St George's Church is an Anglican church in West Grinstead, West Sussex, England. It is in the Diocese of Chichester, occupying a rural position in the Sussex Weald by the River Adur. The oldest extant part of church dates from the early 11th century with additions in the 12th and 13th centuries. A south chapel was added in the 14th century.
The church contains a number of brasses and monuments that are of national importance and retains a number of features from its pre-reformation history. The chancel has some stained glass dating to the 14th century. It is the Parish church of West Grinstead with the mission shared with St. Michael and All Angels in Partridge Green. St George's is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a Grade I listed building.
Early history
The parish church of St George, West Grinstead in West Sussex, England stands at the northerly head of the western River Adur navigation near to Bines Bridge the highest point of the tidal reach and about a east from Knepp Castle. It does not occupy a position in a nucleated village with just a handful of properties including the Grade II Glebe House (formerly the Rectory) adjacent to its boundaries. There is an ancient causeway leading south from the church to the Adur where a wharf once stood. A bridge over the river leads to the hamlet of Butcher’s Row. The church is constructed of sandstone, rendered, with roof and much of the paving of Horsham Stone.
There is no mention of the parish of West Grinstead in the Domesday Book of 1086 but the living was a rectory by 1215 and is mentioned in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas IV in 1291 It was part of the possessions of the De Braose family, and the Manor passed successively to the Halsham, Seymour, Shirley, Caryll, and Burrell families, most of whom are represented in the monuments and antiquities in the church. Some have been laid to rest in the church.
According to John Warren FRIBA there is no easy explanation for the sequence of building of this church. The nave is late 11th-century and to which was attached a gothic tower in the early 13th-century. The date of the spire is likely 14th-century. The nave was extended about the same period and a new chancel was added. This has led to the tower being in the south aisle. In the south-east corner is the chapel of the Blessed Mary, altered in the 15th-century and the resting place of benefactor Sir Hugh Halsham The entrance to the church is via a late medieval porch constructed of Sussex winklestone and unusually on the north side. The original entrance is opposite but no longer in use.
The west end of the north wall of the nave has characteristics of an older building. There are large corbels above the northern arch which suggest this was once an external wall. The distinctive herringbone masonry visible externally and the narrow rounded windows into the porch are Romanesque and characteristic of the 10th-century and thus before the Norman Invasion. Thus it is possible that St.George's became adjoined at some point or incorporated into an older late Saxon building. An alternative viewpoint is that a small 11th-century building stood in the west end of the nave and that an unattached bell tower stood nearby becoming linked sometime in the 13th-century. After the spire was added in the 14th-century, thereafter St.George's has been externally little altered.
Interior
The nave and chancel
There is no structural division between the nave and the chancel which is covered by a single framed braced collar roof, possibly 14th-century. The north wall is 11th century and just discenible to the east of the entrance is the degraded, remnant of a late medieval wall mural in faded colours of red and yellow ochre, lime white, carbon black, and green from copper carbonate. It depicts St.Christopher carrying the Christ Child across the river. St George's church is on high ground next to a river in an area that was largely marshy in the medieval period. The windmill in the top left of the mural places the scene in a local context. The oak pews are mainly 16th and 17th-centuries in origin with some 19th-century additions.The back of each pew has the names of local farms, most of which are still extant. The pulpit is of early 18th-century construction in oak, relatively unadorned. The lectern is also oak and dates from 1891. There was a major renovation of St.George's in 1890 during which a gallery was removed and a rood screen, using 17th and 18th-century components, was placed in the chancel.