Refurbishment sees church numbers growing
A special Choral Evensong service takes place at an ancient church in West Sussex at the end of this month (29th January) after a recent programme of improvements has seen the church congregation numbers continue to grow.
Fr Felix Smith is the vicar of five church buildings in Lancing and Sompting, known as Chalk Spring Churches. St Mary's the Blessed Virgin is the historic parish church of Sompting. It dates back over 1000 years and is famous all over the world for its Saxon tower.
Fr Felix explains the background to getting the church up and running again.
“Every time I drive past your church, I just pray that the tower hasn’t fallen down”! This isn’t the statement a Vicar wants to hear from their Architect just after taking on the care of a new church building. I’d met with the architect to discuss the issues with the building of St. Mary’s Sompting. We were in the midst of pastoral reorganisation, which would mean my role changing from being the Vicar of one parish and one church, to two parishes and five churches. One of my priorities was getting St. Mary’s Sompting up and running once again, as regular services hadn’t been held there for some time.
Yet, there were challenges: no heating, dampness, a lack of vestments, a crumbling lych-gate, and subsequently, we found asbestos in the building too – not to mention a lack of a congregation! My meeting with the architect was to work out the critical priorities for the building and what we could seek to accomplish first to make it a more welcoming church that could begin to grow.
St. Mary’s is an ancient church, and unique in the UK for having the only original Rhenish Helm tower (all the more reason for not wanting it to fall down!). It was a key church for the Knights Templar and subsequently the Order of St. John, and was an important stopping point on pilgrimage routes, and for knights on their way to the Crusades in the Holy Land. A huge amount of history, but what about the future?
Almost three years on from my meeting with the architect and St. Mary’s has a new heating system, asbestos has been removed, the lych-gate repaired and restored, we have a full set of vestments, and now – over the last few months – we’ve completed the next stage of development by re-painting the inside of the church and having all the stained-glass windows professionally cleaned. Not only that, but St. Mary’s now has a monthly Sunday Mass and occasional Choral Evensongs, which get regular attendances of around 25 and 60, respectively.
The repainting and cleaning will significantly improve the look of the building, and we’re looking forward to a grand reopening on the 29th of January at 5 pm for Choral Evensong. We’ll be joined by the Bishop of Horsham, Ruth Bushyager, who will be preaching for us, and we’ll celebrate with drinks afterwards.
We’re not stopping there, though, we have big plans for the stonework, new carpets, restoring the organ, a new kitchen, and more! There is an awful lot of work to be done to get this church back to its best. All the while, the congregation continues to grow, as they enjoy worshipping this warm and welcoming ancient church. And, thankfully, the tower is still standing!
Why not get to know this wonderful ancient church and join them on the 29th of January at 5pm? All welcome.
Chalk Spring Churches is a group of two Church of England parishes, Lancing with Coombes, and South Lancing and Sompting. Find out more here
Find out about fundraising for the Friends of St Mary's here