Patcham U3A

St Helen’s Church, Hangleton

Compiled by “Sussex History through its Churches” Group Hangleton: Background information

Original settlement

The original village was situated on an ancient trackway from London which crossed the South Downs at Saddlescombe before heading down through Portslade to the river at Shoreham.

Hangleton village was founded on the southern slopes of Round Hill, just where the ancient route turns towards the west. The old road, which is believed to have had an Early Iron Age origin, was still in use as a highway as late as 1635, but it has now ceased to exist north of Hangleton Church, to-day the sole relic of the original village, which lay to the north-east of the church, the site being still marked by mounds and known as Stoney Croft. The summit of Round Hill, which is 445 ft. in height, is covered with the remains of early field systems. The old road descends the hill-side on its way southwestwards from the church to Benfields, thence climbing the opposite hill, in a deeply sunken track, to leave the parish on its way to Portslade. Benfields lay on the end of a spur overlooking the valley between Portslade and Hangleton, and is now marked by a farm. Across the old road lie the manor-house, its farm, and the few cottages which house the population of the old part of Hangleton. Hangleton’s nearest towns were New Shoreham (4.4 miles) and Lewes (10.5 miles) and it was probably to one or both of their markets that the villagers bought their surplus produce for sale. The lords of the manor from 1291 to 1446 were the de Poynings, a Sussex gentry family with lands in Sussex, Kent, Suffolk and Norfolk. The village seems to have remained prosperous for the next 200 years as a new chancel and tower were added to the Church in the early c14. However, two major events then took place which decimated the community. The first of these was a series of crop failures between1315 and 1322 which led to many deaths from hunger and this was followed by the Black Death in1348/49. By 1381 there were only 30-40 inhabitants left and by 1428 there were only 2 households. For the next 500 years it remained a small and scattered farming community with its economy based on sheep and cereal growing

Half a mile south of the Church is Hangleton Manor House, built largely in the 16th century. It was originally surrounded by a number of farm buildings which were removed in 1956 to make room for houses.

The population of Hangleton remained at less than a 100 until 1911. In1870, Sir George Cokayne, Clarenceux King of Arms, paid for the church and roof to be repaired. St. Helen’s Church

St Helen’s is an early medieval church, built around 1093 to serve a small farming community of about 53 households (200-250 people) who lived nearby and owed fealty to the manors of Hangletone or Esmerewic (now Benfield). It was built in the Anglo Saxon style in an isolated spot on the Downs beside an ancient drovers road. There is speculation that there could have been earlier religious structures on the site, dating back to Roman times. The name, St Helen’s, is also unusual for an English church and is usually attributed to St Helena, Mother of Constantine the Great and a patron saint of travellers.

It was originally a simple rectangular building 62ft x 17.5ft built to serve as a centre of worship for a community of 200-250 in 53 households. The patronage of the church belonged to the Priory in Lewes until the dissolution of the monastries when it passed to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. Eventually, it passed to the owners of Hangleton Manor. During the English Civil War the area around Hangleton was Parlimentarian.

In about 1300 the Church was expanded with a new chancel and a bell tower. The fabric of the church deteriorated from then on and the parish was amalgamated with Portslade. Hangleton then survived nearly 5 centuries of near de-population which resulted in some deterioration to the Church fabric and contents. Eventually the village began to recover and in 1949 the vestry and porch on the north side were added as in the picture above. It was granted Grade II listed status on 24th March 1950.

The roof of the nave is made from oak beams resting on wall plates on the outside walls. It dates to the 13th century, though some timbers may be older and some newer ones were used in the 1940s repairs.

The Nave is the oldest surviving structure anywhere in Brighton and Hove. The small windows on either side are two of the four original windows. All four were blocked up in 1300 but two were unblocked again in 1969. The larger windows at the east end of the nave replaced earlier ones in around 1300. The southwest window is modern.

There is a medieval holy water stoup in the wall adjacent to the south door. People entering the Church would dip their fingers in the water which had been blessed by the Priest and make the sign of the cross. The Stoup Piscina and Font

Also in the south wall near the font is a small 13th century piscina with an ogee head. The sacred vessels which had held the consecrated bread and wine were cleaned in the piscina. An ogee arch is a four centred design with two centres outside the arch and two inside.

The brick floor of the nave slopes from east to west following the natural contours of the ground. This must have saved a lot of effort in digging out the chalk.

In the middle of the aisle is a stone slab marking the grave of Ann, daughter of John and Ann Norton of Portslade who died in 1749 aged 21. She was probably the sister or niece of Robert Walton who was Rector from 1755-1757. In the Chancel there is a wall monument commemorating Richard Bellingham, a former Lord of the Manor of Hangleton who lived in Hangleton Manor House at the end of the 16th century, and died there in 1597. It shows Richard and his wife kneeling opposite one another with a prayer desk between them and 5 sons and 4 daughters ranged behind them. Underneath are 5 other children all wrapped in ‘chrysom’ (christening) robes suggesting that they had all died in infancy.

The isolated church yard became a romantic burial place for Victorians, who often had no close links to the church. On the right is the grave to the parents of Dame Flora Robson

Another famous, or perhaps infamous, grave in St. Helen's, belongs to Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy and his wife Elizabeth. Intricately decorated it stands out amongst all the other graves. The Keneallys married in 1851, had eleven children and lived in Portslade from 1852 until 1874.

Edward was a QC and, possibly due to having diabetes, had an "erratic temperament". In 1850 he served one month in prison for punishing his illegitimate son with "undue severity". During the Tichbourne trial, he abused witnesses, treated the judges with disrespect and protracted the trial until it became the longest in English history. His conduct at this trial led to his ruin.

He died in 1880 aged 60. Hangleton through the ages

A medieval village uncovered The village site was excavated between 1952 and 1954 by Eric Holden and John and Gillian Hurst when plans for additional housing, overspill from Hove, threatened to (and subsequently did) remove all traces of the village for good (Holden, 1963; Hurst, 1964). In total the remains of 12 building groups (20 buildings) were excavated, covering a period from the 13th to the 15th century. These were spread out in a linear development away from the village church along two tracks, track 1 which corresponds to what is now Hangleton Way and track 2, which has disappeared.

Track 1 (Hangleton Way)

The remains of two ‘longhouses’ were found, measuring approximately 40ft by 20ft, each divided internally into three rooms. All the other buildings were less than 30ft long, some with two rooms, some with one. The remains of six ovens were found, two within what otherwise appear to be living houses, three in separate outshuts (two in one outshut and one in another) and one within a freestanding kitchen. The pattern of building combined with the dating of pottery sherds suggested that the period of densest occupation was from c.1250 to c.1325 and that the population of Hangleton contracted substantially at some point after that.

As Hove underwent rapid expansion in the c20th, more repairs were carried out as the Church became important again to the area. In 1955, the Parish was separated from Portslade and a new Parish priest was appointed. Today St Helens is in the centre of a large community.

The drovers road is thought to have once been a Roman road from the Adur over the Devil’s Dyke but it is now covered by roads in both directions

Hangleton today: Looking south Looking north Some comments from group members:

“I liked the memorial to the family Bellingham, where children are depicted as male on one side of the parents and female on the other including the deceased infants where one male baby in christening gown is alone on the male side.”

“The outside (of the Church) was very attractive in it’s simplicity and the inside had a really warm feeling”

“The gravestone under the trees of Flora Robson’s parents with gardening tools and a viking boat at the top. The fact that the piscina was so small for washing the Eucharist vessels which probably didn’t clear any germs away and led to the spread of the plague.”

“The Churchyard was the most interesting, particularly the headstone for Dame Flora Robson’s parents designed by Eric Kennington, a war artist in both World Wars, and a sculptor. It depicts where they first met, sunflowers and gardening tools – Arts & Crafts style but done in the 1950s.”

“The brick-paved floor sloping upwards from the west towards the Chancel. The floor follows the ground’s natural contours, the builders avoided the considerable labour of levelling the chalk base.”