BOSMERE HUNDRED 



HAYLING ISLAND 



the existing arcade, is of the same thickness. The 

 probable growth of the plan has been that a former 

 chancel, whose west wall was a little to the east of the 

 responds of what is now the second bay of the nave 

 arcades, was prolonged eastward early in the thirteenth 

 century, the line of the chancel arch being moved 

 eastwards to its present line, and a north transept 

 chapel (and probably also a like chapel on the south, 

 now destroyed) added. Openings were made into both 

 these chapels from the new east b.iy of the nave, 

 which was probably occupied from the first by a 

 wooden belfry as now, representing the central tower 

 of a more ambitious design, as at South Hayling. 

 There have been no later additions to the plan, 

 except the north porch. The chancel has three tall 

 lancet windows on the east, and two smaller windows 

 on north and south, with a priest's door at the south- 

 west angle. The heads of the lights are bluntly 

 pointed or round, but the rear arches are in all cases 

 pointed, and a moulded string runs round the inner 

 face of the walls at their sill level. 

 Near the north-east angle is a recess 

 rebated for a wooden door, and oppo- 

 site to it on the south a pointed 

 piscina recess with a projecting bowl, 

 both features being of the date of the 

 chancel. The east wall leans outward 

 dangerously, and is supported by three 

 large raking buttresses. The chancel 

 arch is pointed, of two chamfered 

 orders, of the full width of the chan- 

 cel, save for small half-round shafts on 

 the responds with moulded capitals. 



The north transept, which is ap- 

 proximately 1 3 ft. square, a dimension 

 found elsewhere in the county in 

 transepts of this kind, has two tall 

 lancets on the east like those in the 

 chancel, and between them a large 

 trefoiled reca>s, having a small image 

 bracket over it, marking the site of a 

 former altar. The north window of 

 the transept is like those on the east, 

 and the west window, also a single 

 lancet, is lower, with a pointed head. 



The nave arcades are of four bays, the 

 three western being continuous, but the 

 east bay on each side seemsto be an ad- 

 dition, as suggested above. The arches here are quite 

 plain, pointed, with a square-edged string at the spring- 

 ing, chamfered below ; the north arch is not central 

 with the transept, probably because a transept set cen- 

 trally with it would have been inconveniently small. 



The other three bays of the north arcade have 

 pointed arches of one order with edge chamfers, square 

 abaci, with simple leaves at the angles of the capitals, 

 circular columns, and moulded bases with spurs on a 

 square plinth. The east respond has a capital with a 

 row of plain heart-shaped leaves on the bell. In the 

 south arcade the arches are like those of the north, 

 but the capitals, columns, and bases are circular. The 

 abaci are of square section, and the bases are moulded, 

 the capitals being quite plain, without any ornament. 

 There are two small lancet lights in the north aisle, 

 and between them a plain pointed thirteenth-century 

 doorway under a wooden porch, which may be in 

 part of the fifteenth century. The south aisle, the 

 east end of which is used as a vestry, contains no old 



features except the south doorway, which has a low 

 four-centred head, and may be of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. In the west wall of the nave is a fifteenth- 

 century doorway, and over it a window of three 

 cinquefoiled lights, with modern tracery. 



The roofs of the nave, transept, and north aisle are 

 old, and of plain character with trussed rafters, while 

 the east bay of the nave is ceiled at the level of the 

 tie-beam, and boarded in above, access to the belfry 

 being by a stair at the south-east, which may represent 

 an old stair to the rood loft. In the spandrel between 

 the tie-beam and the nave roof is a fifteenth-century 

 beam with cusped and pierced hanging tracery, like a 

 barge-board. The other woodwork in the church, 

 beyond a seventeenth-century chest, has no archaeo- 

 logical interest. 



The font stands in the third bay of the south 

 arcade, and has a round tapering bowl without a 

 stem. The top edge of the bowl is scalloped, but 

 this seems to be a modern adornment, though the 



ST. PETER'S CHURCH, NORTH HAYLING 



font itself may be of the thirteenth century. On the 

 capital of the pillar against which it stands is a 

 fifteenth-century stone bracket. 



There are three bells, fitted with half wheels, in 

 frames which are probably mediaeval. Two of the 

 bells are blank, but seem to be contemporary with the 

 tenor, which is inscribed in good Gothic capitals 

 Sancta [M]aria ora pro nobis ; it is a late fourteenth 

 or early fifteenth-century bell. 



The plate consists of a cup of 1569, with a cover 

 paten of the same date, and a second cup and cover paten 

 a little larger, and of slightly different outline, but pro- 

 bably made locally as a copy of the other, and bearing 

 no hall-marks. There is also a modern paten, 1858. 



For the registers see South Hayling. 



The church of SOUTH HAT- 



JDrOlfSONS LING was held by the abbey of 



Jumieges, and was appropriated to 



thit monastery in 1253-4," and the advowson was 



Harl. Chart. 83 C. 32. 



133 



