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60 THE SUSSEX COAST |
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windows remains though blocked. The tower arch is very plain, and over it is a triangular-headed doorway that may have opened into a gallery. The Saxon stonework is of a local Eocene limestone associated with the Bracklesham beds (p. 75). The chancel was lengthened and the tower was raised in Norman times; of the former work a large window can be seen. The upper part of the tower has double windows with central shafts, the corbel-table has little arches cut in the lintels, it is overlapped by the later octagonal shingled spire. Norman, too, is a pillar piscina in the north aisle.
This Norman work may be due to William of Warlewaste, Bishop of Exeter, to which see Bosham church belonged from the Confessor's grant of it to his kinsman Osbern, who held the far western bishopric from 1072 to 1103. Warlewaste built much of the Norman Cathedral at Exeter, and his transept towers still remain. In 1120 he founded or revived the College of Prebendaries at Bosham, an institution never very famous for its^good order, which was the subject of much acrimonious discussion between the Bishops of Exeter and Chichester. Old walls, mostly of the fifteenth century, with a plain doorway, south of the churchyard are probably relics of its buildings. It was undoubtedly to enhance the dignity of the collegiate services that about a century after Warlewaste's time the chancel was further extended eastwards. This extension is a superb piece of work; the east wall is pierced by five lancets divided by mullions outside and within, having widely detached shafts of black marble and all comprised under a large arch; at the sides are double lancets very similarly treated. |
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