BERMONDSPIT HUNDRED 



DUMMER 



1536, and in the following year the abbey and its 

 possessions were granted to Sir William Fitz William, 

 treasurer of the king's household." It appears to 

 have been acquired by the Dummer family before the 

 end of the sixteenth century, and from that date 

 followed the descent of West Dummer (q.v.). 



The Grange is a good early seventeenth-century 

 house, with a central block and two gabled wings 

 projecting on the east side, the southern of the two 

 having some good cut brickwork with Ionic pilasters 

 at the angles and a blank scutcheon in the apex of the 

 gable. The house contains a stair with an early 

 seventeenth-century balustrade, and parts of it are 

 probably of greater age. A coin of Henry V, among 

 other things, has been found here. In front of the 

 house is a large farmyard, the south side of which is 

 formed by a fine barn built of oak timber, of large 

 scantling and in excellent preservation. 



The church of ALL SAINTS consists 



CHURCH of a chancel 23ft. 6 in. by 1 6 ft., and 



nave 39 ft. by 21 ft. 3 in., with west 



porch and wooden bell-turret over the west end of 



the nave. 



The south doorway of the nave dates from the end 

 of the twelfth century, and the nave walls may be of 

 this time ; the chancel belongs to the first quarter of 

 the thirteenth century, and has three lancet windows 

 of that date in both north and south walls, and a 

 small blocked north doorway between the second and 

 third windows. A roll string runs round the chancel 

 at the level of the sills of the windows, breaking up 

 over the head of the doorway. The east wall was 

 rebuilt in 1893, and contains three lancet windows 

 of that date, and to the south of the windows is a 

 small trefoiled recess of thirteenth-century date. On 

 the splays of the eastern lancet in the north wall, and 

 of that next to it, are traces of a masonry pattern in 

 red, with a rose in each square. The roof timbers 

 are modern, but the altar rails have good twisted 

 balusters of the eighteenth century. The chancel 

 arch is of the date of the chancel, of one pointed 

 order edge-chamfered, and only 7 ft. wide ; on the 

 west face it has a chamfered label, cut away above the 

 springing for the fitting of the back beam of the rood- 

 loft floor. On either side of it are squints from the 

 nave, that on the south being round-headed and 

 blocked with brickwork, so that it does not show 

 towards the nave, while the other, a smaller round- 

 headed opening, is cut irregularly through the back 

 of a square-headed fourteenth-century recess marking 

 the position of a former nave altar. The recess has 

 a flat sill, and cinquefoiled ogee tracery with pierced 

 spandrels in the head, with a label which is cut 

 back like that of the chancel arch, and for the 

 same reason. 



Over the chancel arch is a large wooden coved 

 canopy, panelled in squares with moulded ribs having 

 carved and gilded bosses of foliage at their intersec- 

 tions ; the background is painted a dark blue, and 

 the canopy rests on a rough cambered beam, on which 

 are traces of diagonal bands of colour on either side, 

 and some other indistinct colouring in the middle. 

 These probably were backgrounds to the three figures 

 on the rood-beam, and the canopy is a rare and 

 remarkable instance of a ' ceiling over the Rood ' 

 preserved almost intact. 



81 Dugdale, Man. v, 140, 243. 



The nave is lighted at the north-east by a fifteenth- 

 century square-headed window of three trefoiled lights, 

 and there is a like window at the south-west, but 

 without cusps and of sixteenth-century date. In the 

 east jamb of the former window is a chase to take the 

 end of the front beam carrying the rood-loft, and 

 below the sill is a fourteenth-century tomb recess with 

 a low moulded segmental arch containing a Purbeck 

 marble grave slab ; it is partly blocked with masonry, 

 as the wall is very shaky at this point. The south 

 doorway of the nave has a semicircular head with an 

 edge-chamfer ; it is blocked and fitted with a wooden 

 lattice frame, and to the west of it is a plain two-light 

 window of the sixteenth century or later, with four- 

 centred uncusped lights. The west half, or rather 

 more than half, of the nave is taken up by a large 

 west gallery set in front of the wooden posts carrying 

 the belfry, and having a good seventeenth-century 

 balustrade in front. In the gallery are the arms of 

 Charles II, dated 1672. The west doorway of the 

 nave is of the fifteenth century, with a four-centred 

 head and a cinquefoiled niche above it ; the porch is 

 of the same date, with a wooden outer arch, a north 

 window of two cinquefoiled lights, and a single light 

 on the south side. Over the doorway, but only 

 visible from inside, is a blocked round-headed open- 

 ing, too little of which is at present exposed to give 

 any clue to its date or purpose. The nave roof is 

 old, plastered below the timbers, and, like the chancel 

 roof, is covered with red tiles. The bell-turret also 

 has a red-tiled roof, and its sides are covered with 

 modern weather-boarding, except in one part, where 

 the older flush boarding remains. The nave walls are 

 in somewhat unsound condition, and have brick but- 

 tresses at the four angles. 



The octagonal font, at the south-west of the nave, 

 is modern. 



On the east wall of the chancel, north of the east 

 window, is a slab with the brass figures of William at 

 Moore allot Dommer and Katherine (Brydges) his 

 wife, kneeling at a desk, and their son kneeling behind 

 his father. The inscription recounts William's birth 

 in 1508, and that he was clerk of the mayor's court 

 and controller of the chamber of London fifty years, 

 but the date of his death has never been inserted. 

 Above are the arms of Dummer, with helm and 

 mantling, between shields of Dummer impaling 

 Brydges, and Brydges. With the Dummer arms are 

 quartered a cross engrailed and billetty a crescent. 

 At the south-east of the nave is a brass to William 

 Dommer and Elena his wife, 1427, with an inscrip- 

 tion of six leonine hexameters ; and at the south-west 

 is a palimpsest brass plate, originally commemorating 

 Robert Clerk, chantry chaplain of Peter Habiller's 

 chantry, founded in this church, and afterwards used 

 for ' Alys Magewik of Dumer wedow,' 1591. 



There are five bells and a sanctus, the last being 

 blank. Of the rest the treble is by James Wells of 

 Aldbourne, 1 8 1 1 ; the second by Thomas Swain, 

 of Longford, Middlesex, 1759 ; and the other three 

 by Joseph Carter, of Reading, 1590, 1599, an< ^ '597- 

 Each bears on the waist the name or initials of John 

 Myllyngate or Milingat, and the fourth also has 

 Carter's founder's mark, a bell on a shield between 

 I C. Below the bell chamber, on the west wall of 

 the nave, are painted in seventeenth-century black- 

 letter type a set of ringers' rules of the usual character, 

 an early example of the kind, and it seems that they 



359 



