ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 



parts, such as on gravelly heaths, is employed as rubble in a few churches such 

 as West Wittering in the Selsey peninsula. 



Eastbourne Rock is the name given to a pretty green sandstone of hard 

 and even texture and excellent weather-resisting qualities, found upon the 

 coast and in the hill-country behind Eastbourne. It resembles the firestones 

 of Surrey in appearance, but is of a deeper and more uniform colour. The 

 best examples of its use from pre-Conquest times are the churches of St. Mary 

 Eastbourne, Jevington, Eastdean, Westdean, Friston, Willingdon, Wilming- 

 ton, East Blatchington, Litlington, Arlington, Westham and Pevensey, and 

 the buildings of Michelham Priory. 



Sussex or Petworth marble (quarried near the town of that name) has 

 been extensively used in work of the twelfth century and later. In the 

 cathedral it is most conspicuous in the work of Bishop Seffrid II and his 

 successors, particularly in the form of shafts. Many capitals and bases are also 

 carved in it. Purbeck marble is used side by side with it, and both are em- 

 ployed in coffin-slabs, and in the fine series of late pre-Reformation tombs for 

 which Sussex is famous. 



Good examples of the structural use of these marbles occur (besides in 

 the cathedral) in Bosham (east end), West Wittering (lancets in east wall), 

 Boxgrove (pillars and shafts of quire), East Preston, Ferring (east windows), 

 and other churches. 



Many fonts particularly those of a common square pattern and of late 

 twelfth-century date and ancient altar-slabs are in this material. 



From the same formation that has yielded Horsham and kindred sand- 

 stones, a stone of hard quality, capable of being naturally split into thin 

 layers, has been used from early times as a roofing material. Probably both 

 the Romans and the Saxons made use of it, as did all later generations 

 of church and house builders down to the seventeenth century. These 

 Horsham slabs or ' stone-healing ' furnished a practically indestructible roofing 

 material, highly picturesque in appearance, but of such ponderous weight 

 that exceptionally heavy roof-timbers had to be employed, and for this 

 reason when the roofs have been renewed the stone-healing has usually been 

 discarded. It is still found upon the roofs of over fifty churches, chiefly in 

 Vest Sussex, among which the following may be instanced : Ardingly, 

 Upper Beeding, Bury, Clayton, Coombes, Cuckfield, Findon, Framfield, West 

 Grinstead, Hamsey, Lancing, Lyminster, Pulborough, Shermanbury, Shipley, 

 Old Shoreham, Sompting, Southease, Stopham, Thakeham, Twineham, and 

 Woodmancote. In towns such as Horsham and Lewes, and in many way- 

 side cottages and manor houses, stone-healing is still often to be seen. Where 

 thatch would ordinarily be used (as in many ancient cottages around 

 Horsham) we often meet with this heavy stone roofing. 



Reed- and straw-thatched roofs remain in great numbers such as in 

 Amberley and the neighbouring villages on the Arun but only over cottages 

 and farm buildings. Tiles are, and have been for many centuries, one of 

 the commonest roof-coverings. So also oak shingles for the numerous 

 timber spires and turrets : these have been used as sheathing for roofs or walls 

 since the Roman occupation, and in the case of the spires there is no doubt 

 that the present shingling represents the original thirteenth- or fourteenth- 

 century covering. The oak framework of these spires, timber towers, and 

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