the Coverts, a distinguished old family in the county. A park was attached to the mansion. (Horsfield's Suss. I, 256, and note2.)
230. Slindon.—The church contains the effigy of a man in armour. (Horsfield's Suss. II, 68.) A park is noticed as existing here temp. K. Edward I. (Hasted's Kent, IV, 711, fol.)
231. Slinfold.—This church is asserted to have been built on the establishment of the parish about A.D. 1230 (but no authority is quoted), and that the marks of antiquity in the existing structure were obliterated by repairing in 1779. (Cartwright's Dallaway.) It contains the effigy of a female. Roman relics have been discovered in this parish. (Horsfield's Suss. II, 167, 166.)
232. Sompting.—This very remarkable church will amply repay a minute examination, it being considered one of the remaining examples of Anglo-Saxon architecture, of which some vestiges appear in the foundations of the wall of the east end, as well as in the tower. In this character of the church Mr. Bloxam fully coincides (Goth. Archit. 49, 51, &c., 58, &c., ed. 1846,) but he has not noticed, that the tower seems to have been built in two stages, of different eras. Not only has the upper part Norm, ornaments, but the continuation of the central rib upon that portion has a slight variation from the line of that below; of which part the construction does not precisely resemble that above. The peculiar gable-end spire is, if not unique, certainly very unusual in this country. Cartwright states, that the height was reduced about twenty-five feet in 1762.
"In a roll, 4 Hen. VI, in the Augmentation Office, mention is made of the priory of St. John at Sompting." (Monast. VI, 1053.) "The hospital of St. Anthony at Cookham, given by Pat. 25 Edw. Ill, p. 1, m. 15 vel 16, to Hardham priory in Sussex, is suspected by Tanner to have been at one of the parishes of that name in Surrey." (Ut sup. VI, 776.) If the modern editors of Dugdale's Monasticon have not mistaken Bp. Tanner's meaning, he certainly was in an error, because there is no parish in Surrey bearing the name of Cookham, or any resembling it; and I have inserted the above notice here, conceiving it very probably to apply to Cockham or Cokeham in this parish, which manifestly was a place of importance in early times. The possessions of Hardham Priory are not estimated in (Val. Eccl.) under the title of the diocese of Chichester, otherwise that record might perhaps throw some light upon the question of the locality of the above-named hospital of St. Anthony.
