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western porch. There are still standing (as you may
see) portions of a wall built with Roman tiles and sea-shore mortar,
considered by Mr. Parker and many others to be a veritable
Romano-British wall, with apparent traces of the spring of an arch at
right angles to it.
This wall is about 9 feet long, and 8 feet high above
ground, with buttresses of 16 and 18 inches. We have uncovered the
foundations of a wall and buttresses exactly corresponding on the other
side—forming a porch 10 ft. 6 in. long, and 9
ft. 3 in. wide, with an opening at the west end of 6 ft. 6 in.
Below the surface, at an average, depth of 14 inches, there
are parts of a pavement consisting of coloured and patterned tiles.
These tiles are mostly of the date of the latter end of the fourteenth
or beginning of the fifteenth century. They have been found in all parts
of the building, and some of the earlier ones apparently formed the
pavement of that church, of which the east window-arch and the chancel's
south wall are still remaining.
At a depth of about 15 inches below this pavement, on |
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the north side of the porch, as well as on the south
side and at the western entrance, there are some rather remarkable
tombs, in one of which was a perfect skeleton, in the others fragmentary
bones. The body in each case has been laid on the bare earth, then built
round with stones accurately following its shape, and covered with large
chamfered slabs of what looks like Portland oolite, somewhat similar in
character to the so-called sarcophagus of Queen Bertha in St. Martin's.
On the eastern side of the porch is a doorway, 2 ft. 8 in.
wide, of Norman workmanship, splayed internally, and leading into the
nave of the church.
The wall trends southward for a distance of 12 feet from
this doorway; then eastward, till at a little over 16 feet from the turn
we come to a slab of Bethersden marble and some fifteenth century work,
forming part of a doorway leading into the southern chapel, chantry, or
aisle (which I will describe hereafter); then on for 24 feet, till we
have reached the end of the nave, where we find a lateral buttress |