A large cruciform church started around 1380. The parish uses the nave and transepts and the chancel is the funerary chapel of the Dukes of Norfolk. There is a C15 stone pulpit and in the chapel the monuments and brasses date from the C15 to the present.
Introduction
Arundel is dominated by its castle and the Roman Catholic cathedral. The cathedral is C19 and the castle is a recreation of a mediaeval original from the same period. It is easy to overlook the tower of the parish church between them, though in Hollar’s engraving of 1642 the lack of the cathedral means that it is more prominent. There is likely to have been a minster here before the Conquest, but the town only grew up after this around Roger de Montgomery’s castle, replacing Burpham over the river as the main settlement. Montgomery founded a priory as a dependency of Sées in Normandy. The early C19 buildings south of the church, called The Priory, occupy the site of the conventual buildings – some walling could be old and a round-eaded doorway and C11 or C12 stones, some with diaperwork, were found in 1847.
Most alien houses were small and the priory shared a church with the parish; it held the rectory from 1178. After a precarious existence, it was dissolved by Richard II in 1379. The 4th Earl of Arundel founded in the following year a college of secular priests in its place to serve as a burial place for his family, allegedly with plunder from the French wars. A new church, in place of one said in 1349 to be in poor repair, was started soon after the foundation, with conventual buildings larger than those of the priory. The parish occupied the nave and transepts, whilst the chancel served the college. This was dissolved in 1544, when the buildings passed to the Earls and later Dukes of Norfolk and the chancel became their private property. The Norfolks with few exceptions remained Roman Catholics, so the Fitzalan Chapel, as the chancel is known, remains separate; this may be the only surviving example of the mediaeval practice of two ecclesiastical foundations under one roof. In 1879 the then vicar, unhappy at what he saw as Roman Catholic triumphalism, fought a lawsuit, claiming the chapel for the parish church, but lost. As a consequence, a crude brick wall, on which Mee commented adversely, separated the two for 90 years until replaced by the present glazed partition.
Both parts were started about 1380. John Harvey identified several possible masons, including Henry Yevele, the king’s master mason, but without documentary evidence no more can be concluded than that the mason responsible was almost certainly not local and probably close to the court, although much of the work is surprisingly plain. Though of one build, it is easier to treat the church in two parts.
Parish Church
Despite the apparently homogenous build of the church, it contains evidence of its predecessor. The materials are flint and stone and much re-used stone is embedded in the walls, including what has been identified as Purbeck marble, with Caen and Quarr stone as well. This confirms that the earlier church was of some consequence and one fragment with dogtooth moulding suggests it included late C12 work. The relatively shallow transepts and the restrained central tower appear integral parts of the church as conceived in the late C14. However, there are grounds for suspecting that neither feature is quite as might be assumed. As regards the transepts David Parsons, in view of the fact that they are barely longer than the breadth of the aisles, has suggested that the previous church was also cruciform and that at least the dimensions of the present transepts survive from this. That seems plausible, but his suggestion that the tower is also in part at least a survival from this early period is open to doubt. Noting the discrepancies in its construction, he suggests that the earlier fabric was retained and that new openings were inserted in it. In that case, it seems surprising that there is no trace of earlier work in the crossing arches beneath, which are all C14. A possible way to establish whether there is in fact any old work in the tower itself would be by careful examination of its inside. In the absence of this, it seems more probable that the tower is different because it was probably the last part of the church to be built. This need not have been until some time later and a possible clue is provided by a bequest in 1509 towards its ’bielding’. Though this could refer to repairs, the detail would be consistent with this date – both short stages have two-light openings under segmental heads and a low, leaded spire behind a plain parapet.
The late C14 aisles also have parapets, with mostly renewed gargoyles, and the aisle and transept windows have panelled tracery. There are west and south porches, the latter with a stone roof – though not old, an undated engraving in the church shows it is a faithful copy. There is also a plain wooden north porch, which is at least partly original. All doorways have square hoodmoulds with coarsely carved spandrels and the clerestory openings are encircled quatrefoils. The spacious nave has five-bay arcades. The piers, four shafts and four hollows in section, are more complex than most of the scarce late C14 work in Sussex and the crossing piers are similar but more so. They show masons’ marks and possibly C16 graffiti. Also unusual for Sussex, though frequent in East Anglia, are the chamfered wall-arches containing the aisle windows.
The east crossing-arch is set in a larger one and has always contained a screen. To its north, are the upper and lower entrances to the rood-stair and the corbels for the beam remain. The altar was in the south transept, which was possibly less inconvenient when the congregation gathered around the table for communion. This arrangement lasted until 1874, along with the galleries in the aisles, possibly inserted in 1810.
The re-arrangement of 1874 was part of Sir George G Scott’s restoration, which cost over £6000 but was generally faithful. Though the roofs have been replaced, this work may not have been done in 1874. It is known that in 1893 the nave roof was in a dangerous state and after J O Scott had been consulted, £1058 were spent under G H F Prynne; whatever their date, the present low pitched roofs with traceried spandrels beneath the tiebeams are likely to be accurate, at least in form. In the 1970s a pavilion-like structure was inserted into the west end of each aisle, comprising meeting rooms beneath a gallery.