Shipley - Mill and Church

22nd April 2006

King's Windmill, said to be the tallest in Sussex, was built in 1879 by Grist, millwright of Horsham. She is best known for her connections with Hillaire Belloc who owned her from 1906 to 1953, and for being the home of the fictional detective Jonathan Creek in the television series of the same name.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, within sight of the mill, is much older. Despite looking for all the world like a Saxon church, this building was in fact built in the 12th Century by the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, better known as the knights Templar, who held lands in the parish, and is a fine, in places little altered Early Norman Church.

			The church seen from the northwest
The West Door.	Column by the west door.	The tower.	The porch. The stone on the left is believed to be a Mediaeval Bollard which was placed in a basin of the River Adur, which until the mid 19th century was an important waterway.
Looking along the nave.	Plaque in the west wall.	The font	The North Aisle
The Pulpit	St Wilfrid	Black Marble Monument to Sir Charles Merrik Burrel, MP and builder of Knepp New Castle.	The Caryll Tomb.
Inscription on the Caryll tomb.	Here lyeth the body of Mr. Iohn Hindly, who was servant to the Lord Molinnvx, who departed this life on the 15th of October in the year of Ovr Lord 1675	Traces of wall painting in the nave	Looking back along the nave from the tower.
Window in the tower