Holy Innocents Church, Southwater

Holy Innocents Church stands in the village of Southwater, West Sussex, a place once made up of scattered farms. Built in 1849, it is an almost entirely Victorian building with a cross-shaped floor plan. The walls are mostly of local Horsham Stone, quarried nearby at Stammerham, Great House Farm and St Leonard’s Forest. Inside, the church holds many stained glass windows, including six in the north aisle that show the history of Christ’s Hospital, designed by Harold Thompson in 1986. The church’s name comes from the early deaths of three Fletcher children, a family who owned much of the land and gave the site for the building. Its foundation stone was laid on 28 December 1848, the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, and it was consecrated by the Bishop of Chichester in June 1850. The first vicar, Arthur Dendy, arrived in 1853, and the original vicarage was built the following year. Today the church serves a larger community than when it was first built. Visitors find a church much as it was in the 19th century, with only a small vestry added in 1909. The grounds include the church, graveyards, a house, a church room and a Scout and Guide hut. The stained glass windows on the south and east walls date from the 19th century, while the building itself is Grade II listed for its stone rubble walls, ashlar dressings and tiled roof. A Record of Church Furnishings, published in 2013, is kept in the church for public reference.