A Further Extract from The Churches of West Sussex, published in support of a good cause.

St Nicolas Church, Old Shoreham, one sunny post lock down day, when we all slowly emerged to take stock of the quiet uncertain world in which we found ourselves.

This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.

If you know nothing about churches, you are in good company. In writing this second book on the churches of Sussex, I have considered what might inspire you to follow in my tyre tracks. Is is it that ‘feel’ you get when first you pass under the arches, from the glare of a summer’s day. The dates are important but so is the sense of peace upon sitting on a pew in solitude.

Nestling amongst well established fir trees, its tower breaking the canopy, skirted by a flint wall, St Nicolas looks out over the estuary as it has done since long before any other place of worship in the locality. A tranquil description that spares the reader the harsh reality that between that flint wall and the estuary lies the road into Shoreham. It is fed by a relentless flow of traffic from the coastal dual carriageway, flyover and road to London, all of which snake around each other at the foot of the Downs. None of which should matter to the cyclist on the South Downs link, but for the fact that, that very road lies between the cycle track and the church.

The sun had passed its apex in the sky and we the population had cautiously emerged from our homes in quiet bewilderment to take stock of our post lockdown world.

I entered the church through the gate and made my way through the churchyard festooned with every style of memorial; medieval, Victorian, alpine, continental catholic, all thrown together in a disorderly fashion, their incumbents at rest under the shade of the pine trees, occasionally disturbed by their dropping cones. Clearly this is not a show church and all the better for it.

The first sight of the church is from the cycle path along the River Adur. Incongruously you invariably find yourself looking down on the church, with its roof breaking through the canopy of trees that surround the building. By now, one is invariably free wheeling on the final straight into Shoreham. But it would be a mistake to drift on by, tempted by the coffee shop next to the other church in the centre of Shoreham. The light might be failing, the relaxed locals might all be pointing their phones westward to catch the reflection of the setting sun on the now still waters of the Adur. But it still pays to stop because, with the historic course of the ever-shifting River Adur in mind, this was probably once the town centre. Indeed, excavations at St Nicolas’s churchyard have found evidence of Bronze Age activity. Clearly the banks of the River Adur have long been seen as a desirable residence, certainly long before the swanky flats by the cycle path were built.

Desirable as it may have been, there came a morning in 477AD when the local inhabitants looked out to see the Anglo-Saxon overlord AElle coming ashore. He soon conquered the locals and became the first king of the South Saxons. Hence ‘Sussex’. And four years after his arrival, St Nicolas was erected. Eventually after a variety of names, Shoreham was adopted from the Saxon name for ‘settlement by the shore’. But now, Shoreham is rightly known as ‘Old Shoreham’, and many a cyclist passes it in a blur, freewheeling the last half a mile or so to Shoreham proper.

St Nicolas may once have been centre to it all. Now the London Road runs close by, the railway line almost over shadows it, hosting those cyclists and holding back the plain, that has long receded. The church was once reached by a causeway on the opposite western bank. At low tide the traveller could have walked over the causeway, but at high tide, a ferry ran from a small sheltered inlet to the small bay north of Old Shoreham Church. Much has changed, but the church remains.

And so, the Saxons having settled, the day-to-day affairs of community, commerce and faith all seemed, in their eyes, to fit hand in glove with the need for defence. To keep a protective eye on the communities of the Adur Valley, they built hill forts at the high points on the windswept Downs. And with that, the local businesses found it easier to safely traverse their goods up and down the River Adur. Thus, stone, Wealden wood, fertiliser and much else came to underpin the economy.

The origins of faith, and thus the church are inevitably hazy. Certainly, by the late 500s, the Pope had sent a successful mission to Kent. By 681 the Bishop of York had managed to establish Christianity in Sussex.

Wars came and wars went, and with the warlord’s conversion, the rate of church building increased. First, they were of wood and then stone. Today it is incredible to think that St Nicolas still bears the work of Saxon stone masons. Indeed, the boundary wall on the south side displays the curved shape characteristic of a Saxon church yard.

The first stone-built church of St Nicolas now forms the western end of today’s church. Originally it would have consisted of a nave and chancel with squared rubble walls, high windows and a narrow-rounded chancel arch. There followed in due course, a tall rounded tower and there are traces on the north side of the doorway which led to it.

The arch led to the base of the tower in the old Saxon church. The size and shape of this tower at the west end, although long demolished can be seen on the plan and traced in the present building. There are in addition two blocked up Norman doorways, one on each side of the nave.

The ground plan suggests that the Saxon worshippers would have gathered around their priest standing at the junction of the nave and chancel. It is likely that many late Saxon services still tended to follow the Celtic tradition (as opposed to Roman) with services in Old English and participation by all, but this was to change with the coming of the Normans.

The above is an extract from The Churches of West Sussex, available from Amazon here