St Wilfrid's Chapel, Church Norton

St Wilfrid's Chapel stands in a place of "sequestered leafiness" at Church Norton, on the wild shoreline of Pagham Harbour near Selsey, in the far south-western corner of West Sussex. A tiny medieval chapel set in the middle of its ancient graveyard, it is a building of the deepest historical significance, for it stands on what may be the very site where St Wilfrid first brought Christianity to the kingdom of the South Saxons in the seventh century. A Grade I listed building, now cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust, it is one of the most evocative and historic places in Sussex.

The land here is of extraordinary antiquity. The Selsey peninsula, once almost an island between the sea and Pagham Harbour, is considered the most likely site of Cymenshore, where Ælle, the first King of the South Saxons, is said to have come ashore in 477. Two centuries later, around 681, St Wilfrid — the great churchman who had already brought the Roman tradition to Northumbria — was given refuge here, and it was at Selsey that he converted the South Saxons, the last of the English peoples to receive Christianity, founding a monastery and a cathedral. The see of Selsey remained the seat of the bishops of Sussex until 1075, when it was moved to Chichester, and the old cathedral was eventually lost — by tradition, drowned beneath the sea off Selsey. Church Norton is widely thought to be the site of Wilfrid's monastery, so that this is, in effect, the cradle of Christianity in Sussex.

The chapel that survives today, however, is medieval. Originally dedicated to St Peter, it served as the parish church of Selsey from the thirteenth century. By the mid-1860s, the main village of Selsey had grown a mile and a half away, and the old church at Church Norton was inconveniently distant; so a remarkable decision was taken. Half of the church — the nave — was dismantled, moved to the centre of Selsey village, and rebuilt there with modern additions as the new parish church. Only the chancel of the old church was left behind at its lonely harbourside site, where it remained as a small chapel, resembling a cemetery chapel standing in the midst of its graveyard. It was rededicated to St Wilfrid, in memory of the saint who had founded Christianity here, and it served as a chapel of ease.

In 1990 the Diocese of Chichester declared the little chapel redundant, but it was saved by being taken into the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, which preserves it as a building of the first importance. Open to visitors, it stands in its beautiful and remote setting by Pagham Harbour, a place of pilgrimage for those who wish to stand where St Wilfrid first preached the Gospel to the South Saxons.

The chapel stands at Church Norton, on the shore of Pagham Harbour, near the town of Selsey, in the far south of West Sussex. The Pagham Harbour nature reserve, famous for its birdlife, lies all around, with the beaches and Bill of Selsey, the cathedral city of Chichester to the north, the South Downs National Park, and the wider Sussex coast all within easy reach, in one of the most beautiful and tranquil corners of the county.

From the landing of the South Saxons at Cymenshore, the coming of St Wilfrid and the founding of the cathedral of Selsey in the seventh century, through the medieval parish church and the extraordinary removal of its nave to Selsey village in the 1860s, to the survival of its chancel as St Wilfrid's Chapel under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, this tiny building gathers more than thirteen centuries of Sussex history into one place. A Grade I listed chapel on the site of the cradle of Christianity in Sussex, it remains one of the most historic and evocative churches in the county — a holy place on the shore of Pagham Harbour.