Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/292

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NOTES TO SUSSEX.

be signified, but that, beside the great difference between the names a small one would be unimportant, Hamelesham is mentioned, as belonging to Earl Morton, in the hundred of Pevensey. If the latter name should imply Westham; as not improbably it may; which is now in the liberty of, and immediately adjoins, Pevensey, whereas Hailsham is distant about five miles, the difficulty will be obviated; but more evidence is required, before we can venture decidedly to assign these Domesday appellations. In the abridged manuscript copy of (D.B.) elsewhere alluded to (see Chaldon in Surrey) the entire paragraph descriptive of the hundred of Essewelle is omitted: which is easily accounted for, because, in the original MS., the entry is headed and concluded by precisely the same words, declaring the hundred never to have paid land-tax, "Dane-gelt;" the transcriber therefore took up his catchwords at the wrong place, namely, at the conclusion of the paragraph, and proceeded accordingly without noticing the intervening matter. This circumstance debarred me from ascertaining, by a comparison of the two MSS., whether the name Haslesse was identical in both.

119. Hastings. (A.D. 1291) names the churches of St. Margaret, St. Michael, St. Peter, St. Andrew under the castle, St. Clement, and All Saints: of which the last two only remain, and they alone are mentioned in (Val. Eccl.) Of All Saints' church the belfry is vaulted with stone; in the chancel are a piscina and three cinquefoil-headed sedilia. A priory was founded beneath the hill, westward of the castle, by Sir Walter Bricet, temp. K. Richard I; the sea encroaching upon it, the establishment was removed to Warbleton, 14 of K. Henry IV. In the town of Hastings was the hospital, i.e., almshouses, of St. Mary Magdalen. (Horsfield's Suss.) With respect to the intention of rebuilding Hastings priory at Warbleton "Tanner says, that it does not appear that this design ever fully took effect." (Monast. VI, 168.) Within the castle of Hastings was a royal free chapel, whereto belonged a dean and several canons or residentiaries; to which foundation Henry de Augo or Ewe, temp. K. Henry I, was a benefactor, and of which perhaps his father and himself had been the founders. (Ib. VI, 1470.) There was "a chapel opposite Bohemia" (which lies beyond the site of the priory to the west. A. H.). "The road near what is called 'The White Rock' having been washed away early in this year, 1834, in cutting down the adjacent cliffs for materials of repair the workmen came upon the remains of a church, pro-