Church Heritage Record id18824

A simple rectangle with west bell-cote, south porch and north vestry; a screen divides nave from chancel internally.

There was apparently a church here at the time of Domesday Book (1086); the present building lates from c.1220, although the fabric now shows details of the thirteenth century (the east and west windows), the sixteenth century (the south porch), the seventeenth-century (the north chamber) and the eighteenth century (the renewed north windows). The church was restored in 1881, 1932 and in 1959, by John Denman.

The country churches of Sussex are in the main small, unpretentious buildings of early date, and Warminghurst is no exception; it has, moreover, the advantage of a beautiful and apparently remote situation. The body of the church is a well proportioned single cell with a continuous roof. Until the restoration of 1959 one side of the roof was covered with Horsham slabs and the other with tiles but, in order to balance the weight more equally both sides are now covered with Horsham slabs in the lower part and tiles above. The small square bell-cote above the west gable of the nave has tiled sides and wooden shingles on the pyramidal roof.

The west wall of the church is first seen from the churchyard gate; in the lower part is the door now forming the only entrance to the church, a late sixteenth-century design of four-centred moulded arch surrounded by a rectangular jambs, moulded label and recessed triangles in the spandrels. Above the door are signs of a blocked window and higher again is a small circular light with a simple hollow moulding. The wall was covered with pebbledash until 1959, but is now of exposed stonework.

Both the north and south walls are still covered with plaster and pebbledash, weathered to a gentle texture. Each wall has evenly spaced round-headed windows (the brick arches seem to be eighteenth-century replacements of early lancets), of which five are visible in the north wall and four in the south, the others being obscured by the later porch and vestry. The west angles are unbuttressed but the east corners of the chancel have angle buttresses with single offsets, the north and south pair with tiled shoulders.

The south porch, owing to its constricted position above the roadway, formerly had four-centred arches opening in the east and west walls, both now blocked, and nothing but two tiny rectangular slits for light in the south wall. The porch (which is now only accessible from the interior of the church) shelters a mediaeval doorway with continuous mouldings, and a hoodmould which has been cut away. 

The east wall of the chancel is divided into two sections by a horizontal moulding at the level of the window sill; below this the wall is exposed stonework and above it is rendered. The window, with much renewed stonework, is of three lights with trefoiled heads and four quatrofoiled above; the simply moulded surround has no hoodmould. 

Towards the east end of the north wall stands the vestry, formerly accessible from the churchyard by a doorway in the west wall with four-centred moulded head under a square label. The walls are are of random rubble with brick quoins and the room is lit by three segmental-headed lights within a rectangular surround.

Architecturally the interior of the building is as plain as the exterior, and its character is almost entirely the result of the important collection of furnishings which it contains. The nave is seperated from the chancel by a timber screen of three arches above which is a wide semi-circular tympanum painted with the Royal Arms of Queen Anne (probably re- worked in 1845), while along each side of the stone paved central alley are rows of box pews, bleached to a gentle pale grey. Brighter colouring is indeed provided by the Royal arms, for otherwise the walls are white, and the floor, woodwork and monuments are all of differing shades of grey. At the last restoration in 1959 the plaster barrel vault was unfortunately removed, leaving the curved timber braces exposed to view. The nave is crossed by one stout tie beam at the midpoint and a second near the west end serves to support the bell-cote. The lower part of the bell-cote has been opened towards the nave to allow light from the roundel over the west door to filter into the church, and the doorway itself is protected by an inner draught porch composed partly of re-used eighteenth-century fielded panelling with new doors (presumably of 1959). Between this and the roundel may be seen the recess for the blocked west window. The font stands in the south-west corner of the nave, with a wrought iron crane attached to the wall above. The nave windows, and the doorways have simple stone rere-arches and the reveals are plastered like the rest of the wall surfaces. These form the background for two hatchments and three wall monuments, and the pulpit stands above the pews between two windows in the south wall.

The chancel is differentiated from the nave by more refined eighteenth-century flooring, of square slabs of Portland stone with slate squares set diagonally at the intersections and there is a single step at the communion rails. These are also eighteenth century, and run straight from north to south enclosing a small sanctuary within which stands a communion table of similar date. In the floor, there are three ledger slabs and against the north wall is an important monument with brass inserts. Nearby a doorway opens into the vestry, and the eastern window of the nave also communicates with this room.