Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/244

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having been done without the consent of the Ordinary, Bp. John Lake refused to consecrate it, and it is now in decay." (Dallaway.) Binderton is not named in either (A.D. 1291), (N. R.), or (Val. Eccl.)

30. Binsted.—(D.B.) describes the church as being in the very hundred, "in ipso hundredo," that just named being Benestede.

31. Bishopstone.—This church well merits examination. It includes a double chancel, nave with north aisle and south porch, and square western tower. The entrance, on the southern side, is by a narrow porch door, of Norm. character, with a tympanum, apparently always plain, but the weather had destroyed the stone, which has been plastered over in recent alterations of the church. The shafts at the side of the doorway are gone, but the capitals remain, and deserve notice. The porch is rather long, though not proportionally wide, and more than commonly lofty, the ancient beams and kingposts seeming quite sound. The church door is not opposite that of the porch, but rather on one side, and likewise is narrow. The nave is small. The chancel is in two divisions; the eastern, projecting as usual beyond the nave, is evidently that of the original Norm. structure, but its termination is square, not apsidal. A string course runs round the interior, which has clustered columns in the angles, as if a groined roof had been contemplated, but it never was completed; though one has recently been added, in plaster. In the south wall an arch has been opened, which now resembles a sedile, but whether that was the original intention is doubtful; it is roundheaded, with a torus moulding around it. A second chancel has been formed, westward, of later date, externally not distinguishable from the nave. Of the inner arch the shafts and capitals are Norm., while the arch itself is E.E. On either side are two Norm. arches, the eastern richly ornamented, the western plain; on the north side they now open into the aisle; on the other they are built into the wall. On the eastern chancel arch is the tooth moulding, of rather peculiar (that is, early?) character. The western chancel arch is lofty, with deep mouldings, and trefoil capitals much undercut; of similar form, though inferior, to those of Stockbury church, Kent. (Gloss. of Archit. pl. 30, ed. 1845.) Of the aisle, which is spanned by the nave roof, the door and small roundheaded windows were built up, but have been restored to use. The tower rises in four receding stages to a blunt, shingled spire, or rather cap. It has various Norm. ornaments about the windows and at the angles, the top being finished with a corbel table