The registers of Merstham, Surrey : 1538-1812 / transcribed by the Rev. Reginald Illingworth Woodhouse ; assisted by the Rev. A.J. Pearman, and Thomas Fisher, esq.

Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The registers of Merstham, Surrey : 1538-1812 / transcribed by the Rev. Reginald Illingworth Woodhouse ; assisted by the Rev. A.J. Pearman, and Thomas Fisher, esq. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a century of the most perfect period of the Gothic style. The present example of sculptured foliage, resembling acanthus leaves, is so difterent from what one is accustomed to see in England, and so like what was usual in France, that the hypothesis of its being the work of a French designer or carver readily occurs to the mind. The wooden screens or parcloses which fenced in the chancel were of perpendicular date, of fair average work, but no special merit; that between the north aisle and the chantry was still later. These have all been swept away during a restoration, so called, of the church in i860. Part of the oak was saved, and used by the Right Hon. Lord Hylton to form a screen for the priests’ door, and part was worked up into an umbrella stand by the late churchwarden, P. L. Pelly, Esq. Brandon, whose authority upon any point of Gothic work stands deservedly high, states the north chantry roof to be of decorated date, of the fourteenth century, but others think it is of fifteenth century or perpendicular style. Sir Gilbert Scott considered it perfect of its kind, and eulogised the one window in the north side, and said most modern architects would have added another. The windows here and throughout the church (except the tower and clerestory) are of rather later perpendicular date. Beneath an arch in the north wall of the north chapel at the spot usually occupied by a founder’s burial place, is a high tomb to the memory of John Elinebrygge, who died in the year 1473. This is called the Albury Chapel, and belonged to the lords of that manor. The south chapel belonged to the owners of the Alderstead estate. The south chantry is designed with more elegance, and has a good ‘‘ priests’ door” ; the east window contains some fragments of original stained glass, amongst which are figures of the Blessed Virgin and Child, S. Peter, and another saint. In the south wall is a triangular piscina, the sloping sides arched ; it is unusually small, measuring only 12 inches wide by 7 inches high and 4 inches deep. Before the formation of the two chantry chapels and the arches by which they open to the chancel, the walls of the latter presented a constructional arcade of high pointed early English arches resting on shafts, and occupying the whole of the side walls ; portions remain. Such an arcade is very rarely met with,