St Wulfran's Church, dedicated to the 7th-century French archbishop Wulfram of Sens, is an Anglican church in

Ovingdean Ovingdean is a small, formerly agricultural, village in the east of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. Overview It was absorbed into the administrative borough of Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1928, and now forms part of the city of ...

, a rural village now within the English city of

Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages. Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...

. Parts of the structure date from the early 12th century, and the church is listed at Grade I, a designation used for buildings "of outstanding architectural or historic interest".

History

A church existed in Ovingdean at the time of 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 ...

, which recorded it as an ecclesiola ("little church"). This was rebuilt in the early 12th century, and most sources agree that no trace of the Saxon-era building remains. The 12th-century

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

and

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

form the basis of the present structure. A tower was added at the west end in the 13th century, as was an

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...

on the south side (reached by twin archways cut through from the nave). This aisle no longer exists, and its fate is uncertain; however, ancient scorch marks and discoloured brickwork in the south wall of the nave suggest fire damage by the same French raiders who destroyed neighbouring

Rottingdean Rottingdean is a village in the city of Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of England. It borders the villages of Saltdean, Ovingdean and Woodingdean, and has a historic centre, often the subject of picture postcards. Name The name Rotting ...

's St Margaret's in 1377. (A stone tablet in the church also makes this claim.) There were no significant alterations for several centuries after the tower was added, apart from a porch on the south side in the early 19th century, but like many ancient churches in the Brighton area St Wulfran's was subjected to a major restoration in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

. This took place from 1865 to 1867, and involved the rebuilding of the chancel arches to form one large central arch flanked by two smaller ones, replacement of all the

pew A pew () is a long bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the thirt ...

s, and new panelling and roof timbers in the chancel. These were designed and painted by

Charles Eamer Kempe Charles Eamer Kempe (29 June 1837 – 29 April 1907) was a British Victorian era designer and manufacturer of stained glass. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and also designs for altars and altar frontals, furniture and furnishings, lich ...

, who had been born in the village and who later became a noted stained glass designer. Before his death in 1907, he provided seven windows for the church; he also designed a rood screen for the chancel, which was carved in the German village of

Oberammergau Oberammergau is a municipality in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria, Germany. The small town on the Ammer River is known for its woodcarvers and woodcarvings, for its NATO School, and around the world for its 380-year tradition of ...

. (The village, famous for its woodcarving tradition, also supplied an intricately carved reredos to St Martin's Church in Brighton's Round Hill district.) There are other painted and stencilled panels from the 19th century throughout the church, representing various Biblical scenes. The reredos was also designed in the late 19th century, and depicts various figures including St Richard of Chichester. The painting over altar depicts St Wilfred and St Richard and was painted 1957-1963 by Maude Emily Bishop (1890-1975). A chapel was built on the south side in 1907. One had been planned since the 12th-century rebuild, when an archway intended to lead to it was provided in the wall of the chancel. A vestry was added in an architecturally complementary style in the mid-1980s. The churchyard surrounds the church on three sides, and is home to an ancient yew tree which may be up to 1,000 years old.

William Willett William Willett (10 August 1856 – 4 March 1915) was a British builder and a promoter of British Summer Time. Biography Willett was born in Farnham, Surrey, and educated at the Philological School. After some commercial experience, he ente ...

, a campaigner for

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

, and Brighton-born inventor

Magnus Volk Magnus Volk FII (1851–1937) was a British inventor and pioneering electrical engineer. He is most notable for having built Volk's Electric Railway, the world's oldest operating electric railway. Career Aside from the Volk's Electric Railwa ...

—a pioneering electrical engineer who built an early electric car and the Volk's Railway, the world's oldest surviving electric railway—are buried in the churchyard. Members of the Kemp(e) family,Charles was born with the surname ''Kemp'', but added the ''e'' later. including Charles Eamer Kempe himself, are also buried there. Nathaniel Kemp, who built the 18th-century Ovingdean Hall, the main building in the village, and his wife Martha share a tomb on the south side of the church; the tombstone was designed by Charles, who was later buried in the same tomb. The grave of Helena Normanton, the first woman to practise as a barrister in the United Kingdom, can also be found. Resident in Brighton since the age of four, she campaigned for various rights for women, such as advocating the use of

maiden name When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also use ...

s professionally and recommending that women save any spare housekeeping money for their own use. She was also the first benefactor of the nearby

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

. The Jex-Blake family, who lived in Brighton for a time, have a large, ornate tomb in the churchyard, although their most notable member is not buried there.

Sophia Jex-Blake Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake (21 January 1840 – 7 January 1912) was an English physician, teacher and feminist. She led the campaign to secure women access to a University education when she and six other women, collectively known as the Edi ...

is commemorated on the memorial stone, however. She overcame opposition to train as one of the first female doctors in the United Kingdom, helped to found the

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...

and Edinburgh Schools of Medicine for Women, and started a women's and children's hospital in Edinburgh. The dedication to Wulfram of Sens (in any spelling) is very rare. Only one other extant church in England bears it: the parish church of

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

. A connection between the two may lie with

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 ...

nobleman Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteris ...

William de Warenne, one of England's main landowners in the 11th century, who owned land in both Ovingdean and Grantham. Another Lincolnshire church with the same dedication, at Dorrington, is no longer in use.

Architecture

St Wulfran's Church is built entirely of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

, other than narrow stone

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

at the corners of walls. Although churches incorporating some flint are common in Sussex, St Wulfran's is the only all-flint church in the historic county. The roof was originally slate, but tiles have replaced most of the slate slabs. The two-stage tower is topped with a shallow pyramid-shaped

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

of a design known as the "Sussex Cap", and has a circular corbel of similar height in its southeastern corner. There are lancet windows of various sizes on all sides of the church and in the tower. Kempe's stained glass can be found in one of the tower windows, the south chapel, the north wall (three windows) and the south wall (two). Internally, there are several arches, some with pointed tops and chamfering; in particular, there are three arched entrances to the chapel on the south side, and a blocked entrance to the former south aisle. The churchyard is entered on the east side through a steep-roofed

lychgate A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, lyke-gate or as two separate words lych gate, (from Old English ''lic'', corpse), also ''wych gate'', is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style ch ...

with recessed seating. "Holiness unto the Lord" is carved on one of the wooden beams.

The church today

St Wulfran's received its Grade I listing on 13 October 1952. The parish covers a rural area; Ovingdean village is the only significant area of housing. It reaches the southern boundary of

Woodingdean Woodingdean is an eastern suburb of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, separated from the main part of the city by downland and the Brighton Racecourse. The name Woodingdean came from Woodendean (i.e. wooded valley) Farm which was situ ...

, the eastern boundary of the

Whitehawk Whitehawk is a suburb in the east of Brighton, England, south of Bevendean and north of Brighton Marina. The area is a large, modern housing estate built in a downland dry valley historically known as Whitehawk Bottom. The estate was original ...

estate and the northern edge of

, and incorporates East Brighton Golf Club and surrounding areas of

downland Downland, chalkland, chalk downs or just downs are areas of open chalk hills, such as the North Downs. This term is used to describe the characteristic landscape in southern England where chalk is exposed at the surface. The name "downs" is deriv ...

. There are two

Eucharist The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...

ic services on Sunday mornings and another every Wednesday, and Morning Prayer each Thursday. Other prayer groups and study groups meet at the church monthly.

Notes

References

Bibliography