St Anne's Churchyard - High Street, Lewes, UK
N 50° 52.338 E 000° 00.137
31U E 289094 N 5639906
St Anne's church is surrounded by its churchyard with the majority of graves being located south of the church on a hillside. The co-ordinates are for the Lych gate that is to the east of the church close to Lewes High Street.
Waymark Code: WMV0M3
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/03/2017
Views: 1
There is somewhere in the region (estimate) of 400 graves in the churchyard. Due to the churchyard's rural location the gravestones have not deteriorated due to traffic and industrial pollution making the headstones easier to read. The churchyard is still in use for burials and one of the older gravestones is inscribed:
In loving memory
of
Henry Arthur
son of
Henry and Frances Dartnell,
who was killed by accident
at Seaford October 16th 1906,
aged 20 years.
At rest
The church's website tells us:
It is the oldest church remaining in Lewes, and is remarkable for its size and magnificence in what was until 1538 a very small parish. The association with St Anne suggests that it may have become a centre of pilgrimage, paid for by offerings at the healing well. It was part of the endowment given by Earl William II de Warenne about 1095 to the Cluniac Priory of St Pancras. The oldest parts, built in the early twelfth century, are the tower (with corbels in the form of grotesque gargoyles), the nave and the south chapel, though the exterior of the nave was much altered in Victorian times.