St John the Baptist's Church, Westbourne

St John the Baptist’s Church stands in the quiet village of Westbourne, West Sussex, beside a graveyard closed to new burials since the 19th century. The building began as early 13th-century work and grew through later centuries, with a tower added in the 16th century and a spire in the 18th. Nikolaus Pevsner once criticised a 19th-century restoration that removed box pews and flat ceilings. The church’s Avenue of Yew Trees, planted in 1545, is thought to be Britain’s oldest. The church is worth visiting for its layered history and the people who shaped it. The 6th Earl of Arundel enlarged the nave and aisles in the late 14th century, while the 11th Earl refashioned it in the early 16th-century Perpendicular style. The 2nd Earl of Halifax added the spire in 1770, and later restorers included Philip Mainwaring Johnston in the 1930s. The organ has been rebuilt several times, most recently by Kenneth Tickell in 2001. Inside, tall slender pillars support a Gothic nave, and the chancel holds modern stained glass set between 1865 and 1912. The tower contains eight bells, rung for Sunday services, with the heaviest weighing almost half a ton. Services follow the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship, and a junior choir sings regularly. Outside, the ancient yew avenue frames the churchyard wall, still lined with its original stone.