ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 



favour of French architecture. Accordingly we find distinct evidence of this 

 in some of the fine vaulted chambers beneath the refectory of the abbey 

 (early thirteenth century), and in the late twelfth-century arcades of the 

 parish church. Among other churches in their possesion were those of 

 Mountfield, Whatlington, and Westfield, the early features in the chancels of 

 which churches may be fairly ascribed to the monks of Battle. The Bene- 

 dictines had another house at Wilmington, near Eastbourne, a cell of the 

 Norman abbey of Grestein, and the chancel of this church, with its small 

 windows and ornamented string course, is evidence of their care. 8 A fifteenth- 

 century gateway, some undercrofts of earlier date, and a few other fragments 

 incorporated in farm-buildings are the sole remains of the priory. 



Happily, we still possess in the grand priory church of this same order at 

 Boxgrove the quire and transepts of a church of the first class, which have 

 come down to us in an exceptional state of preservation. The nave and its 

 aisles, separated by a solid wall from the crossing, and originally used as the 

 church of the parish, are ruined and roofless, as are all the conventual build- 

 ings ; but the whole of the eastern limb, including the massive central tower, 

 and two bays beyond to the west (forming a sort of Galilee), remain in a 

 singularly perfect state. 



Of this church the transepts and part of the central tower, with the two 

 eastern bays of the nave and the entrance to the chapter-house (forming part 

 of the east walk of the cloisters), are relics of the first building of about 1 1 20. 

 The transepts are narrow and shallow, and the nave was also planned upon a 

 small scale; but both the parochial church, comprising the western part of the 

 nave and its aisles (c. 1175), and the noble quire (c. 1210), were built upon 

 spacious lines, and the latter is one of the best examples of the emergence of 

 Early Pointed architecture from the Romanesque to be found in the south of 

 England. The quire and its aisles are about 83 ft. long and 48 ft. wide ; the 

 parochial nave and aisles nearly 90 ft. by 44 ft. ; while the eastern bays of the 

 nave and the crossing make the total internal length over 221 ft. Its corbel- 

 tables and flying buttresses, its beautiful arches, circular and pointed, with clus- 

 tered and plain columns, and a liberal use of Purbeck marble, compare closely 

 with the slightly earlier work of Bishop Seffrid II in the quire and other parts of 

 Chichester Cathedral. The work of the same masons is to be found in the 

 quire of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Portsmouth. The piers of the central 

 tower, inserted c. 1 170, the late chantry chapel of Lord de la Warr, and the ar- 

 caded entrance to the chapter-house are other specially interesting details. 

 The influence of Boxgrove Priory is to be traced in Barnham and Walberton 

 churches (in its gift) and also in the chancel of West Wittering. 



Of the Benedictine priory of Sele, in Upper Beeding, dependent upon 

 the abbey of St. Florent, Saumur, no remains of any importance exist in 

 situ, but built into the walls of the chancel of the parish church are a 

 singular two-light window and door brought from the priory church after 

 the dissolution. 



The Premonstratensian order had houses at Bay ham, on the extreme 

 north-east of the county, and at Dureford, on the north-west border. They 

 originally (in the latter part of the twelfth century) built a house for them- 



* Among other possessions of the abbey of Grestein were the churches of Eastdean and Friston (near 

 Eastbourne), which contain several curious early features probably attributable to these patrons. 



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