St Mary's Church, Ticehurst

St Mary's Church is the medieval parish church of Ticehurst, a village in the High Weald of East Sussex. Dedicated to St Mary the Virgin and largely of the fourteenth century, it is a Grade II* listed building in the Diocese of Chichester — a handsome Wealden church rich in stained glass, brasses and fine furnishings, and shaped by some remarkable clergy across its long history.

The earliest written evidence of a church at Ticehurst is a reference to "Adam, Presbyter de Tychenherste" in a document of 1180, and parts of the building — identified in the faces of the tower — date from the thirteenth century, though the bulk of the church is fourteenth-century work. Among its treasures is a brass memorial of about 1365 to John Wyborne and his two wives, Cecily and Agnes. The sanctuary holds two notable windows: the north window contains medieval glass, depicting a "doom" or Last Judgement, taken from the original east window, while the present east window of 1879 was so admired that its central light won a prize at the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

The church's modern character owes much to the long incumbency of the Reverend Arthur Eden, who served Ticehurst for more than fifty-seven years from 1851 to 1908. Finding the church much deteriorated, he rebuilt its interior from nearly ground level in 1856 and built a new vicarage, and he was so devoted a pastor — taking over 1,800 baptisms, 1,300 funerals and 450 marriages himself — that he won the deep affection of his parishioners. He is buried in the churchyard, and when the face of St Mark in the bell-tower window faded, it was renewed in 1984 with the features of Father Eden himself. Among earlier clergy was the hymn-writer Francis Pott, parish priest from 1861 to 1866.

The twentieth century brought one of the church's finest features. In 1945–47, under Father Owen Allan Sharpe Edwards, the interior of the sanctuary was redesigned by the celebrated Anglo-Catholic artist Martin Travers, given in memory of members of the Hort family. The work included an extended high altar with matching rails, tall candlesticks and altar frontals, and — most striking of all — a reredos in the form of a triptych depicting the Annunciation, with a central panel of Christ blessing the people and holding a chalice, framed by trompe l'oeil effects. It was one of the last works completed by Travers's own hand before his death.

The north chapel, named after the Courthope family and full of their memorials, is used for weekday services, while the south chapel houses the organ of 1909. In more recent years the church has continued to develop: a modern parish hall, the St Mary's Room, was added in 2010 in the original style, with facilities for both church and community use, and the church has won an Eco Church Gold Award and been named Animal Friendly Church of the Year.

A Grade II* listed building, St Mary's is now part of a united benefice with neighbouring St Augustine's, Flimwell. From its medieval origins and its Wyborne brass, through its prize-winning Victorian window and the devoted ministry of Father Eden, to the beautiful Travers reredos and its lively life today, St Mary's Church, Ticehurst, remains a much-loved and welcoming parish church at the heart of its Sussex village.