History cont...
Two outstanding memorial brasses can be seen in the chancel The first, which is dated about 1380, records in Norman French
“John de Kyggesfolde et Agneys sa feme gisount icy, dieu de lo’almes est m’ce”
(John of Kingsfold and Agnes his wife lie here. God have mercy on their souls).
This is one of the earliest examples of an inscription in Norman French rather than in Latin. There are records to show that in1326 John of Kingsfold and Agnes bought a messuage (dwelling house) and virgate of land (about 30 acres) in Rusper. The clothes worn by John are the high buttoned jacket with tippet and hood worn by the ordinary yeoman at the end of the 14th Century and Agnes wears a simple veiled headdress.
Interestingly, the arrangement of these figures was reversed when they were removed from the stone in which they were originally set, as can be seen from the outline remaining in the stone which lies in the floor of the tower. A second brass dated 1532 is to Thomas Challoner and his wife Margaret of Porters Farm, Friday Street. The boy below is presumably their son.
The very striking carved Royal arms above the western arch are those of George 1st Modern Rusper has celebrated royal events in style, among them street parties for the Jubilees of 1977 and 2003.
The Churchyard is bounded by a wooden fence and a list of ‘church marks’ relates to the maintenance of the fence by the owners or occupiers of the main houses in the parish. This custom, which applied also in a number of other Sussex parishes, lasted well into the 19th Century
In an almost forgotten corner of the churchyard a matching pair of headstones point to a mystery just beyond living memory. The Reverend Roger Edgeworth had been rector here 12 years and was aged 58 in 1908 when he married the daughter of his churchwarden George Coldham Knight, a woman almost half his age. A board in the church commemorates the celebratory peal of the bells to mark the happy occasion and a window celebrates the 50th anniversary of his parents in law the following year. George and Amelia’s celebration must have been bittersweet for their daughter had died only a month after her wedding to the rector.
In more recent years the churchyard has on a number of occasions become a backdrop to a regular summer event known as ‘Art in the Churchyard,’ which has seen local artists at work and paintings on display at the church inside and out.
Heading the names listed on the war memorial is that of Herbert Adams, headmaster of the village school at the time the First World War broke out. Like that in any village the stories behind these names are a witness to the impact of the world wars on small communities, and some of those relating to Rusper were able to be recorded for posterity while still in living memory in a booklet ‘The Men Who Marched Away’ . In 2007 the custom of reading theses names in full was restored to the Act of Remembrance on Armistice Sunday.
Officiating at the dedication of the memorial with the then Rural Dean is the Rector Edward Synnott whose book about his experiences in Rusper brought national notoriety to the village. Synnott was an outspoken Northern Irishman who clashed with a number of people from his arrival here in 1914. Disagreements culminated in his appearing before the Church Consistory Court in 1919, being cleared of all charges and remaining for a further 15 years. It would be a great pity if scandal and rumour are what our clergy are most remembered for especially as both before and since others have left a far more positive mark.
John Wood, for example is remembered on his memorial as “very easy in his demands for tithes’ as well as being “punctual in his discharge of his priestly office”. His nephew Peter Wood was Rector of Rusper for an astonishing sixty one years so that he and his uncle between them were responsible for the parish for over a century. Peter resided in the parish of Broadwater of which he was also rector. His portrait makes it easy to imagine him stoutly confronting an angry mob during the agricultural riots of the 1830s, convincing them of his sympathy and persuading magistrates not to bring charges for riotous assembly, but ensuring his own interests in seeing that they did not achieve a reduction in tithes, which had been one of their objectives.
To the left of the south door is a window in a wooden frame. it was originally installed in the Church of St Luke, Southampton, in memory of James Trevaskis DD, Vicar of the parish of St Luke from 1899 to 1925. His son was rector of Rusper from 1934 to 1948. Hugh Trevaskis OBE (pictured left) followed Edward Synnott. He was a brilliant classicist and mathematician, who devoted 25 years to the Indian civil service before ordination. This qualified him to write among his five published book a history of the Punjab. He is not recalled as a typical intellectual however, but more as a pastor and unlike his predecessor one who though a fine preacher did not take himself too seriously. He sometimes clashed with the redoubtable Lady de la Rue nicknamed ‘Lady Hullaballoo’ a formidable campaigner in a number of causes, remembered for taking her demands for supplying water to the village to the government Minister of Health in person.
Among the curates who looked after Rusper during Peter’s incumbency, one – Thomas Smith, devoted almost half his short life to the parish and as his memorial tablet shows won the affection of his parishioners. His surviving pocketbook is a fund of information about the village and inhabitants . In 1853 Peter Wood as a newspaper obituary curiously put it “ceased to live” setting in motion the appointment of his then curate Henry Gore in his place and the rebuilding of the church. Of Henry Gore, Lucy Broadwood wrote that “he had stepped straight out of the 18th century”, in the days when the singing was unaccompanied “having announced the number of the hymn old Mr Gore started it (in any key that came uppermost in his mind) in a very piercing nasal tone like that of a bagpipe…the effect was very amusing!”
photograph from Church Times
In 1996 a Rector of Rusper made history by being the first priest on retirement to become a Chelsea pensioner. Eric Passingham, who is still remembered with great affection in the village took his place at Chelsea on the strength of his pre ordination career as an officer in the Royal Engineers.
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