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The church of St James, Ashurst, comprises chancel, a nave with an added W bay beneath a catslide roof, and a wide S aisle with a W tower, S porch and E chapel (or chantry). The aisle was erected c.1200.
Ashurst is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey. The church was restored in 1720 and 1877, when the S porch was rebuilt and the walls and windows were extensively renewed. The font was found embedded in an internal buttress. Although it may be 12thc. in origin, the carved arcading is Gothic, and probably dates from 13thc. The arcading is notionally formed, however, from intersecting round-headed arches. The similar font at Buxted is carved with pointed arches enclosing trefoil tracery.
The font is dated to the 13thc. by Steer.
M. F. Drummond-Roberts, Some Sussex Fonts Photographed and Described, Brighton 1935, 7.
I. Nairn and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Sussex, Harmondsworth 1965, 97.
F. Steer, 'Guide to the Church of St James Ashurst', Sussex Churches 42, 1969.
Sussex Express, 11 December 1877, 1.
A. K. Walker, An Introduction to the Study of English Fonts with Details of those in Sussex, London 1908, 86-87.
