North Stoke is a village in the Horsham District of

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 ...

, England. It is just over north of Arundel and south of

Amberley railway station Amberley railway station is a railway station in West Sussex, England. It serves the village of Amberley, about half a mile away, and was opened by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. The Amberley Working Museum – a museum of in ...

, and is at the end of a no through road from the station. North Stoke Church

The village is on a spur of slightly higher ground on the east bank of a loop of the

River Arun The River Arun () is a river in the English county of West Sussex. At long, it is the longest river entirely in Sussex and one of the longest starting in Sussex after the River Medway, River Wey and River Mole. From the series of small strea ...

, surrounded by water meadows. It is in the middle of the gap eroded through the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

by the River Arun. Another small settlement on the west bank, South Stoke is about to the south east and can be reached by a footpath and a footbridge over the river. A suspension bridge on the path was rebuilt by British Army Gurkhas in 2009 after being damaged by a falling tree.

Manor

North Stoke is a medieval village, recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086. It has lost most of its population, possibly due to Black Death in the Middle Ages or because the landowner preferred to enclose the land for sheep pasture. This has left a notable example of a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

and

Early English Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ...

church, which is Listed Grade I.

Parish church

The Church of England parish church of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

is now redundant and maintained by the

Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...

. The church's dedication had been long forgotten but in 2007 it was rediscovered from a scrap of a

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...

letter dated 1275 from Stephen Bersted,

Bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East and West Sussex. The see is based in the City of Chichester where the bishop's sea ...

to Edward I. The church was accordingly rededicated to the Virgin Mary in December 2007.

Manor

Parish church

References

Further reading