St Mary the Virgin, Stopham, Sussex

I Location

Site Location
Stopham
National Grid Reference
TQ 026 189
County
traditional: Sussex
now: West Sussex
Diocese
medieval: Chichester
now: Chichester
Dedication
medieval: not confirmed
now (or name of monument): St Mary the Virgin
Type of building/monument
Parish church

II General Description

The church has a W tower, a single nave (late 11thc.) with opposing doorways (into S porch and N vestry), and a raised chancel (13thc.?) with a narrower altar recess at its E end. The chancel arch has a simple angle roll on the W side. There are blocked Norman windows on either side of the chancel.

III Exterior Features

1. Doorways

(i) Nave, S doorway

S doorway.

S doorway.

Now set within the S porch, this was a very high doorway with an even higher rere-arch (approx. 9ft 11½in high). The opening was reduced in the 13thc. and given a pointed, chamfered surround. The slightly stilted arch has an angle roll and three smaller rolls on its face. It rests on huge, plain, chamfered impost blocks (height 0.18m). The unusual capitals (height 0.15m) are composed of three superimposed rolls and are carried by columns on slightly bulbous bases.

Dimensions
Present aperture:
w. 1.05 m
h. 2.06 m
Original aperture not measured.

(ii) Nave, N doorway

N doorway, L side, capital and respond.

N doorway, L side, capital and respond.

N doorway, view from inside N porch.

N doorway, view from inside N porch.

Now set within the vestry, this doorway is clearly contemporary with the S doorway and has been reduced in a similar fashion. Like the S doorway, the arch has an angle roll and three smaller face rolls, but it rests on smaller imposts and high, cushion capitals. The shafts and bases are the same as on the S side.

Dimensions
h. of capitals incl. necking 0.35 m
Present aperture:
w. 1.16 m
h. 2.30 m
Original aperture not measured.

VII History

Stopham is entered in the Domesday Book, but no church is mentioned

VIII Comments/Opinions

The nave doorways, which show a mixture of Anglo-Saxon (S doorway capitals) and Norman (N doorway capitals) features (ie: Saxo-Norman overlap), probably date from the late 11thc. Taylor and Taylor thought the S doorway pre-Conquest, and stated that the N doorway 'does not seem unreasonable as a work of the concluding years of the reign of Edward the Confessor'. They thought the chancel arch contemporary with the S doorway. The doorway arches can be compared with those of Bolney and Wivelscombe, but the angle roll introduces Norman vocabulary into what is otherwise an Anglo-Saxon language of architectural sculpture.

IX Bibliography

  • E. A. Fisher, The Saxon Churches of Sussex. Newton Abbot 1970, 187-91.
  • J. Morris and J. Mothersill (ed.), Domesday Book: Sussex. Chichester 1976, 11.25.
  • I. Nairn and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Sussex. Harmondsworth 1965, 341-42.
  • Rev. C.J. Robinson, 'Stopham', Sussex Archaeological Collections 27, 1877, 37-68.
  • H.M. and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture. Vol. 2, Cambridge, 1965. 578-80.