Publications
The Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Battle, by F. Vere Hodge, published 1953 (Battle: Barrett)
Review by L. F. Salzman in Sussex Note and Queries, November 1953:A good deal has been written about this important church, but this is the first satisfactory guide to it. The ecclesiastical, as well as the architectural history is fully treated, and the booklet, of 72 pages, is lavishly illustrated and provided with an index. There are a number of points about the dating of parts of the fabric on which different views have been held by various authorities; the author is careful to indicate these when giving his own opinion. He may be said to have established his case for the Chapel, or certainly the Aisle, of St. Catherine being on the north side of the church and not on the south, although the canopy of an image-niche in the south Chapel contains the wheel of that Saint. The suggestion (p. 20) that at the restoration of 1868 "the niches were moved to the south Chapel for safe keeping" is negatived by the statement in Hussey's Churches of Sussex (1852) that there were then in the south Chapel "three niches with groined canopies, mutilated." Whatever the purpose of the mysterious window high up in the north aisle wall, it could hardly have been "for lighting the rood screen" (p. 33). The also mysterious objects shown by Hayley on John Low's shield are more likely to have been wolves' heads than chess rooks (p. 34). In two instances the late Rev. W. Hudson has misled the author: on p. 66 "Qualls debeat esse decanus" means "what manner of man the dean ought to be"; and on p. 65 the marginal note in the Taxation of 1291 must mean "appropriated to the house, or convent, (not 'to the Deanery,' as given by Mr. Hudson) of Battle." Another little point to be corrected in those future editions which the book well deserves is on p. 16 :- surely "gas heaters" in a church in 1845 is an anachronism? The "Brass Gas Pillars" of the footnote would have been standard lights.
Linch Parish Church and Iping Marsh, Sussex, by F. Vere Hodge, published 1958 (pamphlet, Iping Marsh Parish Church) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 14149] & West Sussex Libraries