THE CHANCEL The chancel arch is decorated with crowns and fleurons, and on each side small arches lead to the aisles. If they are original they must have been designed for processions. The slate platform and rails for a nave altar are a fairly recent and handsome addition to the furnishings of the church. This brings us to the chancel itself, which for centuries has failed to match the splendid nave. Traditionally it was the responsibility of the proprietor of Christchurch, whose builder, Edmund Withipoll, let the east window fall down in 1554. In 1602 the Archdeacon reported that the chancel was again in ruins and had been for three years.  This neglect seems all the more surprising when we learn that Withipoll set up his own high table tomb in the centre of the chancel in 1574 in readiness for his death, which occurred in 1582. Bishop Wren in 1635, objecting to the way this massive obstacle prevented people from seeing the minister at the Communion Table, ordered the tomb to be lowered, but found his intervention listed among the articles of his own impeachment. The necessary faculty to move the tomb altogether was obtained in 1754; a stone in the floor marks the central site

and the fine marble slab stands against the west wall of the north transept. Notice the EDMUND monogram and the bold assertion in Latin: `Mortui sine hoste' which means "They died without an enemy". Perhaps Withipoll and his posterity had more than one!