St Margaret's of Antioch. West Hoathly. West Sussex. RH19 4PP.

Описание: ** /sussexparishchurches.org/church/west-hoathly-st-margaret/ **

West Hoathly is a large forest parish and the village lies on a ridge. Unusually, details of the maintenance of the retaining wall surrounding the churchyard have survived; each landholder in the parish was responsible for a designated length. The nave of the church dates from the C11, as a small, round-headed blocked window in its north wall shows. To this in the late C12, a south aisle was added, of which the two-bay arcade remains. It has a stumpy round pier, double-chamfered arches and a west respond with narrow abaci, though the more elaborate moulding on the east one suggests it has been altered, probably in the C15. A blocked north nave doorway, pointed and chamfered, is early C13.

Nothing of the C11 chancel is known, unless the suggestion that a small blocked north lancet was converted from a C11 window is accepted, which seems unlikely in view of its tall proportions. In its present form, this lancet, like the rest of the western chancel, is early C13. mentions a ‘semi-circular’, i e round-headed, arch which in the context sounds like a chancel arch, but the significance of this is doubtful, as there is good evidence that this had been removed well before he wrote, probably in the early C15 to make room for the roodloft (see below). Around 1250 the chancel was doubled in length, as a simple plate tracery window and a north lancet show, making it longer than the nave. The join in the walling is visible on the north side and the later work has a string-course inside at sill-level. There are also shafted rere-arches, sedilia and piscina (see below) of the same date. The east window is C19, but Sir Stephen Glynne described something similar, though mutilated, when he visited the church in 1863 and the opening is original.

After the chancel was lengthened, a south chapel was added around 1275. Part of a shafted rere-arch of a lancet above the sedilia shows that the two-bay arcade, with an octagonal pier and responds and shallow separation of the chamfers of the arches, was inserted in the existing wall, but this must have been little later, assuming the south lancet and east window of the chapel can be trusted. The shafted rere-arch and the mullions of the latter are old and the three renewed stepped trefoiled lights are later C13 in form. The quatrefoil heads of the larger south windows date from around 1330, like the arch into the south aisle, which lacks abaci. A round-headed and chamfered south doorway is not reset C11 as the VCH (ibid) suggests; its proportions are earlier C13, so it was probably re-used from the south side of the chancel; conceivably it is Horsfield’s semi-circular arch.

The south windows of the chapel were probably altered so soon after building to match the south aisle, when that was rebuilt with gables in the early C14. The ogee-quatrefoil head of its south east window would be consistent. The aisle is slightly wider than the chapel, with a single trefoil-headed lancet west of the plain doorway. The west tower of around 1400 has large diagonal buttresses, a square-headed west window above a doorway and a low double-chamfered arch. Most bell-openings have ogee heads and those without may be C16, though it has been suggested on the basis of the round heads that they were reset from the C11 west wall. We do not know if there was an earlier tower and even if so, it is unlikely that such small openings would have been saved. The tall, slender broach spire recalls that at Horsted Keynes. There is a substantially old two-light square-headed south chancel window dating from much the same time and there is another, of three lights and a flattened head, in the north nave. It may have been at this time that the presumed chancel arch was replaced by a roodloft, as was frequent (a fragment of the latter is said to be in the Priest’s House museum in the village. The entrance to its stair above the east respond of the south arcade was found in 1870 (church website). The octagonal shaft on the chamfered respond with curling stops was probably added in connection with this.

After the Reformation, the east window was replaced by a square one, which Hussey calls ‘debased’, suggesting it was C17, and W Slater and R H Carpenter in turn replaced it at the restoration in 1870. They rebuilt the east wall, but kept the rere-arch. They also replaced the roof which covers nave and chancel in one which has cusping on the side-braces; at the same time they rebuilt the top of the north wall. They kept a few beams of uncertain date in the nave and south chapel, and created a wooden division between nave and chancel.