[Illustration:  SHOREHAM AND THE ADUR.]

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.

[Illustration:  SKETCH PLAN OF OLD & NEW SHOREHAM.]

At Old Shoreham, a mile up stream, is another bridge which, with the church, is the most painted, sketched and photographed of all Sussex scenes; few years pass without it being represented on the walls of the Academy.  This bridge is a very ancient wooden structure which has been patched and mended from time to time into a condition of extreme picturesqueness.  The bridge leads to the “Sussex Pad,” a noted smuggling hostelry in a situation ideal for the purpose, and then on to Lancing and Sompting.