The xij to inquire for the King;-Francis Alexander, John Fawkenor, Giles Cuddington, Richard Parson, Nicholas West, Richard Feist, Thomas Avery, John Gatland, John Holford, John Standen, Edward Brooker, Thomas Rendfild, John Wickam sen', Hugh Ansty al" Feild, Thomas Coulstocke, John Warde, William Illman, Thomas Abbott and Edward Virgo. This is followed by a blank and ends the book. THE PARISH CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS, HERSTMONCEUX, AND THE DACRE TOMB. BY JOHN E. RAY, F.R. HIST. S. THE earliest historical record we have concerning Herstmonceux Church is the statement in Domesday Book relating to the Manor of Herste, then held by Wibert of the Count of Eu that "there is a church. 51 It may therefore be presumed that at the time of the Survey a church appertaining to the manor had already been established here, and from time immemorial till recently the advowson of the church has belonged to the manor-it has never been appropriated to any religious house. Whether we owe its foundation to the influence of Edmer the priest, who held the manor in the time of the Confessor, or to a still earlier period, cannot be said with certainty, but the dedication in honour of All Saints has been said to indicate a church of Saxon origin.2 It may also be presumed that the church of Wibert's day occupied the same site as the present building, a site which was exceedingly appropriate for the erection of a church, and the present-day visitor cannot fail to notice how singularly beautiful it is, crowning a knoll of rising ground, the church lane winding up the hill from the north, and overlooking on the south the wide expanse of Pevensey Level, with the rolling chalk Downs in the distance beyond. 1 Sussex Domesday, 18a. 2 Churton, History of the English Church; Arnold Forster, Church Dedications. There is no uncertainty as to the dedication of this church. It is referred to as All Saints in an Inquisition taken in 1378 (S.A.C., Vol. XII., p. 38), and in Lady Joan Dacre's will in 1485 post. The founders of the church, however, and some generations of men who came after them looked out, not upon the rich pasture lands of the level as we know them, but upon a wide mere, with an occasional "eye" of low land rising above the waters. Even to-day there is no public road southward beyond the church and the adjacent Church Farm, which is the southern limit of up-land habitation in this direction. The founders must have approached the spot, as we must do, from the north and chose the summit of this hill, rising just to the west of the manor house of Herste, and jutting out into the level and almost cut off from the densely wooded country to the north, to raise their edifice to the Glory of God and in honour of All Saints. Of that first church no remains are now visible. The principal part of the present church, consisting of the tower, nave and north aisle, is of Early English architecture, and may be assigned to the end of the twelfth century. The south aisle and south porch are slightly later, while the chancel probably comes next in order of date, followed by the fifteenth-century Dacre Chancel or tomb house, built of brick and contemporary with the castle. Although the south aisle is of slightly later date than the tower, nave and north aisle, it is evident that the original design of the church comprised north and south aisles, and that they are not additions, as is the case in so many Norman Churches in Sussex, which were usually built, in the first instance, with an aisleless nave, the walls of which were pierced at a later date, when low aisles were added. Whatever was the plan of the church which preceded the present one, it does not appear to have influenced the twelfth-century builders, and it is probable that the part west of the chancel, if not the whole church, was re-built entirely from the ground about the end of the twelfth century. Consequently we do not see here an example of the "growth" of a church which has been evolved from a simple aisleless structure of Norman times. The present plan, excluding, of course, the additional chapel |