West Hythe Church and the Sites of Churches formerly existing at Hythe

252 WES'l' lIYTH'.E o:e:un.tnr: photographs that accompany this brief description. In the plan the walls of the original early-Norman church are distinguished f:r.om later additions or insertions by a difference of shading, and the ground area · within them is slightly tinted. The chancel remained unaltered from the time of its erection till it fell into ruins. It was of the common Norman type: a short rectangular building measuring 15 feet by 12 feet withiri the walls. The existing nave is 43 feet long and 19 feet .ride within the walls ; its entrance was under a porch at the west end. The original nave was shorter by about 12 feet and bad its entrance in the south wall : that entrance is 110w blocked. I think the V1:estward addition to the nave was built early in the fourteenth century, or possibly late in the thirteenth. It was made, probably, in connection with the alteration in the position of the entra11ce : the south door must have been exposed to the weather, admitting a cold draught of air whenever it was opened; and its proximity to the road and the slope of the ground rendered protection by the· erection of a porch inadvisable. The alternative adopted was a west door a11d porch. One cannot imagine that the enlargement of the nave was necessary £or the accommodation of the worshippers, but it implies prosperity in the little hamlet. The porch has been destroyed, but the lines of its walls remain in the gTound, and their junction with the west wall, rising to about 4 feet above the present ground level, is visible on its face. The south jamb of the doorway and the head of the arch have been destroyed., but a portion of the north jamb remains 2½ feet within the vertical line of the inner £ace of the side-wall of the porch. The head of the door-arch was evidently 0£ a dep1·essed pointed fo1·m., as indicated by the 1·ere-arch which remains, and suggesting an early fourteenth-century date. The haunches of the rei·earch ., formed of rough voussoirs of rag-stone, run down through the walling on either side to the level 0£ the top of the side walls of the porch. These features may be studied in Mr. Youens' photographs. Above the porch there was a tall single-light window, of which the northern jamb and