Easy to miss but hard to forget, Slindon in West Sussex sits just south of the South Downs, roughly midway between Arundel and Chichester. It has chocolate-box pretty flint stone cottages and walls, elegant red-brick houses, winding lanes and magnificent parkland in a setting that has changed remarkably little over the centuries. Much of the village and surrounding estate is now cared for by the National Trust, its distinctive dark red-painted gates, doors and windows providing a subtle reminder that this is still very much an estate village.
In summer, hollyhocks drip over village walls and butterflies set the pace of life. Slindon has a heady sleepiness about it, and yet it’s also a place of Roman roads, Bronze Age burial mounds, follies, medieval archbishops, hidden Catholic worship, cricket and one of Sussex’s greatest writers.
Sitting on the edge of the bay
Around half a million years ago, Slindon stood on cliffs overlooking a broad bay stretching from present-day Arundel to Chichester. Much later, Bronze Age communities left burial mounds on nearby Bignor Hill, while just north of the village runs Stane Street, the Roman road linking London with Chichester.
The bishops and religion
The village first appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, by which time it had already long been part of the extensive Sussex estates of the Archbishops of Canterbury. At the heart of the village stands St Mary’s Church, where parts of the present building date back to the Norman period. What began as a small 11th-century church gradually evolved through the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, with further additions probably made during the 16th century.
Inside, the church’s 13th-century font welcomes you, while a recumbent wooden effigy of Sir Anthony St Leger, the only surviving medieval wooden effigy of its kind in Sussex, sleeps quietly in the corner. Elsewhere, there is a striking organ, 19th-century red rose tile mosaic reredos and in the churchyard, several notable and unusual trees.
Slindon House
Slindon House dominates the north-west corner of the village. One of its most famous occupants was Stephen Langton, the Archbishop whose support helped bring about Magna Carta in 1215. He died at Slindon in 1228 and is commemorated in St Mary’s Church. The present house was largely rebuilt during the Elizabethan period, while for more than 300 years a secret chapel within the house allowed Roman Catholic Mass to continue through times of religious persecution. In 1865, an impressive flint stone Catholic church was built opposite.
Follies, forges, hidden tunnels and lock ups
In the early 19th century, Anne, Countess of Newburgh, commissioned the building of Nore Folly, also known as Slindon Folly on the slopes of the Downs opposite the village. Legend has it she would travel there in a four-horse wagonette to enjoy tea with a view. And it is quite a view! Local tradition also credits the project with providing valuable employment during the economic hardship that followed the Napoleonic Wars.
A century later, Frederick Wotton-Isaacson transformed Slindon House once again, substantially rebuilding it between 1914 and 1917. Having no direct heirs, he later left the house, parkland and much of the surrounding estate to the National Trust. Since the 1970s the house has served a succession of educational establishments and is now home to Slindon College.
The local and lovingly restored 19th century forge now serves as a village shop and café, while along Dyers Lane stands a tiny flint lock-up dating from 1805 is where the parish constable once confined local troublemakers overnight. Local folklore allso tells of smugglers passing through and a secret tunnel leading all the way to Yapton, although no evidence has ever been found. If that’s not enough, almost every house name hints at an interesting story or past.
Cricket and soldiers
Slindon also played its part during both World Wars. During WWI, the village hosted a convalescent hospital for wounded officers as well as an airship station. In WWII, Canadian troops were stationed nearby, while Gumber Farm became a decoy airfield designed to divert enemy bombers away from RAF Tangmere. Even today, Soldier Wood on Slindon Common preserves the memory of those wartime years although it is hard to imagine the hustle, bustle, noise and activity of that time.
Another of Slindon’s many claims to fame is cricket. By the mid-18th century, the village had become one of the country’s leading centres for the game. Under the patronage of the Duke of Richmond at nearby Goodwood, the celebrated Slindon team featured Richard Newland, one of the finest cricketers of his generation, whose memorial can be seen in St Mary’s Church. The village is widely regarded as home to one of the oldest cricket clubs in continuous existence.
Poets and great aunts
Finally came Hilaire Belloc who arrived in Slindon in 1878 as a young boy with his mother and sister after a difficult start in life. Although he later moved away before eventually settling at King’s Land in Shipley, it was here that his lifelong affection for the Sussex landscape first took root. Walking through the quiet lanes today, it is easy to imagine how this peaceful village shaped the imagination of one of the county’s greatest writers. It was this which drew me to Slindon along with the question: what was it about this village that shaped Hilaire Belloc? In the end, it was not a hard question to answer.
But I also had another agenda. More than a century ago, my great-aunt began a new chapter of her life here. I never knew her, but what I do know is that she married in St Mary’s Church, rather more pregnant than Edwardian society would have considered respectable, before making her home on Slindon Common.
I spent some time in St Mary’s. From the outside it is everything you hope for in a Sussex village church: ancient, welcoming and quietly beautiful. Inside, however, it feels unexpectedly grand, almost intimidating. Sitting first in the church and then in the churchyard beneath its beautiful porch, I found myself wondering what my great-aunt had felt as she walked through that same doorway. Was she excited? Frightened? Ashamed? Hopeful? Did she know what sort of life lay ahead? I know that her father attended the wedding, and I wondered whether my grandmother—then just seven years old—was there too, watching her older sister begin a life she could scarcely imagine.
Later I drove the couple of miles to Slindon Common and found the cottage where my great-aunt lived, overlooking Soldier Wood. She would have witnessed so much from here. WWI, the convalescent hospital, soldiers moving through the woods, and the extraordinary changes that swept across the countryside during her lifetime and now have all but disappeared from view. And it is entirely possible that my great-aunt and Hilaire Belloc crossed paths, each on their own way to ther respective places of worship. Him, the great poet. Her, the humble housewife.
There is something about Slindon that is difficult to explain but impossible to ignore. Its silence is almost heady. Apart from the gentle hum of bees, the flutter of butterflies and birdsong drifting across the fields, there is remarkably little to disturb the peace. Occasionally an aircraft passes overhead, but otherwise the village remains sleepy, tranquil and effortlessly beautiful. But despite all the great and important that have called it home, perhaps the real story here is the lives of the extraordinary ordinary people living unnoticed in a timeless village.
If you have enjoyed this article about Slindon, you may also like:
