St Michael, Up Marden
St Michael, Up Marden
St Michael’s is a Grade I downland church at Up Marden, in the civil parish of Compton, West Sussex, a little-restored thirteenth-century nave, chancel and weatherboarded west tower in the Diocese of Chichester.
- Location
- Up Marden, Sussex
- Country
- England
- County
- Sussex
- City / town
- Up Marden
- Address
- Up Marden, Sussex, PO18 9JR
- Postcode
- PO18 9JR
- Built
- C13; inner chancel arch c.1625; repaired 1924 after a period of disuse
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Michael
- Diocese
- Chichester
- Parish
- Compton
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Early English
- Materials
- Stone rubble, plastered, tiled roof; weatherboarded tower top
- Grid reference
- SU 795 141
- Opening hours
- Open everyday.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby
Overview
The church was given to Lewes Priory in 1121; the visible fabric is thirteenth-century. Historic England records a wholly thirteenth-century chancel, nave with west tower (the top faced with weather-boarding) and south porch, of plastered stone rubble with a tiled roof, listed Grade I on 5 June 1958 (NHLE 1026390). Ian Nairn called the interior one of the loveliest in England. By 1439 the benefice was so poor that it was united with Compton. An inner chancel arch was inserted about 1625 when the chancel was near collapse, reusing stone with pre-Conquest tooling. The church was disused by 1912 and repaired in 1924, retaining whitewash, an irregular brick floor and accumulated fittings; further careful repairs followed in 1975–77 and 1994. Wall paintings uncovered in 1994 include consecration crosses and a fragmentary St Christopher. The church is in the Octagon Parish on the South Downs.