ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 



identified with Horsham in Sussex, there is evidence that these roofing 

 slabs were quarried also in Surrey, as at Chaldon, where the hills are said 

 to have furnished stone for the roof of Westminster Abbey. 



Next to timber, the handiest materials for building were the chalk 

 and field flints found throughout the greater part of the county. There 

 is no better material for inside work, short of marble — certainly none 

 more easily obtained or fashioned — than the harder chalk (sometimes 

 called clunch) quarried from deep beds in the Surrey hills. It is 

 obtainable still in large and clean blocks, often veined like marble, and 

 the mystery is why it should be so neglected to-day. From the eleventh 

 century to the sixteenth it was largely used in the internal work of most 

 of the churches of Surrey. Some of the best instances of the use of 

 chalk are in the arcades of Farnham, Compton, Godalming, St. Mary's 

 Guildford (also in the vaulting and window dressings), Fetcham, the 

 Bookhams, Stoke D'Abernon (also in vaulting), and Banstead. It is not 

 always easy, however, to distinguish between the hard chalk thus used 

 and the calcareous sandstones from Reigate, Gatton and Godstone 

 (see post). 



Flints are used for the walling in quite two-thirds of the ancient 

 churches of the county, sometimes mixed with stone rubble, and such walls 

 appear to have been originally brought to an even face externally with 

 a thin coat of rough plaster, which in many cases has remained to this 

 day. There is but little of the squared and coursed flintwork in Surrey, 

 such as is found in the eastern counties. The towers of Croydon and 

 Beddington churches are examples of this treatment, which in itself 

 only came into general use in the fourteenth century. Esher, Leather- 

 head and Mickleham have a little flint and stone chequer work. 



Ironstone rubble, or masses of pebbly conglomerate, in some cases 

 take the place of flints for walling. The gravelly heaths of north-west 

 and south-east Surrey seem to have furnished such materials, and the 

 best examples of their use are the tower of Cobham church and the 

 churches of Albury, Byfleet, Chessington, Send, Ripley and Woking. 

 The deep blood-red look which the ironstone assumes after rain gives 

 the walls a very singular appearance. This rubble, as distinguished from 

 the pebbly conglomerate, appears a good deal in the churches of south- 

 east Surrey. Limpsfield (chancel) and Oxted (tower) are good instances 

 of its employment. 



Down to the middle of the sixteenth century bricks seem to have 

 been rarely made or used in Surrey. The chapel of Croydon Palace is 

 a rare instance of their use prior to this date. We have, however, many 

 cases of the re-use of Roman bricks, as at Ashtead, Stoke D'Abernon, 

 Fetcham and other churches in the neighbourhood of Roman settle- 

 ments. In post-Reformation ecclesiastical buildings we have a few 

 examples of the use of bricks, as the chapels of Archbishop Whitgift's 

 almshouses at Croydon and Archbishop Abbot's almshouses at Guildford, 

 the churches of Maiden and Morden, rebuilt respectively in 1610 and 

 1636, while Petersham, Kew, Kingston (upper stage of tower, 1708), 



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