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ARUNDEL AND LITTLEHAMPTON 111
sets of clergy were not seldom strained, and at Sherborne in the famous riots of 1436 a parish priest setting fire to the monastic part of the church, to punish the monks for their bumptiousness, incidentally consumed the parochial part as well. As a rule at the Dissolution the whole church became parochial or the part that was not used by the parish was taken down or allowed to go to ruin; at Boxgrove hard by, for instance, the parishioners moved into the monastic quire and the old parochial nave is in ruin; at Crowland (Lincolnshire) the north aisle of the nave has always formed the parish church, and it is the only part of the building not in ruins to-day. But at Arundel the quire was granted to the Earl by Henry VIIL, and it has since remained a private burial-place. In 1635 Dr. Brent, visiting Arundel Church as Vicar-General for the Primate, complained "the Choir and Lady Chapel are always kept locked up, so the altar has to be in an aisle." A memorable lawsuit in 1879—Duke of Norfolk v. Arbuthnot (the Vicar)—decided the quire and its north aisle to be the private property of his Grace.
The church is a fine specimen of early Perpendicular work, consisting of nave and aisles of five bays, north, west, and south porches—the first of timber and the last with a remarkable stone roof—central tower and transepts, quire, and north chapel. The east tower arch has an interesting iron screen contemporary with the church ; it is blocked by a stone wall separating what is usually called the Fitzalan Chancel. The nave is impressive from its spaciousness, the pillars are clustered, the clearstory windows are quatre-foils in circles, those of the aisles of three lights |
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