nlarged in later
times, are without doubt buildings of Saxon England. Mr Baldwin Brown
in his fine work upon "The Arts in Early England," thus speaks of it:
"The plan, as will be seen at a glance, has been set out with more than
mediaeval indifference to exactness of measurements and squareing, and
the chancel diverges phenomenally from the axis of the nave. The
elevations are gaunt in their plainness, and the now unplastered
rubble-work is rough and uncomely, but the dimensions are ample, the
walls lofty, and the chancel arch undeniably imposing." Of the bases
here he says: "These slabs are commonly attributed to the Romans, but
it is not easy to see what part of a Roman building they can ever have
formed. The truth is that they bear no resemblance to known classical
features, while they are on the other hand, characteristically Saxon.
The nearest parallel to them is to be found in the imposts of the
chancel arch at Worth in Sussex, a place far away from Roman sites. The
Worth imposts, like the bases at Bosham, are huge and ungainly,
testifying both to the general love of bigness in the Saxon builder
and to his comparative ignorance of the normal features which in the
eleventh century were everywhere else crystallising into Romanesque.
Saxon England stood outside the general development of European
architecture, but the fact gives it none the less of interest in our
eyes."

The church of Holy Trinity, Bosham, is thus the most important Saxon
work left to us in Sussex, indeed save for the aisles and arcades and
the Norman and Early English additions to the chancel, that glorious
eastern window of five lancets, which in itself is worth a journey to
see, the clerestory, and the furniture we have here really a complete
Saxon work. The font is later Norman and not very interesting; but the
exquisite recessed tomb with the effigy of a girl lying upon it is a
noble work of the thirteenth century, said to mark the grave of
Canute's daughter. The crypt dates also from that time. Near the south
door is another fine canopied tomb, said to be that of Herbert of
Bosham. The windows are Norman in the clerestory and Early English and
Decorated elsewhere throughout the church. The stalls in the chancel
are Perpendicular. But here if anywhere in south-eastern England we
have a church dating from the Dark Age, in which happily we were
persuaded back again within the influence of the Faith and of Rome.
Bosham then for every Englishman i