Upwaltham

infobox UK place
country = England
static_

static_image_caption=Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Upwaltham
latitude= 50.91526
longitude= -0.66016
official_name = Upwaltham
population =
shire_district= Chichester
shire_county= West Sussex
region= South East England
constituency_westminster= Chichester
post_town=
postcode_district =
postcode_area=
dial_code=
os_grid_reference= SU942137

Upwaltham is a hamlet and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex,England located 12 kilometres (8 miles) north east of Chichester on the A285 road. This small parish on the South Downs consists of a small Norman church and adjoining farmstead in an east-west aligned dry valley in the chalk. There are a few more houses at Benges where the A285 to Chichester leaves the valley. From Benges hill the parish extends south as far as the disused Roman road of Stane Street, in an area of open access woodland. The barns at Upwaltham Farm have been converted into a conference and wedding venue. The adjoining farmstead of Littleton Farm is only 2 Kilometres to the east in the same valley, but lies in Duncton parish.

The land area of the parish is 494.3 hectares (1221 Acres), with a population in the 2001 census of 25 people living in 10 households.

The church

The Norman church dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin is about nine hundred years old, and remains little altered in size and structure, although the windows are not original, some being medieval and some Victorian. The three foot (90 cm) thick walls are of stone and downland flint. In Norman style the church has a tall narrow nave and a rounded apse chancel for the alter. The original round Norman chancel arch, between nave and chancel, was replaced after about 100 years by a wider pointed arch. The south door was rebuilt when the church was about 200 years old, and the porch in the nineteenth century. The floor tiling is Victorian. The stone font at the west end of the nave is as old as the church. In the chancel there is a piscina, a small sink for washing communion vessels, which appears to be made from a reused Norman column capital [Jeremy Godwin, "The Church in the Field, A Guide to the Church" 1991 (Available at the church)] .

Parish records of births and deaths from 1592 are held by the West Sussex Record Office.

The ecclesiastical parish is now jointly run with Tillington and Duncton , the Rector living at Tillington.

References