REIGATE HUNDRED 



HORLEY 



as conclusive evidence. The construction of the walls 

 being masked, it can only be assumed that they are 

 built of local sandstone rubble in the old parts, as in 

 the new, the original dressings being of Reigate stone, 

 and those in the new parts of Bath stone. The 

 timber tower, where it rises from the aisle roof, is 

 covered with oak shingles and crowned by a slender 

 shingled spire set well within the walls. The modern 

 west porch is of stone with a half timber gable, and it, 

 together with the rest of the church, is roofed with 

 tiles, but Horsham slabs remained upon the roofs 

 down to the restoration of 1881-2, when they were 

 most unfortunately removed. The church was 

 enlarged in 1901 (Sir A. Blomfield), and this extension, 

 which took the form of a wide south aisle, organ 

 chamber and vestry, more than equal in area to the 

 old nave, has necessarily entirely altered its appearance. 

 Until 1901 the plan consisted of a nave about 61 ft. 

 long by 19 ft. at its eastern end, and 20 ft. 7 in. through- 

 out the greater part of its length ; chancel about 

 3 1 ft. long by 1 8 it. wide, a transept on the south of 

 the nave at its eastern end about 17 ft. by 146., and 

 a large north aisle and chapel under a parallel gabled 

 roof, 70 ft. long by 1 8 ft. 8 in. wide, having a small 

 but lofty north porch, 7 ft. 8 in. by 7 ft. 3 in. 

 In the west end of the aisle was, and is, the 

 timber tower, inclosing a space about 1 5 ft. square. 

 Of this structure, the spacious north aisle con- 

 tained the earliest work, and it has therefore been 

 somewhat hastily assumed that it formed the nave and 

 chancel of the original church, and that the coeval 

 arcade on its southern side opened into a narrow south 

 aisle, which subsequently gave place to a wide nave 

 and chancel, tacked on to what thus became an ordin- 

 ary aisle. 1 " There is no evidence worth considering 

 to support this far-fetched theory of plan development, 

 and it may be taken for certain that the north aisle 

 always has been an aisle, its chapel or chancel forming 

 the chantry of the Salaman family, by whom it was 

 probably built ; and that it was added in the ordinary 

 way to a church of I2th or 13th-century date, pos- 

 sibly then of timber construction, which afterwards 

 was either rebuilt in stone, or entirely altered in the 

 I 5th century. Practically all the old features of the 

 nave and chancel were of one or more dates between 

 1400 and 1500, while the transept had lost its old 

 windows with the exception of one that has been 

 preserved as the east window of the modern organ 

 chamber a two-light 15th-century opening. It 

 should be recorded that two of the large three-light 

 windows now in the south wall of the modern south 

 aisle originally stood in the same relative positions in 

 the south wall of the nave. They differ slightly in 

 design, and the character of the tracery in the heads 

 is somewhat unusual. The west window of the nave 

 has modern tracery, the opening in Cracklow's view 

 showing a wooden frame, while the doorway below, 

 now within the porch, is ancient and has a plain 

 four-centred arch. The buttresses and the west 

 window of the south aisle are of course modern. The 

 east window of the chancel is of three lights, and 

 appears to have been entirely renewed in Bath stone 



in 1 88 1-2, and the original plain design (c. 1500) 

 was not strictly reproduced. The window in the north 

 wall, of two lights with tracery, has been more or less 

 renewed, but upon the old lines, and its design is 

 somewhat unusual and earlier than the other (c. I 390). 

 On the opposite side the evidence has been obliterated 

 by restoration and subsequent enlargements, but prior 

 to these works there were two two-light windows and 

 a small priest's door between then ; the windows, if 

 one may judge by the solitary restored specimen now 

 remaining, being of plainer and later character than 

 that in the north wall. The existing piscina is 

 modern. 



The transeptal chapel with gabled roof, on the 

 south of the nave, known as the Bastwick Chapel 

 (possibly the original Lady Chapel), removed in 1901, 

 seems to have had features of late date, but perhaps 

 incorporated 1 3th-century stonework in its walls. It 

 opened to the nave, not by an arch, but by a timber 

 framing of a beam and posts. The nave wall at its 

 junction with this transept was thickened out, so as 

 to form a projection of about 2 ft. on the inside, per- 

 haps to contain a newel-stair in connexion with the 

 rood-loft ; no trace of this now remains. The modern 

 south aisle has been built with an arcade of four arches 

 on octagonal piers, in general conformity with the 

 15th-century period. 



The chief interest of the church centres in its 

 beautiful north aisle, which presents a very valuable 

 and regularly designed example of early 1 4th-century 

 work. Most unfortunately, its elaborate and graceful 

 window tracery, which was in Reigate stone and in 

 excellent preservation, was almost entirely renewed in 

 1 88 1-2 in Bath stone, when the ancient corbels, 

 carved as human heads, that formed the termination 

 to the hood-mouldings on the outside, were destroyed, 

 and their places taken by square blocks, not even 

 carved to imitate the destroyed heads. From drawings 

 of the old work that have been preserved, 13 * it is some 

 consolation to observe that the ancient design of the 

 tracery was closely copied, while the internal arches 

 and jambs were suffered to remain in the original 

 stone. It has been supposed that the aisle and its 

 chapel were the work of John de Rutherwyk, ' the 

 very prudent and very useful lord and venerated 

 Abbot,' as he is styled in the deed of 1313, when 

 the Abbot and convent of Chertsey, the patrons of 

 the church, obtained licence to appropriate this church 

 and that of Epsom. But this seems somewhat un- 

 likely on various grounds, partly from the great dis- 

 similarity in style between the work here and that in 

 the chancel of Great Bookham Church, which is 

 actually proved to have been reconstructed by this 

 great church-builder in the year i34i. 1M More 

 probably the aisle was erected by the Salaman family 

 as their bury ing- place, and the chancel or chapel at its 

 eastern end as the chapel of St. Katherine. It is 

 quite possible, of course, that Chertsey Abbey co- 

 operated in the work. The exact date is about the 

 year 1315, but possibly it occupied some years in 

 building. The east window, for example, bears a 

 somewhat later stamp than the arcade to the nave. 



"" Paper by the late Major Heales, 

 F.S.A., in Surr. Arch. Call, vii, 169. 



188 Reproduced with an account of the 

 church in its pre-restoration state, by the 

 late Major Heales, F.S.A., in Surr. Arch. 

 CM. vii, 172-3. 



u *As ii recorded on the well-known 

 dedication stone built into the chancel 

 wall at Great Bookham. A similar dedi- 

 cation stone, with the date 1327, at 

 Egham, preserves the record of the rebuild- 



205 



ing of the chancel of that church (destroyed 

 in 1817) by John de Rutherwyk, traces 

 of whose work were visible also in Sutton 

 and Epsom Churches, prior to their 19th- 

 century re-construction. 



