CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 



with two very perfect early windows, the chapel forming the eastern block, 

 with a fine roof of curved ribs, a good doorway, and a piscina of the latter 

 period. A building, traditionally called ' the Knights' Stables,' lies about a 

 quarter of a mile to the south, and some timber and flint cottages may have 

 served for the servitors or tenants. 



Michelham Priory has considerable remains of buildings of a domestic 

 type, dating from the latter part of the thirteenth century (in which period 

 are included two fine vaulted apartments and a good hooded stone fireplace) 

 to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it was transformed into a 

 dwelling-house. The fine early fifteenth-century gatehouse contains a good 

 fireplace in its upper story. 



The hall at the Vicars' College at Chichester (thirteenth century) is 

 noteworthy as retaining some of its original features. 



Besides West Tarring and South Mailing, the archbishops of Canterbury 

 had a house at Slindon (which shows a few traces of fourteenth-century work 

 underneath an Elizabethan remodelling), 6 and a palace at Mayfield, one of the 

 most important examples of its class and period in England. It is famous for 

 the great hall or refectory (now used as a nunnery chapel), which has a 

 remarkable roof, with stone-arched principals of early fourteenth-century date, 

 some fine traceried windows and doors, and a stone seat with diapered back. 6 



Sussex possesses a great rarity in the late thirteenth-century town-hall, 

 or court house, at Winchelsea. It was probably one of the first buildings to 

 be erected in the new town. Among its curious features are a fine fireplace, 

 a panelled chimney, a ' lock-up,' and traces of an external wooden gallery. 



In a building attached to the Plough Inn, Seaford, is, or was, a fine 

 hooded stone fireplace, of late thirteenth or early fourteenth-century date, the 

 hood projecting and carried on corbels, and having angle brackets to support 

 a candlestick or vessel. This resembles a fireplace at Michelham Priory. 



There are several exceptionally perfect mediaeval parsonages or clergy 

 houses in Sussex. That at Westdean, near Seaford, is a valuable exam- 

 ple, dating from c. 1280, built of stone, chalk, and flints. It is double 

 storied, with a 'Jakes' at the south-west corner, and a newel stair turret 

 at the north-east angle of the simple parallelogram plan, the interior measure- 

 ments being about 30 ft. by 14 ft. loin., with walls aft. 6 in. thick. 

 There is a stone fireplace on both floors, with one original chimney rising 

 from the northern gable end, and on both floors the original doorways, doors, 

 and windows remain in very perfect condition. Two of the windows consist 

 of two lights with trefoiled heads, and these retain the original oak hinged 

 shutters. There are also several single-light openings with a peculiar shoulder- 

 arched head, in which the ' shoulder ' is convex, instead of concave. Under 

 one corner is a small crypt, perhaps intended as an oratory. 



Remains of another stone parsonage of about the same date are to be 

 found at Denton, in the same neighbourhood, and on the north side of the 

 church at Eastbourne is a long building, of stone, divided into cottages, which 

 was, in all probability, the mediaeval clergy house. It appears to date from 



6 A beautiful little window which came from this house, exhibiting tracery of c. 1350, is now built into 

 a school. 



6 Grose's Antiquities of Sussex has an engraving of the interior. For drawings of the beautiful details, see 

 Dolman's Analysis of Ancient Domestic Architecture in Great Britain, vol. i. 



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