but it is almost cer- tainly that of Anne, Lady Weston, afterwards Lady Knyvett, who died in 1582, and gave directions that she should be buried near her first father-in-law, Sir Richard Weston, in Trinity Church. The tomb is said to have been once in the Weston chantry. The front of the base is carved to represent human bones behind two grates. On the top is a painted recumbent figure of a woman in an ornamented fur- trimmed dress and a ruff. But in this case too the base may not belong to the figure, as the monuments were all confused during the ruin and rebuilding.

On the north wall of the nave is a small brass with

the following black-letter inscription : 'An M 1 V"

| LVII | Lett no man wonder | thoghe here lyt

under | the servant of God I truste | Baldwin Smythe

��567

�� �