The present St Andrew’s is a mere youngster, dating from around 1180. Its predecessor was built by St Edburga, daughter of Edward the Elder, King of the Angles and Saxons, during her father’s reign in the early tenth century. According to a legend of her infancy, her parents presented her with a spiritual dilemma. At the age of three, she was invited to choose between  a pile of jewels and a copy of the Bible. Disdaining the baubles, she clutched up the holy book, and set herself on a lifetime of exemplary piety, converting the pagan populations of the English south and giving her name to this village.

What remains of the original church building are the lower parts of the walls. The tower was only added the better part of two centuries after the church was rebuilt, with the first bell installed 100 years or so after that. Another two bells were added in the next two centuries. Restoration work was carried out on the three bells in 1951, after which the old clappers were removed. These can now be seen lying on the floor at the foot of the tower at the western end of the church.

The approach to the church is not as it used to be. An intact lych-gate, overshadowed by a magnificent ancient yew, now marks the boundary with a private property. The church is now entered by a short path leading to the South Porch, which was probably added at roughly the same time the tower was built.

St Andrew's Church, Edburton
© Cognitive Applications/Maria Gibbs

Venturing inside

Here, the work of successive historical ages is evident. To the left of the entrance is the lead font, which dates from the late Norman era. This is one of fewer than 30 in the whole country. From the discoloration around its base, we can tell that it had been removed from the church and set in the ground at some stage, almost certainly by Roundhead troops during the Civil War, who may have used it as a trough for watering their horses.

As befits a Norman church, the interior stones are from the area around Caen in Normandy itself. The nave is the oldest part of the present church. Its original was destroyed by the death-watch beetle, so the existing roof and rafters date only from 1880, when the last major restoration was undertaken. (Re-roofing of the tower took place in 1947.) The floor is a mixture of ancient, age-blackened floorboards and more recent red stone tiles.

As we draw near to the altar (eastern) end of the church, we note that there is no rood-screen, the wooden screen that would once have extended across the arch that divides the chancel from the nave. At some stage, this was clearly torn down. What does survive in wood are the carved oak pulpit and altar rails, which date from the early Stuart period, during the reign of Charles I. William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1633 and 1645, presented the altar rails to St Andrew’s, and is known to have preached a sermon from the pulpit.

The beautiful tri-panelled east window above the altar is in decorated Gothic style, with stained glass from the mid-Victorian period. The glass was installed to mark the passing of a former rector, John Tufnell, who died in 1866, having held the position for 26 years. Below the window is a fascinating set of decorated wooden panels, bearing images of the church’s patron saint St Andrew, St Augustine (Archbishop of Canterbury and author of the Confessions), St Wilfred (a one-time Archbishop of York who was deposed, but continued his mission after settling in Sussex) and St Edburga herself. There are also representations of the elements of the sacrament: the bread and wine that stand for the body and blood of Christ at the Eucharist. The altar itself is a mere 50 years old.

A curious feature of the chancel consists of the two low-set, narrow windows, one on either side, just inside the arch. These are known as the Confession Windows. In the 13th century, during the reign of Henry III, Franciscan friars came to England from Europe. Because they were not actually ordained priests, they were forbidden by papal decree from hearing confessions within the church. The wooden shutters that once covered these windows would be opened, and parishioners would kneel outside the church while the friars, seated inside, heard their confessions.

To the left as you face the altar is the north chapel, added in about 1319 by one William de Northo, owner of nearby Truleigh Manor, and dedicated to St Katherine of Alexandria. This became known as the Truleigh Chapel. A white marble memorial to William Hippisley, who married into the Pellatt family, subsequent owners of the Manor, and died aged 51 in 1657, was removed at some stage and mounted in the west wall near the tower. Hippisley was buried in the north chapel (as a slab in the floor reveals). Since the re-installation of an altar just before the second world war, the chapel has once again come back into regular use.

Set into the north wall is the feature without which no parish church was complete by the 20th century: a plaque listing the names of the dead of the two world wars. Nine men from the village failed to return from the Great War of 1914-18, and three from the second world war. The lower number of the second war indicates the degree to which the village’s population would have shrunk by the 1940s. One family, the Bakers, lost three members in the first war, while another, the Lucases, lost a man in each war.

Returning to the tower end, we find the most ancient object in St Andrew’s, a stone piscina dating from the church’s Saxon period. A piscina is a basin made for draining away the water used during the Mass, and this one – bearing its 1,000-year-old decorative markings – would once have been set into the original stone altar of the Saxon church. When the church was rebuilt in the late 12th century, it appears to have been decided that there was no use for the basin, and it was left out in the churchyard. There it lay unnoticed until one day in 1931, when the then rector, Hugh Barrington Simeon, stumbled upon it.

As we re-emerge, blinking into the sunlight, we might take a final turn around the undulating churchyard, left to over-grow now to encourage wildlife. The mossy headstones, some leaning, some fallen, are the abiding furniture of parish church grounds. We might linger in the sombre shade of the great yew trees, as a pair of visitors from ICONS did on a blinding-hot summer day, and not hear anything other than the peaceable twitter of birdsong. To the ears at least, the passing centuries have changed nothing.

• If you value parish churches, why not consider making a donation to their upkeep. By the summer of 2006, the St Andrew’s restoration campaign had already raised an impressive £166,000 of the £240,000 required to preserve it from the further ravages of time and the elements. Another £74,000 is still needed…