History
Standing in the Sussex Parish furthest from the sea and at 406 feet above sea level Rusper Church is at the highest point in West Sussex. You can almost smell the prayers that have ascended from this place of Christian worship over the centuries.
An outstanding modern East Window and pre Reformation brass memorials of note adorn an otherwise plain interior, and where else can you see Morris Men dance in church on May 1st?
Just over fifty years ago a fascinating document came into the hands of the then Rector. It was a medieval charter confirming the rights granted by local lord Reginald de Braose to a small group of Benedictine nuns who had been settled here since the 1100s, and gives us perhaps our first written hint to the history of this place, for unlike many ancient villages we cannot claim to have made our mark with an entry in the Domesday Book of 1086.
Be it known…that I Reginald de Braose have given…for the soul of my father and mother and of all my ancestors and successors…
The list of Rectors of Rusper goes back to around the time of Saint Richard of Chichester early in the second half of the 1200s, but the nunnery had been here since the previous century, so it is likely there was a church building in existence far earlier. There is evidence that early churches were often built on sites considered sacred in the pre-Christian era so we might imagine that the position of the ‘rough enclosure’ from which the name Rusper derives, already held some religious significance for the pagans who first lived here.
The nuns were powerful in local politics, though on occasion were heard to plead that they did not enjoy the wealth or trappings that befitted their station. Indeed it is recorded that Saint Richard of Chichester himself intervened on their behalf when they were short of grain. It may have been the saint himself who ordained our first recorded priest, for the name of William de Hortune, rector of Rusper occurs as witness on a charter regarding property in the parish of Beeding within twenty years of Richard’s death.
Photograph by Bob Jones
Memorials to the musical Broadwood family abound, the church having been rebuilt as a memorial to the patriarch of the piano making pioneers James Broadwood of Lyne House, Capel, just over the boundary in Surrey. James Broadwood’s father was apprenticed to a Swiss harpsichord maker in London by the name of Schudi. He married his master’s daughter and moved into making the new pianofortes at just the time to have the likes of Beethoven, Haydn and later Liszt and Chopin as customers of the family firm.
With the flag of England’s patron St George, flying for special occasions the massive tower is a fine example, with its heavy buttresses and battlements, of a perpendicular church tower of this late medieval period. Bells have rung from this tower during the reigns of at least twenty two monarchs, certainly since the reign of Elizabeth the First and six of the existing ones since 1699. The latest new Elizabethan bell was hallowed according to ancient custom in a service devised for the 21st century community on Saint George’s Day 2007 involving the children from the village school.
More than the ancient, even hallowed stones of the building, the saints, that is ordinary people chosen by God with all their imperfections, are the church.
During 2,000 years of faith some stand out. In 2003 the 750th anniversary of the death of Saint Richard the diocese of Chichester commissioned an icon of the saint for the cathedral, which was taken round the county and rested briefly here.
Dominating the East Window is the figure of the ascended Lord of Glory, The design of Gerald Smith it depicts village scenes of the four seasons, local flora and fauna and in particular over twenty different birds, all taking their part in the overall theme of the traditional canticle the Benedicite: ‘O All ye works of the Lord/Bless ye the Lord'
From the top of the tower in 1975 Stephen Nightingale, a visiting boy scout, fell 70ft but suffered only a broken arm, a popular opinion being that the prayers of the nuns buried immediately below intervened to save him!
A plaque at the base of the tower indicates the reburial of their remains, which had been disturbed by local rebuilding. Along with the nuns’ bones was unearthed a unique chalice. Now owned by the British Museum, it is the earliest surviving example of a decorated ‘Limoges’ chalice in the Western Church.
Reproduced from Sussex Archaeological Collections
A fine alabaster memorial on the west wall commemorates Lucy Broadwood
(1858-1929) Like her uncle the Revd John Broadwood Lucy was a pioneer in folklore research who recorded and preserved Sussex folk songs, plays and dances. Every May the First, since 1971 the Broadwood Morris Men, named in her honour, have placed a garland of fresh flowers on the memorial in a simple ceremony and since 2003 have danced in the church. Sussex folk singer of world renown, Bob Copper was filmed for television singing outside the church in 2002 for a programme broadcast on his 88th birthday.
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