The Church from the North East © PE Blanche 2003

This was another Church which I visited in the middle of the week and as is fairly normal these days, the Church was locked. There is a list of Rectors inside this Church which dates from the 13th Century although it is likely that there has been a Church here since Saxon times. The personal chaplain to King Cnut, Eadsige, once held the lands in the Wittersham area and in 1032 gave these lands to the Monastery at Christchurch in Canterbury, shortly before becoming a monk there himself. The Nave is probably the oldest part of this Church, built in the Early English style with later additions. The South Aisle was added in the early 14th Century and the Tower in the late 15th or early 16th Century. The earliest bells in teh Church were cast in Whitechapel in 1609. Little original glass remains in teh Church and even the Victorian glass in the East Windiw had to be removed in the 1950's. It seems that the Church interior underwent sustantial refurbishment in the late 19th Centuryand was dedicated byt the first Archbishop Temple in 1898. I will add more to this page if and when I can get to see the interior of the Church myself.