Albourne, Sussex

Having taken the eldest son back to Brighton Uni I decided to visit Hurstpierpoint on the way home as I had a vague feeling that there was a family connection here. Unfortunately a wedding was in progress so I failed to gain access but a quick search on Flickr means a re-visit in June is definitely on the cards.

On the way back to the A23 and home I stopped at Albourne, for no other reason than I could, and visited the disappointing Victorian re-built St Bartholomew. Sadly it was locked so I missed the Norman chancel arch and old stalls.

It has to be said though that this is a truly beautiful area even if it is littered with Victorian re-built churches.

 

Albourne. Its lonely church has been rebuilt with flint, but it has kept its Norman arch, magnificent with its carving of chevrons, its 14th-century bell, and the 13th-century arch enclosing the altar. It has the smallest chancel for miles around, and has some old stalls and a plain east window.

The great house is Albourne Place, once the home of the Juxons. Bishop Juxon who attended Charles I on the scaffold stayed here with his brother in the Civil War, and is said to have saved himself from Cromwell’s men by seizing a trowel as they passed by and pretending to be a bricklayer.

In Albourne village there is a farmhouse, with fine herringbone brickwork, in which was born James Stanley the inventor of the tricycle and of a number of improvements in the manufacture of the bicycle.

Flickr.