Bibliography - Audrey May Baker (c.1900 - 1979)
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Lewes Priory and the Early Group of Wall Paintings in Sussex, by Audrey M. Baker, published 1942 in Walpole Society (vol. 31, article, pp.1-44) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 7528]

This it not a review of Miss Baker's careful and fully illustrated study of the paintings in the parish churches of Clayton, Hardham, Plumpton and Westmeston, for she purports to follow it by one devoted to Hardham, and the time for a review will be then. The chief problems presenting themselves were (1) the supposed Cluniac origin of the paintings, for Lewes Priory had interests in all but Westmeston; and (2) whether English art was much modified by the Conquest. By study of contemporary art in wall paintings and illuminated MSS. in England and on the Continent, Miss Baker rejects the first, often-propounded, theory, and suggests that the influence of William de Warenne has been underrated. Similarly she fails to find any evidence of sudden change in English art due to the Normans.

The Wall Paintings in the Church of St John the Baptist, Clayton, by Audrey M. Baker, published 1970 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 108, article, pp.58-81) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 2193] & The Keep [LIB/500321] & S.A.S. library

The Early Wall Paintings in Coombes Church, Sussex, and their Iconography, by Audrey M. Baker and Clive Rouse, published 1979 in The Archaeological Journal (vol. 136, article, pp.218-228)   View Online

Adam and Eve and the Lord God: The Adam and Eve Cycle of Wall Paintings in the Church of Hardham, Sussex, by Audrey M. Baker, published 1998 in The Archaeological Journal (vol. 155, article, pp.207-225)   View Online

The church at Hardham is a small simple building constructed of sandstone and ironstone rubble interspersed with Roman tiles; originally it was whitewashed. It was built without a tower, but a bell turret was added in Victorian times. There are no features which prove that it was built before the Conquest, but three of the deeply-splayed windows are primitive; one of them has a rebate on the outside for a shutter. Other windows were cut later, the earliest being a double lancet behind the altar which dates from the thirteenth century. The church consists of a nave, 9.6 m x 5.8 m (31 ft 6 in x 19 ft), and chancel, 5.2 m x 4.7 m (17 ft x 15 ft 6 in). The insertion of the lancet window has destroyed the centrepiece of the decorative scheme of paintings which extended over both parts of the church and formed an integrated whole (Johnston 1901a, 74; 1901b, 62; Milner Gulland 1985, 27, 43; Baker 1986, 49-49). In both nave and chancel the theme of the decoration is the contrast between good and evil. Thus, in the nave the Sacrificial Lamb with angels waving censers is placed over the chancel arch and is confronted by a representation of the damned in hell which faces it on the west wall. In the chancel, Christ seated in Majesty, adored by Cherubim and the Elders of the Apocalypse, was painted on the east wall and faced a representation of the Fall of Man and the history of Adam and Eve on the east face of the chancel arch. This scheme interprets the words of St Paul, As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive' (I Corinthians xv, v 22). The central part of this composition was destroyed by the insertion of the thirteenth-century window. The theological idea that sin was brought into the world by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and could only be expunged by the Life and Passion of Christ, is often illustrated in the Middle Ages. This, for instance, is the theme of the illustrations in the St Albans Psalter, which was produced during the first half of the twelfth century (Dodwell et al. 1960, 49; see especially Pacht 1962, 49-53).