Hardham is a small village in the

Horsham District Horsham is a local government district in West Sussex, England. Its council is based in Horsham. The district borders those of Crawley, Mid Sussex, Mole Valley, Chichester, Arun and Adur, and the unitary authority of Brighton & Hove. The ...

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 on the

A29 road A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

southwest of

Pulborough Pulborough is a large village and civil parish in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England, with some 5,000 inhabitants. It is located almost centrally within West Sussex and is south west of London. It is at the junction of the north–sout ...

. It is in the

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 authorit ...

of Coldwaltham.

Archaeology

The village is on the line of Stane Street Roman road, which changes direction here, leaving the modern A29 road which has followed it from Capel, to head southwest to Bignor and

Chichester Chichester () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publi ...

. The

Sussex Greensand Way The Sussex Greensand Way is a Roman road that runs east-west linking the London to Lewes Way at Barcombe Mills to Stane Street at Hardham. The road, which has almost entirely fallen out of use, follows the free draining ridge of greensand which ...

from Lewes joined Stane Street here and remains of a Roman way station or '' mansio'' have been found.

Parish church

The Church of England parish church of St Botolph has some of the oldest surviving wall paintings in the country, including an image of

Saint George Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldie ...

at the

Siege of Antioch The siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098, on the crusaders' way to Jerusalem through Syria (region), Syria. Two sieges took place in succession. The first siege, by the crusaders against the city held by the Sel ...

in AD 1097. The paintings date from the early 12th century. They survived due to being covered by plaster until uncovered in 1866. The painters used colours made from locally available materials — red and yellow ochre, lime white, carbon black, and a green from copper carbonate. The paintings are in two tiers on each wall and originally had inscriptions describing the scenes above them. One of these can still be seen on the east wall of the nave. The themes of the paintings are

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

, the life of

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, the Last Judgment and Apocalypse, and the Labours of the Months.

Economic and social history

On higher ground on the south side of the village are the remains of

Hardham Priory Hardham Priory was an Augustinian priory in Hardham, West Sussex, England. It was founded around 1248 by Sir William Dawtrey as a priory of Black Canons of St Augustine which was at first called Heringham Priory. It was enlarged by Sir William ...

, the Priory of St Cross, which was an

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

monastery established in the middle of the 13th century. In the late 18th century a canal tunnel was built on the Arun Navigation to avoid a large 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 ...

. The railway line from to passed over the tunnel, and when the canal closed the railway company broke into the tunnel and filled that part of it under the rails with

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

. On 18 October 2019 the tunnel was Grade II listed.

References

External links

Horsham District Villages in West Sussex {{WestSussex-geo-stub