PO18 9JU
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This gem of a church is situated in the remotest of the Mardens, indeed perhaps in the remotest area of the Sussex Downland. There has probably never been a village in the full sense, just a scattered collection of farms and cottages. The flint church is approached past one of these. The parish has long been amalgamated with East Marden, of which it was initially a chapelry).
It is the only church in Sussex with an apse but no chancel arch, for the few other apsidal ones have separate chancels. The only original window is in the west gable, though the C19 round-headed windows of the apse have old rere-arches. The fine and little restored round-headed south doorway dates the whole to the second quarter of the C12.
After the Reformation, the chancel windows were altered, as a brick sill and sides under the north one shows, and there was more brick patching. It was restored in 1886-87, which cost over £300. Despite considerable renewal, much of the charm of the building was kept. Particularly to be mentioned is the new roof, which is beautifully fitted round the apse. The boarded belfry was also replaced. At some point in the C19 a small vestry was added opening off the north side of the nave. It is built of galletted flint but nothing precise is known of its date.
A comment found online at thehistoryguide.co.uk:
I park outside this church when I go on the walk up to the South Downs via Telegraph House. It is located at the back of a farm and has always been thought to have been approached in this rather haphazard manner, probably because it is a chapel-of-ease to East Marden. The parish is rather large, so it would have been built for those who lived on the outer lying areas. Its construction is very simple, of flint rubble with ashlar dressings and some 18th Century brickwork. Thought to have been founded in the late 12th Century, its unusual semi-circular chancel is simply an extension of the nave.
But it has a spectacular Norman doorway built of Caen stone, very similar to the early remaining Norman work of Chichester Cathedral. TThe Caen stone was shipped into Chichester Harbour and then brought up on to the Downs by packhorse!! The sandstone bowl of the font is thought to be early 12th Century with the stem and base added in the 14th Century. Plus the west window which is also of Norman origin. The church is first mentioned in the records of 1291! Outside it all seems rather sad with just ten gravestones, the oldest of which appears to date to 1776. There is a large memorial to a Douglas Henty of Eastgate Chichester who died in the late 19th Century. He would have been one of the Henty family who established a large brewery just outside the walls to the east of the city.