** sussexparishchurches.org **
The earliest part of the church is the nave, dated by its quoins to the early C12. Irregularly laid out aisles were added in the late C12 with two-bay arcades (the south one is still clearly visible both inside and out, though the aisle has gone). They have slightly pointed heads and those of the south arcade consist of alternating light and dark voussoirs, a common device at the time; there are also contrasting stones in the heads of the north arcade, but fewer and less regular. The pier of the south arcade is square with chamfered edges; the octagonal north one looks later and the adjacent responds have corbels, but Pevsner’s suggestion that the whole arcade may have been rebuilt in the C14 is contradicted by the general similarities to the south arcade. Also in the late C12, a west tower was added, as a surviving blocked north lancet shows. It was lower than today and probably had a timber spire like other towers of the period.

An aisled church of this size would have had a chancel, but the present one is C13. Following later remodelling this is only apparent from the jambs of a south doorway, visible under a later window on the Sharpe Collection drawing (1804), and some interior features, notably the piscina.

Major alterations undertaken either side of 1500 are unusually well documented.
The chancel arch, with a moulded head and the inner order on shafts, is at first sight rather earlier C15 in form and the arcade to the north chapel is similar.
It is uncertain if the south aisle was removed in the late C15 or a little later. The four-centred heads of the windows and doorway in the in-filling of the arcade are no earlier than the top of the tower, though a four-centred stoup (see below) by the doorway which has clearly been reset shows that the removal took place before the Reformation.