Chiddingly Church Guide

/870 Chiddingty Churc,hGuide I I S I JEFFERAY I I MONUMENT ~ I I I ~+ SOUTH AISLE N 0 0 ~ 1 f- a.. I ~ I L.U (j) NAVE : WEST PORCH CHANCEL Z I a:« 0 f- 0 0 J' TOWER;; (3FONT NORTH AISLE I SACRISTY - / ',-- CHURCH PLAN 7) NORTH i<T- PORCH CHIDDINGLY PARISH CHURCH Chiddingly Church, a listed building, is a landmark. Its spire is visible from every point of' the compass, and indeed were it not for the Church, it would be difficult to say exactly where Chiddingly is. For this is a 'dispersed' village, having its origin in a number of scattered settlements, all linked to the Parish Church by an intricate system of footpaths and bridleways, over thfrty miles in all. But wherever you live in the Parish, be it at Golden Cross or Whitesmith, Hale Green or Muddles Green, you can still see the Church spire pointing to heaven. Chiddingly has a Saxon name. It is spelled in the Domesday Book 'Cetelingei', which represents the effort of a Norman clerk to come to terms with a broad South Saxon accent and most probably means, 'the place of Cedd's people'. It is worthwhile standing in the churchyard and trying to imagine the landscape as it was a thousand years ago. Woods everywhere, because this was the Southern edge of Andredsweald, the grea.t Wealden Forest. ma.rshy ground to the South where now Willett's s,tream divides Chiddingly from Muddles Green. Beyond is t'he rline olf t.he Downs and the ghostly outline of the LongMan of IW,ilmt,p.gton Down. Those who hold to the theory of 'le~ lines', those mysterious lines of force connecting ancient s~cred sites, have postulated such a line running North from the Long Man through the churchyard. Be that as it may, altho1:;tga tb:,ere is no trace of a Saxon church, there is evidence from~re- Conquest charters that Chiddinglywas served by a priest. The first church of which trl;lces remain was builtin the late 11th or early 12th centuries. When the chancel was rebuil t in 1864., Norman masonry was found in the founda~ions, these included corbels, zig-zag moulding, and traces of what may have beem a sedilia. The details were recorded by the Vicar, the Reverend J. H. Vidal, in 'Su~sex -1- Notes and Queries' for September 1~94. The church, with the exception of the North porch, is built of sandstone of local origin, and there is a tradition that the stone came from a pit at Hilder's Court, about a mile North of the church. Starting at the East end: the present chancel was completely rebuilt in 1864. The only trace of medieval work is the trefoil-headed piscina in the South wall. An 'Easter sepulchrel is mentioned in wills of the 15th Century, but nothing of this came to light at the time of rebuilding~ The print of the exterior, see below, by Albion Russell, dated 1841, shows that the East window was then five plain lights. The twg plaques flanking the window are memorials to the Lashmar f~mily and are there today. There were only two lancet windows in the North wall of the chancel and presumably their counterparts on the West face, which look early E~g~ish in syle. -2- Note in the illustration, the position of the ancient Vicarage House. This was prior to the Georgian Vicarage, built by the Reverend J. H. Vidal in 1846 and erected on a new site hard by. It is now in private ownership ('Old Vicarage'). Sometime after 1846 the old house was demol ished. James Noakes, Churchwarden, lived near the Church in, the house now called' Pilgrims'. It was enlarged by him in 1855 from the nucleus of a 15th Century cottage. To the right of the exterior of the South-West lancet window is a 'mass' clock, a sundial devise which marked service times from the pre-Reformation period. From the chancel we go down two steps through the 13th Century chancel arch to the nave. The marks of plugged 'mortises on the inside of the arch suggest that in the Middle Ages there was a rood screen dividing chancel from nave. This latter is a perfect square, 38ft in each direction. The aisles are Early-English, perhap~ between 1250 and 1300, as &re the lancet windoW$ of Ofle light in the west wall. In the Ta,te t3t'1a' er ,ear!l!y,l~4th Centuries t he arc ades of three baiys d,~v,i,dti'Flfg'itlne .fl'a\\fie;f1r0'ml,t'!;'I:eai s les were built, the slight di ff'ereFlce i$fl's1~'ylJ;eib~i't-\weeflthe Nort hand Sout h arcades suggest ing th'a't"t;,t;i'eW(!)1rKIwas dtwe in two stages. The windows in