"Shoreham, clad with the sunset glad and grave with glory that death reveres."
Shoreham church is second only to the Cathedral at Chichester and Boxgrove Priory in interest. As will be seen by the fragments in the churchyard a nave once made the building cruciform, and its proportions then would not have disgraced a small cathedral. A movement has been on foot for some time to rebuild the nave on the old site and an offertory box for this purpose will be seen within the church.
The prevailing effect of both exterior and interior is of solemn and stately age. The upper part of the tower is Transitional with certain later additions. The base of the tower, the choir transepts, and the fragment still remaining of the nave are Norman and Transitional of very noble and dignified proportions.
The vaulting will be noticed. This is Early English, also the beautiful ornament on the capitals and the interesting mason's marks on the pillars. The marble font is a very good specimen of the square type common in this locality. A brass in the nave of a merchant and his lady should be noticed, also a piscina with trefoil ornament and a modern window in the north transept to the infants who died between 1850 and 1875. There are a number of memorials to the Hooper family hereabouts. In this portion of the building the election of parliamentary candidates once took place.
The church owes nothing of its stateliness to a past connected with priory or monastery, it has always been a parish church and is of additional interest thereby. That it always will hold this rank is another matter; in these days of new sees one cannot tell that the parish church of to-day will not be the cathedral of to-morrow. Certainly Shoreham would wear the title with dignity.
There are many quaint corners left in the town (which since 1910 has been officially styled "Shoreham by Sea "), but the individuality of the place is best seen on the quay where a little shipbuilding is still carried on; in the reign of Edward III it supplied the Crown with a fleet of twenty-six sail. The figure-head sign of the "Royal George" Inn may be noticed; this was salvaged from the ill-fated ship of that name which sunk in Portsmouth Harbour.
The Norfolk Suspension Bridge, still retaining its old-fashioned toll, carries the Worthing road across the river, at high tide a fine estuary, but at low a feeble trickle lost in a waste of mud. The view of the town from the bridge is very charming, especially in the evening light.