Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/233

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
NOTES TO SUSSEX.
187

only vestiges of the church of East Angmering, which stood at a very small distance from the surviving church, the two sites being now separated by little more than the width of a road. This arrangement was anciently not very uncommon, and of it, beside those in cathedral towns, examples still exist. Among the former may be cited Canterbury; see the account of the destroyed church of St. Michael, Burgate: Chichester, in the desecrated church, of which portions still remain on the southern side of the cathedral: Exeter: Rochester, in St. Nicholas north of the cathedral. To these may be added St. Margaret's, immediately adjoining Westminster Abbey church. In the county of Norfolk many instances may yet be traced of churches once in close contiguity, though both may not now be entire. At Barton, between Swaffham and Downham, are two benefices with an undivided parish boundary, and two churches half a mile apart. Formerly there was a third, standing midway between the others. But the town of Repham presents a more curious case. Four parishes unite here, and Blomfield (History of Norfolk) says, "It is a little town, and was remarkable for three churches being erected in one cemetery, namely, of Repham, Whitwell, and Hackford, adjoining little villages: two of these are still standing, but that of Hackford has been long since burnt." In this condition the churches remain, in the centre of the town, and so near together, that the service performing in one church may be heard in the other. At both Barton and Repham the churches stand east and west of each other: which was the case at Angmering, and also at Gillingham in the county of Norfolk, where were two churches only a few yards apart, though one is now destroyed.

9. Angmering, West.—This church consists of chancel, nave, south aisle extending half way up the chancel, south porch, and western tower. It has been altered, the two piers and their arches between the nave and the aisle having recently been removed; but the general character is Tr. Norm., and early E.E. The windows, with scarcely an exception, are Perp. and churchwarden's insertions. The tower was erected, as stated in a stone over the door, "Anno Domini millesimo quingentesimo septimo:" 1507. A large arch, now filled up, appears in the north wall of the chancel.

In Horsfield's Sussex (II, 140), I find this expression: "the manors and churches of Steyning, Angmering, and Ecclesden,