154 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



The parish church, chiefly of the Early English and 

 Decorated periods of Gothic architecture, contains some 

 brasses and a poor old stone effigy of a bygone lord of 

 the manor, broken-nosed and chipped, but not without 

 its interest. The double-headed eagle on his shield is 

 still prominent, and the crowded detail of his mailed 

 armour and the lacings of his surcoat are as distinct as 

 when sculptured six centuries ago. He wears the little 

 misericorde, or dagger, at his belt, the ' merciful ' 

 instrument with which gentle knights finished off their 

 wounded enemies in the chivalric days of old. 



Many years ago some person unknown stole the old 

 churchwardens' account-book, dating from the 

 sixteenth century. After many wanderings in the 

 land, it was at length purchased at a second-hand 

 bookseller's and presented to the British Museum, in 

 which mausoleum of literature, in the Department of 

 Manuscripts, it is now to be found. It contains a 

 curious item, showing that even in the rigid times that 

 produced the great Puritan upheaval, congregations 

 were not unapt for irreverence. Thus in 1632 " John 

 Ansty is chosen by the consent of y e minister and 

 parishioners to see y* y e younge men and boyes behave 

 themselves decently in y e church in time of divine 

 service and sermon, and he is to have for his 

 paines ij s -" 



The nearest neighbour to the church is the almost 

 equa y ancient " Six Bells ' inn, which took its title 

 from the ring of bells in the church tower. Since 1839, 

 however, when two bells were added, there have been 

 eight in the belfry. 



The stranger, foregathering with the rustics at the 

 " Six Bells," and missing the old houses that once stood 

 near the church and have been replaced by new, very 

 quickly has his regrets for them cut short by those 

 matter-of-fact villagers, who declare that " ye wooden 

 tark so ef ye had to live in un." A typical rustic had 

 " comic brown-titus " acquired in one of those damp old 

 cottages, and has " felt funny " ever since. One with 

 difficulty resisted the suggestion that, if he could be as 



