Lyminster is a village that is the main settlement of Lyminster and Crossbush

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

, in the

Arun District Arun is a local government district in West Sussex, England. It contains the towns of Arundel, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and takes its name from the River Arun, which runs through the centre of the district."Arun" in ''The New Encyclopæ ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

, England. It borders, to the south,

Littlehampton Littlehampton is a town, seaside resort, and pleasure harbour, and the most populous civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the English Channel on the eastern bank of the mouth of the River Arun. It is south sout ...

, which has its town centre away.

Landmarks

Church

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

of St

Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to crucifixion of Jesus, his cru ...

is an 11th-century

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

building and a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, the highest grading in the national system. ;Bells The church has a

ring Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...

of six bells. Lester and Pack of the

Whitechapel Bell Foundry The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. The bell foundry primarily made church bells a ...

cast the treble, second and fourth bells in 1759. John Warner and Sons of

Cripplegate Cripplegate was a gate in the London Wall which once enclosed the City of London. The gate gave its name to the Cripplegate ward of the City which straddles the line of the former wall and gate, a line which continues to divide the ward into tw ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

cast the third and fifth bells in 1887, the year of the

Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which ...

. Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the tenor bell in 1950.

Pub

Lyminster has a large

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, The Six Bells. Crossbush has a large

Beefeater (restaurant) Beefeater is a chain of over 140 pub restaurants in the United Kingdom, owned by Whitbread. The chain's name references both the English figure of the beefeater, as well as its menu's meat (particularly beef) offering. The chain is positione ...

on the corner of Crossbush Lane.

History

According to the

Hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...

of the Secgan Manuscript the village is the burial place of

Saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

Cuthflæd of Lyminster.The

Oxford Dictionary of Saints The ''Oxford Dictionary of Saints'' by David Hugh Farmer is a concise reference compilation of information on more than 1300 saints and contains over 1700 entries. It is published by Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

Folklore

Just to the north of the village is a

knuckerhole Knucker is a dialect word for a sort of water dragon, living in ''knuckerholes'' in Sussex, England. "The word comes from the Old English ''nicor'' which means "water monster" and is used in the poem '' Beowulf''. It may also be related to the ...

which, according to legend, was home to a

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

, the

Knucker Knucker is a dialect word for a sort of water dragon, living in ''knuckerholes'' in Sussex, England. "The word comes from the Old English ''nicor'' which means "water monster" and is used in the poem ''Beowulf''. It may also be related to the wo ...

. The church contains a tombstone called the

Slayer's Slab The Slayer's Slab is a title given to a medieval gravestone formerly in the graveyard of Lyminster church in West Sussex, England. It has now been moved inside the church to protect it from weathering. According to legend it is the gravestone of ...

, supposed to be from the tomb of the

dragonslayer A dragonslayer is a person or being that slays dragons. Dragonslayers and the creatures they hunt have been popular in traditional stories from around the world: they are a type of story classified as type 300 in the Aarne–Thompson classifica ...

References

Sources and further reading

* *

External links

Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture; Lyminster church
Arun District Villages in West Sussex {{WestSussex-geo-stub