the North and South aisles a~~ ~arly perpendicular (15th Cent ury) which probably replaced earlier and smaller windows. The whole structure is coveredby a single pitched roof of king-post construction, containing some fine old timber. The roof is now covered in hand-made clay tHes, which replaced the stone slates, but a report of the architecture of the church by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1937 suggested that the original covering may have been thatch. -3- At the West end of the nave is the magnificently proportioned arch of the tower. The tower and spire are presumed to be an addition of the early 15th Century. The evidence for this is historical rather than architectural. This is one of a group of church towers in this part of East Sussex, known as 'Pelham' towers from one common decorat~ve feature, the 'Pelham Buckle' carved on the external label stops of. the tower doorway. The' Buckle' (of a sword-belt) appears as a badge of the Pelham family from about 1408 onwards and the story that the 'Buckle' was a battle honour granted to a Pelham after the Battle of Poiti~rs, '1356, seems to be 17th Century invention, and is highly suspect. The Buckle can be seen on the tower doorways of the Parish churches of East Hoathly, Laughton, and Ripe, among other places, together with two shields on the spandrels of\I the doorway, in every case defaced, which may have borne 1!he arms of Pelham. The connection of the Pelham family with this neighbourhood seems to begin in 1401, eight years after Sir John Pelham was appointed Constable of Pevensey Castle, when he leased the Manor of Laughton from the De Vere family. The hamlet of Whitesmith was part of the Manor of Laughton, and all the estate properties were graced with the 'Buckle' badge, an example of which can be seen at Coldharbour Farmhouse. The Pelham connection only ended about forty years ago when the burden of death duties forced the Earl of Chichester to sell the Laughton estate, and end a tie that had lasted for five hundred years. By contrast, the Sackville family, which acquired the Manor of Chiddingly by marriage in the 14th Century and held it for generations, have left no visible signs of their presence in the Parish church, although a tenuous link was maintained by their patronage of the living, until it passed to the Bishop of Chichester in 1988. In 1983 the Parish churches of Chiddingly and East Hoath1y became the United Benefice of Chiddingly and East HoathlY, -4- THE TOWERis sixty feet high, and the walls are 4. ft 6" thick to take the immense weight of the spire which rises to a total height of 130 ft. A print of Richard Lower's of 1823 and a drawing by James Lambert dated 1768 show the apex of the spire to be more elongated than it is at present. Unless this is artist's licence, one would infer that either a few feet have been lost from the top of the spire, or that there was formerly a long wooden cap on which the weather vane was mounted. It is shaped as a pennant pierced by two sets of initials, H. M. and W.L., the lat ter probably of William Lashmar, Overseer in 1774- and Churchwarden 1803. He lived in the Vicarage House. The date 1897 appears on the vane which suggests that when the steeple was struck by lightning, this catastrophe was recorded during restorat ion. This is one of the three remaining ancient stone spires of East Sussex, the others being at Dallington and Northiam, both in the Weald. The .typical Sussex spire is of shingles on a wooden frame, as may be seen at Alfriston, although there are numerous stone spires adorning Victorian churches in the coastal resorts. The spire is octagonal in shape, and flanked at the junction of the tower by ~our polygonal ~innacles. During the years the tower has d'ecayedl it,A',praces, aAd @ne can see how repairs have been made in ibd.cJ~wo.rR. :fin 189.7 the tower was struck by lightning. This hap~eRea ~n .a~y~~gpt to the consternation of the children in th.e o!fd. \3'h}1:1lr~c;4AIS'dAf@o:tby the church. There was a deafening cra1i3h, aTnd't1ac&¥,rushed out to find t he churchyard li t t ered wit h fragmer:\.t'sof stone from the stricken tower. When the repairs were compPeted a large admiralty anchor chain was slung round the base of the spire to check any outward movement, and various iron cramps inserted in the masonry.

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