By the Rev. Bryan King. 



177 



of the congregation were centred in the service of the altar. But 

 it is obvious that the same provision could no longer be regarded 

 as satisfactory when those interests had been transferred to the 

 , ministrations of the pulpit; and so it was that in 1811 four of the 

 families, whose pews were situated in the aisles, combined to effect a 

 remedy for their comparative isolation from the nave, by having the 

 present wide arches substituted for the narrow Norman ones exhibited 

 above. 



To return however to the original formation of the aisles. 

 It is evident then that these Norman arches and piers (which 

 though of somewhat different character were co-eval, or nearly so, 

 with the present Norman south door-way), were of comparatively 

 late insertion, as the contrast between them and the original 

 masonry is very striking — the original wall appears to consist of 

 sarsen stones and chalk very rudely and irregularly put together, 

 and is probably the remains of the original Saxon Church which, 

 as we know, existed here before the Norman Conquest ; whereas 

 the Norman work consists of freestone worked with great nicety ; 

 and Mr. Chivers assures me that the central mass of wall which 

 was removed in 1811 for the present piers, presented precisely the 

 same comparative character. I presume from this, that the church 

 consisted originally merely of a nave with small chancel or apse, 

 and that it was probably furnished with a rude 1 

 wooden font, such as I have seen in many of the 

 country churches of Norway ; and that about the 

 date of the present Early Norman Font, the 

 church was enlarged by the addition of two lean- 

 to aisles connected with them on either side by 

 the two Norman openings which I have described ; 

 though whether any part of the present clerestory Woodenront > Nor ^- 

 be of that early date, and whether it was on that account judged 

 necessary to leave such substantial supports between the arches, I 

 am not sufficiently skilled in ecclesiology to venture an opinion. 



1 It would appear probable, from the 81st Canon of 1603, prescribing a Font 

 of stone in every Church, that some wooden Fonts had survived in England 

 until that date. 



