The Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, also known as St Mary the Virgin Church and St Mary's Church, is 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 ...

of Sompting in the Adur

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

. It stands on a rural lane north of the urban area that now surrounds the village, and retains much 11th- and 12th-century structure. Its most important architectural feature is the

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

tower topped by a Rhenish helm, a four-sided pyramid-style gabled cap that is uncommon in England.

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

lists the church at Grade I for its architecture and history.

History

Settlement of the area now covered by Sompting began in the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

and continued through the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and into the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. By the 11th century, two distinct villages had formed: Sompting, based on the main east–west trackway from the cathedral city of

Chichester Chichester ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in the Chichester District, Chichester district of West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher ...

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

, and Cokeham to the south (later subdivided into Upper Cokeham and Lower Cokeham). 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

in 1086 they were separate manors, but were both held on behalf of

William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber William de Braose (or William de Briouze), First Lord of Bramber (died 1093/1096) was previously lord of Briouze, Normandy. He was granted lands in England by William the Conqueror soon after he and his followers had invaded and controlled Saxon E ...

. There was a church on the site of the present building by the early 11th century, and some structural elements remain from that era. William de Braose held the

advowson Advowson () or patronage is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present to the diocesan bishop (or in some cases the ordinary if not the same person) a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a ...

at the time of the Domesday survey, but in 1154 his grandson William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber passed it to the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

, who made many structural changes. They widened the church by rebuilding the

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 ...

and

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

to the same width as the Saxon-era tower. In about 1180, they erected a large chapel—effectively a separate church in its own right until the 19th century, when an arch linked it to the nave and made it a ''de facto'' south

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

. At the same time, they added a north transept with an aisle and two chapels. They also paid for a vicar and his accommodation. After the Knights Templar were emasculated in 1307,

Pope Clement V Pope Clement V (; – 20 April 1314), born Raymond Bertrand de Got (also occasionally spelled ''de Guoth'' and ''de Goth''), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 5 June 1305 to his death, in April 1314. He is reme ...

conveyed ownership of the church to the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

, another

religious order A religious order is a subgroup within a larger confessional community with a distinctive high-religiosity lifestyle and clear membership. Religious orders often trace their lineage from revered teachers, venerate their Organizational founder, ...

, in 1324. They extended the nave on the northwest side—forming a chapel which had openings into the nave and the tower— built a porch on the south side and carried out work on the nave walls. Although the advowson later passed out of the Knights' control, it was restored to the order in 1963 by Major G. H. Tristram. They had been dissolved in 1538 but were re-established in 1831 as the

Venerable Order of Saint John The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (), commonly known as the Order of St John, and also known as St John International, is an order of chivalry constituted in 1888 by royal charter from Queen Victoria and dedica ...

and later founded the

St. John Ambulance St John Ambulance is an affiliated movement of charitable organisations in mostly Commonwealth countries which provide first aid education and consumables and emergency medical services. St John organisations are primarily staffed by volunte ...

organisation. The church fell into decay during the 18th century, when the

living Living or The Living may refer to: Common meanings *Life, a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms ** Living species, one that is not extinct *Personal life, the course of an individual human's life * ...

was poor and the villages of Sompting and Cokeham still supported only a small population. Repairs in the 1720s and 1760s were not enough, and two bells had to be sold to pay for proper repairs in 1791. Richard Cromwell Carpenter undertook more restoration in 1853: this included re-roofing the church and replacing the shinglework on the spire, rebuilding the Knights Templars' chapel into a south transept, improving the aisle in the north transept and cleaning the stonework. The tower is the most important feature of the church and is known nationally and internationally as an exemplar of Saxon architecture—although recent analysis suggests that its upper stage may have been renewed in early Norman times to an identical design. The spire—a design known as the Rhenish helm because of its prevalence in the

Rhineland The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...

area of

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

—is unique in England. The design comprises a cap of four shingled gables rising steeply in a pyramid formation.

Architecture

The church is a

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. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

building with dressings of

Caen stone Caen stone () is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in north-western France near the city of Caen. The limestone is a fine grained oolitic limestone formed in shallow water lagoons in the Bathonian Age about 167 million years ...

and a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof. The tower, at the west end, incorporates some reused Roman-era brickwork, and was built in two parts; it assumed its current appearance by the end of the 11th century. The "elegant" structure has stone

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s at each corner, but lacks

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es. The tower arch dates from the Saxon period and is offset; an altar would originally have stood next to it. The base of the tower may have served as the original entrance porch. The nave and chancel form a single entity: they are not demarcated by a chancel arch. They were widened in the 12th century (without the addition of aisles) to the same width as the tower. Masonry from the walls of the original nave is believed to have been incorporated in the rebuilt walls. The north transept has an aisle of two bays, intricate

rib vault A rib vault or ribbed vault is an architectural feature for covering a wide space, such as a church nave, composed of a framework of crossed or diagonal arched ribs. Variations were used in Roman architecture, Byzantine architecture, Islamic a ...

ing and small bosses. The aisle has circular piers with square abaci and delicate capitals. The south transept—formerly the separate chapel of the Knights Templar—is linked to the rest of the church by a 19th-century arch and doorway. The chapel, built at a lower level than the church, is rib-vaulted and has a series of foliated capitals in a style similar to the Corinthian. Remnants of Saxon- and Norman-era sculpture can still be seen in the church. In the south transept, near the 12th-century

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

, is a carved

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

in good condition. A 13th-century Christ in Majesty incorporates older decorative stonework. Some

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

-work is visible on the chancel wall.

The church today

The Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin was listed at Grade I by

on 12 October 1954. Such buildings are defined as being of "exceptional interest" and greater than national importance. As of February 2001, it was one of seven Grade I listed buildings, and 119 listed buildings of all grades, in Adur district. The Sompting headmistress, Harriet Finlay-Johnson, who became known for her innovative education was buried in the churchyard in 1956.Who is Harriet Johnson?
, Sompting.org.uk, Retrieved 30 January 2016 Th
parish
covers Sompting village and the surrounding urban area, as far as the boundaries with Lancing and

Worthing Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Br ...

; it also extends a long way to the north on to the southern slopes of the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England 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 ...

. The eastern boundary is formed by Boundstone Lane and Upper Boundstone Lane in Lancing, while the western boundary is Charmandean Lane on the edge of the Worthing built-up area. The parish covers . St Peter the Apostle's Church, a modern brick building in the Lower Cokeham area of Sompting, is within the parish. It was consecrated in 1966 and serves as a multi-purpose church hall as well as a place of worship. There is a said Mass with Hymns at St. Mary's at 9 am on the third Sunday of each month, as well as a 5 pm Choral Evensong on any fifth Sundays of the month. St. Mary's is open for visitors on Tuesday mornings each week. The Church also celebrates their Patronal festival in August of each year. On the first, second and fourth Sundays of the month there is a 9 am said Mass with Hymns at the church of St. Peter's, Bowness Avenue, Sompting.

References

Notes

Bibliography