Third extract from recently published The Churches of West Sussex, in aid of a good cause.

Sullington

After a gruelling climb the vastness of the South Downs opened out before us.

‘What do you want to go to Storrington for?’ asked the friendly farmer as he leant against his battered Land Rover. He and his wife were the only sign of life for miles around.

‘Are you sure you want to go to Storrington?’ asked his wife from inside the cab as she swiped her phone, ‘says its miles’. It was indeed miles to anywhere. And my son and I had carefully calculated that on the return journey, we must not switch on our lights much before Chanctonbury Ring, or else they would flicker and die before midnight, by which time we might not be back home.

The sun cast its golden glow over the vast acres and despite the gentlest green hue about the hawthorn bush, the nip in the air left one in no doubt that summer was only yet a distant promise.

And so we cycled on under the faintest moon, slightly concerned that every mile further away from home merely added to the return journey after night fall.

We kicked up the dust, freewheeled down slopes that gave us a view over the panorama of Southern England, before we sped through tunnels of trees, passed sheep, passed pigs, but never another soul.

Then we rode into an empty farm yard built around a cross road of farm tracks, at the foot of the slopes. All was silent as we rounded an old brick barn and there behind a wall stood a stone church. And still we were alone, and still all was silent. This we weren’t expecting in the middle of nowhere. For here was a church, but where on earth would they draw the congregation from?

And so we crossed the baked mud cross roads and over to the church. Up the steps and through and into the church yard, partly over shadowed by a well established yew tree.

I paused to take in the church with no apparent parish. The shepherds who made this area prosperous had long gone. Their flocks had shrunk, their issue probably educated for an unquestioning life in the corporate machine, which if successful enough, they might be inclined to buy a custom made shepherds hut rendered fashionable by glossy magazines. Yet once these isolated Downs were punctuated by these huts, occupied by their fiercely independent ancestors whose lives were dictated by the rhythms of nature and web of sheep tracks.All quiet now.

And so we passed under the great yew tree and along the path. As the sun was now setting and the vague outline of the moon had risen above us, we were in no doubt, that a long ride awaited us. Oh, to have ‘overdone it’, but was St Mary’s worth it?

It’s nave faced east, its south aisle faced the coast, with the Tower to the West. But most curious was the adjacent building which I incorrectly took to be the rectory. For it was joined to the church to the extent that you couldn’t make out where the rectory ended and the church began. And the rectory itself didn’t have an inch of double glazing, with one window looking out directly onto the graveyard. One doesn’t like to be nosey, but it was proving difficult not to be. And then I spied an old stone table, a water jug and a deep porcelain sink. Whoever worked in the kitchen had a stained glass window and the departed for company. All in all, it had the feel of an artists commune, which in the age of the diversity seeking vicar, might actually please his Reverence, rather more than his predecessors.

And so to the church itself which stretches back over a thousand years so that much the same sight greeted me as would have a Saxon. And the same sense of remoteness because when William the Conqueror’s commissioners came galloping by, this little church, nestling at the foot of the Downs escaped their notice. Thus there is no reference to Sullington church in the Domesday Book; a remarkable omission for such assiduous public administrators, taking stock of their spoils.

In the thin air of early spring we strolled around the tower. I gazed awhile, slowly making out the blocked windows, thought to have been created a century after Domesday. The tower appeared to have been constructed of local stone, with flint much in evidence and what it lacked in uniformity it more than made up for in solidity.

At the foot of the tower the semi-oval doorway contrasted with the rest of the church in being ornate, something that was emphasised when judged against the purposeful nature of the rest of the tower. And as I looked at the tower, I deduced the arura sturdiness about the craftsmanship. No flying buttresses or Gothic spires here. Purposeful; a pot pouri of flint. When the windows were blocked that same mix of local stone took the place of glass, and left behind a fossilised outline, all of which dates back to about a century after Domesday.

And now the moon was quite distinct in the sky, looking down almost directly upon the church tower. The temperature was noticeably cooler and we remained entirely alone. Would it that we could actually enter the church, but in this the final lockdown of the pandemic, it felt most resolutely secure. It had been twelve months since I stepped inside a church. And I suspected the first time in St Mary of Sullingtons thousand year history that its ancient walls hadn’t resonated to the congregations praise for so long.

The above is an extract from The Churches of West Sussex, available from Amazon at: amazon.co.uk/Churches-West-Sussex-Nigel-Winter/dp/B0BCWRGN6H/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=