The Church of St Mary the Virgin is built on a Neolithic mound and the chancel and nave date from the 13th century. The porch and north aisle were added in the 14th century, the tower following in the 15th century.
Warbleton is the home parish of Richard Woodman, a man burned alive for his faith in front of the Star Inn in Lewes on June 22nd 1557. I have provided further information about this protestant martyr here.
On the outside of the south wall of the chancel is the arched recess shown below, which is of the Decorated period and is probably a canopied tomb or Easter Sepulchre.
Here are two pictures of the nave, firstly looking east into the chancel and secondly looking west towards the tower arch. The large offset between the axes of the tower and nave is clear from the second view.
The chancel contains two early English lancet windows from the 13th century, one having been made later onto a larger window.
The majority of the glass in the church is 19th century, however there are fragments from the 15th and 17th centuries. The pictures here have had electronic perspective correction applied. Here is the east window.
This window is in the north wall, above the Manorial Pew. As the pew allows close inspection I was able to take a couple of nice close up pictures.
This is another window for the north wall, at the east end of the north aisle.
The windows on the south wall were rather harder to photograph owing to the bright sun streaming in from outside.
These two contain fragments of older glass.
The shield in this window shows a heraldic shield combining the Pelham and Lewknor families.
Here is the west window, rather obscured by the bell ringing equipment!
In the centre north aisle is a raised Manorial Pew used by the owners of the Stone House. It has long been associated with the Roberts and Dunn families. Apologies for the glare from the pillar, not an ideal photograph!
The two hatchments hanging above the gallery bear the arms of Henry Harcourt a former Rector of the parish.
At the base of the stairs to the Manorial Pew is this enormous iron chest. It is thought to have been made locally and some authorities would date it as early as the 14th century. It was probably used for the storage of parochial and manorial records, monies and other valuables.
Adjacent to the chest is this fulcrum for a Hammer mill, which was found on the site of Richard Woodman's forge close to Warbleton Church. It probably dates from the early 16th century. The iron forge was later worked by Thomas Stolyan who by his will drawn up in 1679 directed that Trustees should administer the income from his landed estate "to put our poor boys and girls of the parish, apprentices for some good trade."
This plaque hangs on the east end of the north wall rather too high for the dusters me thinks!
This reredos is hung on the west end of the south wall, presumably removed from the chancel at some point.
Here are the 13th century font and pipe organ.
The church tower contains six bells, the oldest two bear the inscription "Richard Phelps made me in 1724." The others bear the dates 1826, 1864 and 1907 when they were recast.
Digital photographs
Visitors to this album since June 2003
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