St Mary Magdalene's Church, Bolney

St Mary Magdalene's Church is the ancient parish church of the village of Bolney, in Mid Sussex, set on rising ground above a village that straddles the old London-to-Brighton road in West Sussex. Dating in its origins from about 1100, at the dawn of the Norman era — and possibly older still — it is a building of great age and charm, dedicated to Mary Magdalene and listed at Grade I for its architectural and historical importance. Its most famous feature is its tall west tower, raised not by a wealthy patron alone but by the combined labour of the whole village, and its peal of eight bells is so celebrated that the ancient pub opposite the church is named The Eight Bells in their honour.

Bolney was not recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, and the parish first appears in written record in the thirteenth century, but the church itself is generally dated to around 1100. Some scholars have suggested an even earlier origin, for the church's narrow, tall south doorway — its "best" and most interesting feature, surrounded by bands of distinctive reeded carving — has been compared with Saxon work, and resembles the doorway at nearby Wivelsfield. The Norman core of the church consisted of a nave and a narrower chancel, set at a slight angle, to which a large traceried east window was added around 1300.

The church's great tower came in 1536–38, and the precise dates are known because the churchwarden's record book, listing the costs and progress of the work, still survives. The churchwarden of the time was John Bolney, a wealthy landowner whose family had long been established in the parish, and he was the "moving spirit" behind what has been described as an inspired community effort involving the whole village. He paid for the tower, but it was the villagers themselves who used their skills to quarry and shape the sandstone, build temporary bridges and paths to carry the material to the church, fashion the tools and scaffolding, and raise the sixty-six-foot tower at the west end. When it was completed in 1538, a new west doorway was inserted beneath John Bolney's coat of arms, together with the proud and endearing inscription that can still be read today: "This Stepl is 66 Foot high".

The church continued to grow as its congregation increased. A west gallery for the choir was added in 1670 — an early example of the Sussex practice of seating singers at the west end, since organs were often too costly for country churches — and a south porch was built in 1718, enclosing the ancient doorway. During the Victorian restoration of 1853 the nave was enlarged with a north aisle, and a clock was added to the tower in 1898 to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

The Huth family played an important part in the life of the church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Henry Huth, a celebrated book collector whose vast library was later sold for a fortune, lived at the extravagant château-style house of Wykehurst Place in the parish and was buried in the churchyard. In 1905 his son Edward gave the church its "magnificent" lychgate, built from local materials — oak, millstones from a mill in the parish, locally quarried Sussex Marble, and a Horsham Stone slab roof — which stands at the end of the twitten, the narrow lane leading up to the churchyard. The churchyard itself, deliberately left a little overgrown to encourage wildlife, was planted by a Victorian rector with a wide range of trees, many of which survive, and contains many Victorian tombs, including some rare wooden grave-boards.

Architecturally, the church is built of coursed rubble with sandstone dressings, the tower of finer ashlar, beneath a roof of Horsham Stone. The two-stage tower, with its diagonal buttresses, stair-turret and parapet topped by heavy pinnacles and weather vanes, dominates the church, its Perpendicular west doorway carrying John Bolney's arms and the famous inscription. On the south side of the church survive several mass dials — simple scratched sundials that once served as "do-it-yourself clocks" — together with a larger nineteenth-century sundial in the gable of the porch. Inside, among the plaques and stained glass, is the painted coat of arms of Queen Anne above the chancel arch, a decoration unusually common in Sussex churches, along with seventeenth-century oak panelling in the sanctuary.

Listed at Grade I in 1957, St Mary Magdalene's continues today as a living Anglican parish church, serving a large rural parish that extends towards Cowfold, Twineham and Warninglid, with regular services held throughout the week. Its famous bells still ring out across the village, and its right of patronage has, since 1929, belonged to Exeter College, Oxford.

The church stands above the village of Bolney, in the gentle countryside of the Sussex Weald, between Brighton and Horsham. The South Downs National Park lies a little to the south, with the gardens of Borde Hill and Nymans, the village vineyards of the Sussex wine country, the High Weald countryside, and the towns of Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill all within easy reach.

From its Norman origins around 1100, through the building of its tower by the whole village in 1538, its choir gallery and Victorian enlargement, to the gift of its magnificent lychgate and its life today, St Mary Magdalene's Church, Bolney, gathers more than nine centuries of Sussex history into one building. A Grade I listed church famous for its village-built tower and its eight bells, it remains a much-loved parish church at the heart of its Wealden village.