I say it was doubtful whether this nave was ever built.  It has been asserted, it is true, that it was burnt by the French either in 1380 or in 1449, but it seems more probable that it was never completed owing to the devastation of the Black Death of 1348-9, though certain discoveries made of late would seem to endorse the older theory.  Certain it is that until the end of the eighteenth century, there stood to the south-west of the church a great bell tower, a detached campanile, now dismantled, whose stones are said to have been used to build Rye Harbour.

The church, as we have it, is one of the loveliest Decorated buildings in the county; the Perpendicular porch, however, by which we enter does not belong to the church but possibly came here from one of the destroyed churches of Winchelsea, St Giles’s or St Leonard’s.  Within we find ourselves in a great choir or chancel, with a chapel on either hand, that on the right dedicated in honour of St Nicholas and known as the Alard Chantry, that on the left the Lady Chapel known as the Farncombe Chantry.  The arcades which divide these chapels from the choir are extraordinarily beautiful, as are the restored sedilia and piscina with their gables and pinnacles and lovely diaper work.  The windows, too, are very noble and fine, and rich in their tracery, which might seem to be scarcely English.

[Illustration:  WINCHELSEA CHURCH]

In the Chapel of St Nicholas, the Alard Chantry, on the south, are the glorious canopied tombs of Gervase Alard (1300) and Stephen Alard.  The first is the finer; it is the tomb of the first Lord High Admiral of England.  The sepulchral effigy lies cross-legged with a heart in its hands and a lion at its feet; and about its head two angels once knelt.  The whole was doubtless once glorious with colour, traces of which still remain on the beautiful diaper work of the recess.  The tomb of Stephen Alard is later, but similar though less rich.  Stephen was Admiral of the Cinque Ports in the time of Edward II.  Another of the family, Reginald, lies beneath the floor where of old a brass marked his tomb (1354).

In the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, the Farncombe Chantry, are three tombs all canopied with a Knight in chain armour, a Lady, and a young Squire.  We are ignorant whose they may be.  It is certain that these tombs are older than the church, and they are said to have been brought here from old Winchelsea.

But Winchelsea has other ruins and other memories besides those to be found in the parish church.

The Franciscans, the Grey Friars, were established in Winchelsea very early, certainly before 1253; and when old Winchelsea was destroyed and the new town built on the hill by the King it was agreed that no monastery or friary should be built there save only a house for the Friars Minor.  This was erected where now the modern mansion called ‘The Friars’ stands, the old convent having been pulled down so lately as 1819.  A part of the ruined Chapel of the Blessed Virgin remains, however, the choir and apse.  Decorated work not much later than the parish church, and of great beauty.  Unhappily we know absolutely nothing of the Friars in Winchelsea, except that when the house was suppressed in 1538 it was exceedingly poor.