Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Warminghurst

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a beautiful and unspoilt former church in the tiny hamlet of Warminghurst, in the rural Weald of West Sussex, near where the land rises towards the South Downs. A medieval church of the thirteenth century, it is treasured above all for its interior, which — almost uniquely among Sussex churches — escaped the heavy hand of the Victorian restorers, and has been called "the finest example in Sussex of how many churches must have looked before the Victorian restoration". No longer used for regular worship, it is now lovingly cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust, and is a Grade I listed building of exceptional interest.

Warminghurst — whose name means "the high wood of Wyrma's people" — is an ancient parish at the southern edge of the Weald. It was always thinly populated and scattered, the land around the church and manor sloping steeply away, and its small village has long since disappeared. A church may have stood here in the eleventh century or even earlier, but the present building has thirteenth-century origins, built in the simple and dignified Early English Gothic style of stone. Over the centuries the church was usually administered together with other churches in this rural area — those at nearby Steyning, Ashington and Thakeham were all involved with it at various times — and its small congregation gradually declined.

What makes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so precious is its interior. Unlike the great majority of ancient churches, which were swept clean and refitted by the Victorians in the nineteenth century, Warminghurst was never given a major restoration, and so it preserves the atmosphere of a pre-Victorian church almost intact. Within are old box pews, a fine eighteenth-century pulpit, a beautiful carved and painted screen, and the royal arms of Queen Anne — the kind of furnishings that once filled English churches but which were so often swept away. To step inside is to step back into the world of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century country church.

The church and parish have a notable historical association. The manor of Warminghurst was, in the late seventeenth century, the home of William Penn, the great Quaker and the founder of the American colony of Pennsylvania, who lived at Warminghurst Place; it was here, in Sussex, that Penn carried on much of the work that led to the founding of his colony. The quiet countryside around the church thus has a connection with the history of America.

The church's congregation finally dwindled away: it was first closed in the 1920s, and after a brief revival it was declared redundant for good in 1979. For a time the church fell into a sad state of dereliction, but it was rescued by the Churches Conservation Trust, the national charity that preserves historic churches no longer needed for worship, and it is now carefully maintained and open to visitors. Its Grade I listing recognises its outstanding architectural and historical importance.

The church stands in the hamlet of Warminghurst, in the Horsham district of West Sussex, in the Weald near the foot of the South Downs. The villages of Thakeham, Ashington and Storrington lie close by, with the South Downs National Park rising to the south, the historic Quaker meeting house known as the Blue Idol — associated with William Penn — nearby, and the wider countryside of the Sussex Weald and Downs, with the town of Horsham and the city of Brighton within easy reach.

From its medieval origins in the thirteenth century, through its centuries as a quiet rural church, its association with William Penn and the founding of Pennsylvania, and its survival, unrestored, into the present day under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre gathers many centuries of Sussex history into one building. A Grade I listed church with the finest unrestored interior in the county, it remains a precious and atmospheric survival of the old country church — a place where the past is wonderfully preserved in the Weald of Sussex.