STORIES From SUSSEX
The School Chapel Like a Cathedral
Lancing. It lies near Shoreham, a mile or two from the sea, and has an
old church and a new chapel and a place in Swinburne's poetry, where it
happened to suit his rhyming when he wanted to say " Winds
are glancing from sunbright Lancing." The old church, built chiefly in the 13th and 15th centuries, has still
two Norman doorways and a Norman font. In the chancel is an Easter Sepulchre
with a massive canopy.
But it is the new and not the old that draws us
here, the new cathedral-like chapel of Lancing College. The college is known
far and wide as one of the group founded by Canon Woodard in the middle
of the 19th century. Starting life as a curate, throwing open his vicarage
as a school, he laid the foundations of colleges at Hurstpierpoint, Ardingly,
and Lancing, and on this hill at Lancing he saw the beginning of this remarkable
chapel, dominating the landscape a little too much, perhaps, a little out
of keeping with the rest of its group, but in spite of it all one of the
most remarkable buildings set up in Sussex in our time.
It is a light and lofty place, with tall transparent
windows that look white inside and green as grass to those who pass by.
It is 90 feet from the floor to the vaulted roof of chalk and stone, and
there are nine bays. It is dignified and noble, with fine paintings on the
walls, a splendid eagle lectern, a chantry with a bronze figure of the founder,
and a broad sweep of steps to the altar.
One of the chief artistic possessions of Lancing
Chapel is a set of tapestries from the William Morris workshops at Merton,
designed by Lady Chilston. One shows Christ in Majesty with the archangel
Michael and St Nicholas, a heavenly choir above and in the Foreground a
fountain from which flow the four rivers of Paradise; a second represents
the Madonna with her mother and St John.
But most impressive of all is the richness of the
fine array of woodwork here; some of it is not what we imagine it to be.
It has all been made to match, but these glorious canopies with their pinnacles
crowned with foliage are from Eton Chapel.
When Eton found its frescoes on the walls it let these canopies go, and
the legacy has fallen upon Lancing: they have been here since 1923. The
work is rich indeed. Those who look into it will find little heads peeping
out of it everywhere, odd and ingenious and skilful, and they will feel
once more that it is time alone that makes the best of the old work different
from the best of the new.
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