This is St. Mary’s Church in Horsham, and in a fit of excitement I’ve already written about the font, the Hoo monument, the memorial to Charles Eversfield and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
A model of the church.
Some motivational messaging in the churchyard, I rather liked this little series of stones placed in the walkway.
The externally attractive building itself has a twelfth century core, with the church being designed in the Decorated Gothic style. The medieval structure likely replaced a late Saxon or early Norman structure, with later extensions in the fifteenth century and then the Victorians faffed around with the whole structure and there was a bit of a Gothic Revival to the arrangements at this point. Much as I comment a little negatively about some of the Victorian restorations, the church was literally falling down in places and so they did save it for future generations.
The church’s interior underwent significant reordering during the Victorian era, the Oxford Movement had their way here in trying to push back towards the Catholic traditions. Some of this work was done by Samuel Sanders Teulon, one of the leading English Gothic Revival architects of his time.
And looking back along the nave.
The pulpit is from the 1870s, another Victorian installation for the church.
The impressive and beautiful altar.
Just as an aside, a boy called Jason Murray smashed part of the east window in 1867. This is something that churches have contended with for years, even though I frequently see it mentioned that vandalism and social chaos is a problem almost solely of today’s society.
This is a really lovely church, not just the heritage and history of it, but also the relaxed environment that was evident here. I was welcomed by a church volunteer who gave me lots of information about the history of the building and that added positively to my visit. It certainly felt like a church that was community driven and proud of their offerings, with the building open every day of the week.