St Mary's Church

I know churches called St Mary's are ten a penny in this country but this rather pretty one is local to me. I have a couple of house sparkling clients in this particular village and a jolly good chum [who's the link with the people I clean with there] with whom we had lunch on Saturday. We have many shared interests and one of these is an enjoyment of poking about in churches.  Since discovering this common ground she and I have notched up a few over the last couple of years.

This St Mary's is the parish church in Pulborough, West Sussex. It's a pretty church and high CofE so is vibrant and full of colour. Unusually it has white washed walls which further increases the brightness. It's not a significant church historically but the warden on duty made it come alive as he kindly pointed out one or two features that I would have probably missed otherwise.

If you look at the photo above of the chancel and the nave you will notice that they are out of kilter as you can only see the right hand wall. This is known as a weeping chancel and it is thought that the angle was created deliberately to reflect Christ's head drooping to the right when he was on the cross. Maybe a fanciful idea but I have a suspicion that the church builders probably knew what they were doing by the 13th century.

This lovely window is fourteenth century and the stained glass window was made by William Glasby. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the work of a certain William Morris.

The oldest item in the church is the Norman font. I kindly gave Mr GBT permission not to photograph it [I'm generous like that!] as it had suffered over time. At one point it had been slung out and the Reformation vandals had done their work well by destroying all the carved panels that it once would have had. The one fascinating detail was the holes that remained in the top where once a wooden lid would have been attached. This was to prevent people from stealing the holy water and using it in their homes as protection against witchcraft. It was also used to sprinkle on the fields to ensure a good crop.

The final picture is a tiny strawberry plant which was the signature of J Sebastian Cooper who oversaw the restoration of the Onley Chapel in the 1950s. His ashes are buried within the church.

Hope you have enjoyed the latest quick flit around a Sussex church.

Arilx