Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/330

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NOTES TO SUSSEX.

though almost imperceptibly. However when new fittings were required, and they had been made perpendicular, it was necessary for the carpenter to alter his work. Recently upon the interior of the south wall of this church were discovered some fresco paintings, which are represented and described in (Suss. Arch. Coll. 1, 161 et seq.)—North of the chancel of the church, forming the churchyard wall on that side, and in the pleasure-grounds of J. Borrer, Esq., are the ruins of an ancient manorhouse, still exhibiting two tolerably perfect double-light round-headed windows. Of one the dividing mullion has a decidedly Norm. capital, though the moulding surrounding the inner side of the window has an E.E., or more properly Tr. Norm., character. One fragment of wall is three feet three inches thick, others two feet ten inches, and one foot ten inches, of great solidity, and seeming to have been overthrown by violence. One window looks into the churchyard, in which below the surface still exist foundations of two walls, running from the old mansion to the north-east and the north-west angles of the chancel of the church. The latest date I should assign to this erection is early E.E., and it may be still older.

202. Poynings.—A plain Perp. cross church with a central tower, but no aisles, of dressed flint, the principal entrance being on the northern side, where is a porch; other doors existing at the west end, and in the south sides of both nave and chancel. This last contains a piscina, and three sedilia, in excellent condition. The font is an octagonal column of sandstone with trefoil-headed panels worked in the sides. Many encaustic tiles of various patterns are preserved in the church, and in the south transept are several mutilated grave-slabs, one of them having had an inscription in, apparently, Lombard letters. In the south-east angle of the building some portion of the outer wall of both chancel and south transept seems to have belonged to an earlier structure, the character of the masonry bearing a resemblance even to Norm. The general features of this church are so much like those of Alfriston, save that the latter is larger and more ornamented, that they probably were erected nearly at the same period, and perhaps even by the same architect. (See a detailed account of this interesting example in Arch. Journ. VI, 141 to 144.) Poynings church was struck by lightning about the beginning of August, A.D. 1849, and considerably injured.

"A chantry was founded by one of the Poynings family about a furlong from the church, which still retains the name of