A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



with a few Roman bricks, brought to a face with a 

 thick coating of brown mortar, which has been in 

 great measure removed in the course of modern patch- 

 ing and pointing. Three of the four original external 

 angles remain, with large ashlar quoins, the north-east 

 angle having given way and been rebuilt in red brick 

 with a heavy brick buttress. The north and south 

 doorways have semicircular arches of two orders and 

 a chamfered label, with nook-shafts with scalloped 

 capitals to the outer order ; the inner order being 

 square and the outer moulded with a heavy roll, and 

 in the case of the south doorway a line of beak-heads. 

 The north doorway is as usual of plainer character, and 

 has moulded wedge-shaped projections in place of the 

 beak-heads. At the east end of the south wall a 

 widely splayed lancet, c. 1220, has been added 62 to 

 light the south nave altar, the plain circular piscina of 

 which is in its sill. The original west window of 

 the nave, if there was one, has given place to a two- 

 light uncusped fourteenth-century window, and over it 

 in the gable is a small narrow lancet, probably of the 

 same date, and lighting the second stage of the 

 wooden belfry. The belfry stands on four massive 

 posts within the church, and from the absence of 



BISHOP'S SOTTON CHURCH 



detail is difficult to date. It rises as a square above 

 the nave roof, and its vertical sides are covered with 

 oak shingles, with small wired openings near the eaves 

 which admit air rather than light to the bell-chamber. 

 It is finished with a pointed red-tiled roof. The 

 chancel arch has evidently failed and been rebuilt with 

 the old stones, and is now of two square orders of 

 1 3 ft. 9 in. span, bluntly pointed, and having nook- 

 shafts on its western face with scalloped capitals which 

 have lost their abaci. 



The chancel, though retaining at its west end the 

 width of the twelfth-century chancel, has probably been 

 entirely rebuilt in the last years of the thirteenth 

 century, and no part of its masonry seems earlier than 

 that date. It has an east window of three trefoiled 

 lancets under an inclosing arch, the rear arch of 

 which is moulded, and the arch having spread, the 

 head of the central light has opened and been repaired 

 by the insertion of an extra stone, so that the light is 

 wider at the top than at the bottom. Externally 

 pairs of modern buttresses are set at the angles of the 



sa Its external stonework is all modern. 



east wall. In the north wall is a single trefoiled 

 lancet, to the west of which was formerly a north chapel 

 or vestry, now destroyed, a blocked squint from it, just 

 west of the lancet, and commanding as usual the place 

 of the high altar, being its only remaining feature. 

 It is of the fourteenth century, as was probably the 

 vestry, and the lower stones of the west jamb of the 

 thirteenth-century lancet have been inserted when it 

 was made. In the south wall is a trefoiled lancet 

 corresponding to that on the north, and to the east 

 of it a trefoiled piscina recess with three drains. It 

 seems probable that the two outer drains are the 

 original ones, the number being normal for the date, 

 and the central drain a later addition, possibly super- 

 seding the other two at a time when the use of a pair 

 of drains was abandoned. West of the window is a 

 plain south doorway, and further west a two-light 

 window widely splayed, with modern tracery of four- 

 teenth-century style and a small quatrefoil in the head. 

 On either side of the east window are painted con- 

 secration crosses in red within a circular yellow border. 

 None of the woodwork of the chancel is old except 

 the roof, which has plain trussed rafters and was 

 formerly ceiled, and the seventeenth-century altar 



rails, 2 ft. 9 in. high, 

 with good turned balus- 

 ters and a carved rail. 

 On the floor are a 

 number of marble slabs, 

 on one of which are 

 the mutilated brass 

 figures of an armed man 

 and his wife, c. 1500 ; 

 while another retains 

 the nails which once 

 fixed another brass, and 

 at the west of the chan- 

 cel is a slab with in- 

 dents of a shield and 

 an inscription plate. 



The south door of 

 the nave is old, with 

 its lock and strap hinges, 

 and the roof is of the 

 same type as that of 



the chancel, and probably of the same date. Both 

 roofs, as well as that of the bell-turret, are covered 

 with red tiles. The south porch of the nave is 

 of eighteenth-century brickwork, with benches on 

 east and west, and the north porch is modern and 

 serves as a vestry, having no external door. On the 

 south-east quoin of the nave are traces of two sundials. 

 The font stands by the south door of the nave, large 

 and baluster-shaped, with a moulded base, and incon- 

 veniently high. It is of eighteenth-century date. 

 There are five bells, all re-cast by Warner of Cripple- 

 gate in 1893. 



The plate includes a notable piece, a small silver 

 paten of c. 1500, the centre being engraved with i H s 

 on a gilt ground, in lettering of very good style and 

 design. Besides this there is a communion cup of 

 1678, an alms dish of 1751, and a modern pewter 

 flagon. 



The registers are not preserved before 1711, the 

 first book continuing till 1783, with marriages to 

 1754 : the second has marriages 1 754-1 8 1 2, and the 

 third baptisms and burials 1783-1812. There are 

 also books of vestry minutes from 1842 to 1890. 



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