A HISTORY OF SURREY 



modern vestry and on the south a small projecting 

 building, originally of two stories, which may have 

 served for an anchorite's cell or for viewing relics. 

 There is a modern coal shed on the north of the 

 tower. 



The tower has no buttresses, and is of very rude 

 construction, built entirely of rag rubble, without 

 any ashlar dressings to quoins and windows, the 

 latter being narrow round-headed slits in the rubble- 

 work ; a modern window of very incongruous 

 design has been pierced in the west. It has no 

 staircase, and its whole appearance suggests a date 

 prior to the Norman Conquest. The rag-work 

 quoins of the early nave are still visible and of the same 

 character. The timber spire, which is fairly lofty, is 

 probably of 14th-century date. The tower arch, 

 plain pointed, on square piers, dates from about 1 1 60 

 and replaces an earlier and smaller opening. A 

 peculiarity of the plan is that the nave contracts in 

 width towards the east, being 1 8 in. narrower at its 

 eastern end than at the west. Its floor is said to have 

 been higher than that of the chancel previous to the 

 restoration of 1843,3 fact borne out by the stilted 



square at the top with the angles canted off to a 

 circular necking. This rests upon a short circular 

 stem and base, and the whole upon a square table 

 and chamfered plinth. The north aisle retains its 

 low pitch and one of its original windows, but the 

 walls of the south aisle were raised about 3 ft. in the 

 1 5th century ; one of its original windows remains 

 in the south wall, but blocked on the inside, and 

 another in the west wall ; the remainder are of 

 1 4th and ijth-century dates. In the north aisle are 

 two shallow tomb-recesses, with depressed cusped 

 arches, of 14th-century date. A blocked rood-loft 

 door appears at the back of the eastern respond in 

 this aisle. The chancel arch is of two orders, the 

 outer circular in form, the inner obtusely pointed. 

 These are nook-shafted with volute capitals to the 

 outer order. 



The shell of the chancel walls is perhaps of late 

 1 1 th-century date, though heightened and otherwise 

 altered in subsequent periods ; three of its windows 

 can be traced, one in each wall. The bowl of a 

 pillar-piscina of this period has lately been found 

 plastered up in the wall of the upper chapel, to which 



HDPreconquest 

 Hi c.ioSO 

 C3 c 1160-80 



A A -Windows 



of c. IO8O 



Scale of 



PLAN OF COMPTON CHURCH 



C.13OO 

 C.1320 



ei4oo 

 modern 



40, 

 feer 



bases of the arcade-piers. These arcades, which with 

 the aisles and the chancel arch date from about 1 160, 

 are of three arches on each side, and with their 

 columns are entirely worked in hard chalk. The 

 arches are very slightly pointed, square-edged and of one 

 order, with a flat moulded label, a rare and note- 

 worthy feature being the coeval treatment of the 

 thin coat of plaster on their soffits, which is cut into 

 patterns (scallop, zigzag, and nebule) at the edges, as 

 at Godalming and the crypt of St. James's Clerkenwell. 

 The capitals have square abaci and are carved with 

 varieties of the scallop, volute, and different types of 

 foliage, those on the south being peculiarly rich. 

 The columns and responds are circular, with round 

 bases on square plinths. The north and south doors, 

 which have circular heads, are both of this period, 

 the former having a plain roll-moulding and the 

 latter an outer order of zigzag, with a hood. In 

 the centre of the nave at its western end is the 

 large font of late lath-century date. The design 

 is peculiar, and looks like a rude imitation of a Vene- 

 tian well-head, the bowl being shaped as a capital, 



it had evidently been removed when that chapel was 

 formed. The basin has two drain-holes an earlier 

 and a later a circular-headed niche being made to 

 fit the older drain. Clear proof was found during 

 the underpinning of the chancel in 1906 that when 

 the two-storied sanctuary was formed in its eastern 

 half, in about 1180, the older walls were merely 

 thickened by the addition of an independent ' skin,' 

 about I ft. thick, on the inside, to serve as an extra 

 abutment for the vault. The original plastering still 

 remains on the older face, now hidden. This vault 

 is of very low pitch, with segmental ribs, clumsily 

 constructed, springing from a string-course, with 

 corbels in the eastern angles. It is inclosed by a low 

 and wide segmental arch, beautifully moulded, with 

 nook-shafts having foliate capitals and chamfered 

 imposts, all in chalk. The arch has a hood-moulding 

 enriched with the dog-tooth ornament, and two 

 orders, both moulded, the outer having a cusped or 

 horse-shoe border in relief over a deep hollow 1 ,, 

 which gives a very rich effect. In the south wall are A 

 piscina and aumbry of the same period, and in thw 



22 



