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Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 16  1886  page 150

Barfreston Church A.D. 1840 by R.C. Hussey, F.S.A.

for it; and had been built into some other erection. Yet the freshness of the stone, and its freedom from weather stains, shew that such other erection had but a short existence. The numerous fragments of ashlar, more or less wrought, found mixed with the flints, also lead to the inference that the walling is constructed with materials derived from some demolished building. The wooden mullion in the circular window suggests that the original, of stone, had been rendered useless, and that no proper material was procurable for a new one. This was to be expected, in an age when ashlar was ordinarily used in very small pieces; but the window would not have been designed, unless originally sufficient materials for its completion were at hand. The irregularity in the setting of the arches, at the sides of the chancel arch, seems to shew that the Barfreston mason

did not know the proper arrangement, and could not have worked them, nor have been guided by any competent supervisor. The forming of the string mouldings with finished and uninjured corbels proves that more corbels were at hand than were needed in the construction of the church, which it is not credible there would have been if they were originally provided for this building. The two external arched recesses, at the lower part of the East end (rather anomalous features in a building of this kind), were found to have been built against the wall, without any bonding connection with it, as if they might have been erected for the purpose of using up refuse materials, after the church was finished. The arch stones of the niches, outside the nave, are prepared for arches of curves different from those in which they are now seen.

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