Hellingly is located on the southern slopes of the Weald. The church stands within an oval enclosure, sometimes considered to be of Anglo-Saxon origin. The building dates largely from the 13thc. and later but fragments of Romanesque sculpture have been incorporated into the fabric. Additionally, foundations uncovered in 1999 – during the building of a NW extension – have been interpreted as evidence of an earlier church (www.sussexparishchurches.org).

The present church comprises a chancel with a N chapel, an aisled nave with a N porch, and a W tower. The earliest elements of the church, dating from the late 12thc., are two round-headed windows in the N wall of the chancel and the E respond of the N arcade. Internally, the windows feature shafts with bobbin-rings and crocket capitals. The respond, representing the remains of an arcade, consists of five capitals on keeled shafts: the four lateral capitals having smooth leaves developing into crockets, foliate volutes or sprays on the upper angles, and the central semi-circular capital being simply moulded at top and bottom.

Hellingly church was not mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086.

The tower was built in 1835-36. A view of 1802 shows its predecessor: a weather-boarded bell turret over the W end of the nave (Historic England Archive, red boxes).

The church was restored by Ewan Christian in 1869 (the date on the rainwater hoppers). An account of the restoration reveals that some of the Romanesque fragments displayed in the church were found at that time: ‘The old plastering on the walls has been taken off and replaced by new, disclosing on the north aisle ashlar of Norman dressed stones, in many instances showing the characteristic ornament of the Norman period . . . Three fragments of a Norman font were found under a plate. They are now visible in the chapel, being built in the wall’ (Builder, 27 November 1869, 953).

The palmette string course which was reused as a sill for the chancel windows can be dated to the second quarter of the 12thc. on stylistic grounds. Comparable work is the frieze above the relief of Christ visiting Martha and Mary in Chichester Cathedral. There is no evidence for the original position of the string course.

There are no precise parallels for the font in Sussex. Smooth, fat stems bound by rings recur at Sompting (reset fragment in chancel and rear of Christ in Majesty relief in nave), but the design here is different.

The font fragments – and probably also the chevron fragments – were found during the restoration campaign of 1869 and reset in the walls of the church.