Hardham
The church is dedicated to the seventh century St Botolph. A
twelfth century charter states that the church of St George of Hardham
was given to Lewes priory by Joscelin the nephew of the castellan of
Arundel and confirmed by prior William of Lewes. In 1253
½m (6s 8d) was left to Heringham church for an anchorite by Richard of Chichester on his death on 3 April 1253.
Description
The church consists of a simple rectangular nave with attached, smaller
chancel, in typical Saxon style. Both were lit by small
Romanesque windows set high in the walls between the plain Romanesque
chancel arch. The blocked south door has long and short work
jambs, although the quoins of the church are not quite as pronounced as
these. Roman brick is found within the masonry, which again would
indicate an early date for the church, rather than eleventh or twelfth
century which is so confidently and groundlessly claimed.
Herringbone masonry is said to have been found in the lower part of the
chancel.
Within the church, painted on the walls, are frescoes making the single
most complete scheme of medieval church paintings in the country.
They are dated as 'twelfth century'. It is argued that as these
frescos exist in Sussex these ‘must be' the product of a single
travelling workshop considering that Clayton
and Hardham we held from Lewes priory this became the obvious site of
such a travelling menagerie of artists. From this supposition it
is then claimed that these artists were also responsible for the Sussex
wall paintings in the churches of Clayton, Coombes
and Plumpton and for some reason even Quatford in Shropshire.
Quite clearly the evidence for this is as strong as the alleged
‘Shobdon school' of masons who ranged all over the Midlands, ie.
to all intents and purposes, non-existent.
The paintings are set in 2 horizontal tiers on all internal surfaces of
the church. The west wall of the nave displays the Torments of
the Damned, the north wall nativity scenes above with battle scene
below. This is claimed to date the paintings as this is alleged
to be the battle of Antioch with St George in 1098. Initially it
was claimed that this was George slaying the dragon, until someone
looked at the picture and noted that the victim was in fact an armed
knight with a kite shaped shield. Quite obviously the link
between this cavalryman and St George is totally fictional. What
is more of interest is the fact that these figures are more Byzantine
in style than Norman. This is probably a far more accurate guess
as to their provenance rather than wild guesses of Crusades.
Surrounding the chancel arch to the east can be made out the Baptism,
Christ with the doctors, the Annunciation and the Visitation with a
descending angel appearing like a plunging bird. The upper tier
of the south wall contains what appears to be the Virgin Mary lying on
a four poster bed and a Nativity scene with Christ in the manger with
an ox and ass behind. The lower tier is fragmentary.
Within the chancel the north wall contains the Elders and Apostles, the
Betrayal and the Last Supper. The west wall has Eve milking a
cow, the Temptation and Adam and Eve, while a Christ in Majesty in a
Byzantine mandorla was destroyed when the east window was inserted in
the fourteenth century. The early date of these frescoes is
enhanced by Pevesner noting that the work rather resembles tenth
century work, cf. The Caedmon manuscript.
Copyright©2022
Paul Martin Remfry