A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



There is very little faced or squared flint work, the barbican at Lewes 

 Castle and the churches of Alfriston, Poynings, Steyning, West Tarring, and 

 Boxgrove being some of the exceptions of mediaeval date, and St. Michael's, 

 Lewes, and Laughton (chancel) of the eighteenth century. 



In some cases there is an attempt at decorative treatment in the form of 

 chequer-work, as in the chancel of Upper Deeding church, in the towers of 

 Felpham, Steyning, Hailsham, St. Clement's Hastings ; in the porch of 

 All Saints' Hastings ; in a gateway tower at Arundel Castle ; the Carmelites' 

 building at New Shoreham, and in some of the Lewes houses all late four- 

 teenth- to sixteenth-century work. 



For constructional rather than ornamental reasons we find common flints 

 built herring-bone fashion in a few early churches, such as Hangleton and 

 Ovingdean, the treatment being obviously derived from the similar disposition 

 of Roman bricks (as at Rumboldswyke, West Hampnett, and Eastergate 

 churches) ; and the thin shaly rubble used at Bosham, West Wittering, 

 Wisborough Green, West Grinstead, Lurgashall, Sutton, Terwick, Elsted, 

 Burton, Selham, West Sussex, and Bexhill, East Sussex ; or water-worn stones, 

 as in the early manor-house at Nytimber, Pagham. 



Bricks have been comparatively little used in Sussex, except for house 

 chimneys, but there are one or two noteworthy exceptions, (i) in churches 

 partially constructed with Roman bricks the spoils of some villa hard by 

 as at St. Olave's, Chichester, Bosham, Rumboldswyke, West Hampnett, Easter- 

 gate, Walberton, and Hardham : and (2) in mediaeval and later buildings, 

 such as Twineham Church, entirely rebuilt in this material temp. Henry VIII, 

 Herstmonceux Castle, a noble example of fifteenth-century brickwork, Cake- 

 ham Tower, East Wittering, early sixteenth century, and another tower with 

 a rich projecting cornice at Laughton, built 1534. Besides these there are 

 many later manor-houses (such as Brickwall, Bolebrook, Tanners, and Holms- 

 hurst), and lesser domestic buildings wholly or partially built of brick, to 

 which reference is made elsewhere. 



Caen stone is found in almost all the churches near the coast, and in 

 many inland churches of importance, but often in conjunction with native 

 stones, and stones brought from the Isle of Wight. It seems to have been 

 imported from a very early date, as it appears in at least two pre-Conquest 

 churches Sompting (tower, with other stones), and Ford (nave, north 

 wall), and in the bas-reliefs from Selsey, now in Chichester Cathedral. 

 With the Norman Conquest it was imported freely, and good examples of 

 its use may be pointed to in the Lady chapel (c. 1 150), Chichester Cathedral ; 

 Seffrid's casing of the nave arcades, 1187-99 5 Boxgrove Priory church, 

 West Wittering, Climping, Old and New Shoreham, Broadwater, and 

 Steyning churches. It was superseded, however, by local stones after the 

 middle of the fourteenth century, although used in the rebuilding of Arundel 

 collegiate church (c. 1380), and in many of the remarkable series of late 

 tombs (c. 1480 to 1550) for which Sussex is famous. The excellence of 

 the stone is attested by the manner in which it has withstood the south- 

 westerly rains and humid atmosphere near the sea for seven or eight centuries, 

 so that the original tool marks are, in most cases, plainly visible. 



But before this stone came into general use another was widely employed 

 in south-western Sussex in pre-Conquest times. It is a fresh-water limestone, 



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