ECCLESIASTICAL 

 ARCHITECTURE 



THE absence of natural boundaries, except the river Thames on 

 the north, and its position relatively to London, have combined 

 to produce a lack of individuality in Surrey as a county, and 

 this again has operated to prevent the formation of any great 

 controlling ecclesiastical centre of interest. It is therefore only to be 

 expected that the church architecture of the county should reflect these 

 conditions. Surrey has never formed a separate diocese, nor possessed 

 a cathedral of its own. Neither can it be said that the monastic bodies 

 that have held land within its borders have exercised an influence upon 

 the ecclesiastical architecture of the county proportionate to their 

 wealth and power. Another cause, however, has contributed to produce 

 this lack of individuality in the churches as a whole, viz., the scarcity 

 of good building stone. Where there are no quarries there can be no 

 local schools of masons, and the absence of these involves the com- 

 parative absence of local traditions and peculiar styles. 



The neighbourhood of London and Middlesex, it is easy to see, 

 has largely influenced the architecture of northern Surrey — the district 

 lying between Chertsey on the west and Croydon on the east — and the 

 churches of this area have a great deal in common with those of Middle- 

 sex, especially in the poor, spiritless work of the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries, represented on both sides of the Thames and in London itself. 

 Sussex, like Surrey, displays a lack of individuality in its architecture, 

 also in part owing to the absence of good building stone. Moreover, 

 there was never a clearly defined boundary between the counties, and, as 

 might be expected, there is no distinct Sussex influence apparent in the 

 churches that lie on the border line of the two counties. Only in a few 

 exceptional instances, such as the churches of Reigate,Wotton, Chidding- 

 fold and Alfold, do we trace the handiwork of the schools of masons who 

 were busy in western Sussex during the thirteenth century ; but in the 

 numerous wooden bell-towers and turrets that are to be found in the 

 forest country of this borderland we have a natural link between the two 

 counties. 



Perhaps we must look to Hampshire for the greatest influence 

 which neighbouring counties have exercised upon the architecture of 

 Surrey — and this chiefly for ecclesiastical reasons — the diocese of 

 Winchester having from ancient times included the county of Surrey 

 within its borders. This influence is specially noticeable in the churches 

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