Hurstpierpoint

The name derives from 'Hurst', the Saxon name for a wooded hill, and 'Pierpoint' after the de Pierpoint family who were early owners of the property. The settlement was mentioned in the Domesday Book.[2] Throughout the centuries there have been several variants on the Hurstpierpoint name e.g. Herst (11th century); Herstperpunt (14th century); Perpondesherst (15th century).

The village is chiefly one long street running east and west and most of the buildings in it are of the 18th century or later.

The manor of Hurstpierpoint was held before the Norman Conquest by Earl Godwin, when it was an estate assessed at 41 hides, of which 3½ hides in the Rape of Pevensey and 19 hides in the Rape of Bramber were detached. After the Conquest, the remaining 18½ hides were held in 1086 by Robert de Pierpoint of William de Warenne. There was a church and 3 mills. The overlordship descended with the rape until the division after the death of Beatrice, Countess of Arundel, in 1439, when the 10 fees late of Robert de Pierpoint passed to the Duke of Norfolk. Subsequently the overlordship of Hurstpierpoint came into the hands of the Lords Bergavenny, and the manor was said in 1602 to have been held of their manor of Ditchling.

The late 20th Century and early 21st Century saw Hurstpierpoint expanding with new homes built north, east and west of the village.

The parish church[5] consists of a chancel with arcades of two bays, north chapel, south chapel (now organ chamber and vestry), nave, north and south transepts, north arcade and aisle of four bays, south arcade and aisle of five bays, and a north-west tower with an octagonal spire of stone. The base of the tower serves as a porch and there is a small porch to the north chapel. The nave has a clerestory.

Church at the main crossroads in Hurstpierpoint.

The church was completely rebuilt from the designs of Sir Charles Barry in 1843–5, who most famously designed the Houses of Parliament.

In 1854, the north chapel was added, and in 1874 the south chapel; the last has a dated foundation-stone in the east wall. The north transept has been fitted up as a chapel in memory of those who died in the War of 1914–18. The church which it replaced consisted of a chancel with a south chapel (the Danny chapel – see Danny House) of approximately equal dimensions, a nave with south aisle and north porch, and a west tower with a shingled spire. It had been almost rebuilt by a rector, John Urry, about 1420, but the tracery of the windows and most other ancient features had vanished under 'churchwarden improvements' before 1835.

A number of funeral monuments and fittings were preserved from the old church. The font is probably of c. 1200, but the heavy round bowl has been reworked and painted; the stem is plain; the base has a late 12th or early 13th century mould. Nearby, a broken mortar, brought from a local farmyard, has been set on a stem and base as if to represent a font. The enclosure around the font has turned balusters and moulded handrail of the 18th century and may have been the former communion rails.

In the east window of the south chapel are set fifteen medallions of German or Flemish glass of the 16th and 17th centuries; five are circular, the others oval; they mostly depict scenes from the Old and New Testaments and include a Nativity, and the placing of our Lord in the sepulchre. There are also four similar oval cartouches in the west window of the tower-porch, all collected and placed here by Canon Borrer in 1845.

West window of the baptistry of Holy Trinity Church

In the south chapel is a much weathered recumbent effigy, 6 feet 8 inches (2.03 m) long, of a cross-legged knight in chain armour, of c. 1260; he bears his heater-shaped shield on his left arm and his right hand grasps the hilt of his sword. The feet rest against a lion.

At the west end of the north aisle is a much mutilated effigy of a knight of c. 1340 wearing a bascinet, mail gorget, close-fitting gypon with scalloped lower edge, a baldrick, and plate armour with knee-caps to the legs. The head rests on his helm, which has a lion crest; the feet also rest against a recumbent lion. The figure now rests on an altar-tomb against the north wall; the exposed south side has four quatrefoil panels each enclosing a plain shield, and the east end a single panel. The tomb is enclosed by an iron railing, 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m) high, which has three diagonal standards treated with buttresses and with moulded and embattled caps and spikes for candles; these are of early 16th century date.

In the churchyard by the west wall are five tapering coffin lids of the 12th or 13th century with hollow chamfered edges. One shows faint traces of a raised cross.

Relaid in the pavement outside the west doorway are about 150 inlaid slip tiles, 6 inches (15 cm) square, of two patterns: one has a fish in a vesica piscis, four of the tiles forming a complete circular design; the other has a whorl of foliage forming part, probably, of a border pattern: late 13th or early 14th century. They are suffering from wear in their present position.

There are eight bells, of which two date from 1775, three from 1846, one from 1868, one from 1901 and one from 1953. The heaviest bell weighs 12cwt.[6] The church registers date from 1558.

There are four other churches in the village which are St George's (not in use), Hurstpierpoint Methodist Church, Hurstpierpoint Good News Church and St Luke's Roman Catholic Church, which was closed in December 2019, with Roman Catholic congregants now expected to attend services at St Edward's, Keymer or St Wilfred's, Burgess Hill