Sussex Churches: St Mary’s Church, Burpham
This is bucolic spot, only accessible through narrow, barely passible roads. When you get to the centre of the village the sun is shining, you find a busy, happy country pub in a little square, people eating outside, the church itself tucked away down a concealed lane opposite. Inside, the church is beautiful. I can honestly say its architecture has a white simplicity and purity I last felt in Palladio’s Redentore church in Venice - and that’s saying something. Pevsner compares these arches to Caen.
At the end of this gorgeous Norman arch are these two little creatures who could have inspired My Neighbour Totoro.or the moomins. Fantastic beasts at the next stage of development from those on the Norman arch at Tortington.
I actually came into the church to see this stained glass, which is 17th century German. The first shows St Margaret and the dragon.
It is hard to capture all the exquisite details with a camera. This appears to be Abraham and Sarah ‘entertaining angels unawares’.
Most of an annunciation, although I’m not sure what the swan (or is it a duck?) has to do with it.
Rather striking 20th century glass by Leonard Walker commemorating an RAF pilot, son of the vicar, who died in an accident:
Strange that church guides (including Pevsner in this case) often ignore the painted inscriptions, which are part of the church’s history too:
