All Saints Church, Patcham

All Saints, Patcham
The church from the southeast
50°51′59.77″N 0°9′2.54″W / 50.8666028°N 0.1507056°W / 50.8666028; -0.1507056Coordinates: 50°51′59.77″N 0°9′2.54″W / 50.8666028°N 0.1507056°W / 50.8666028; -0.1507056
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Open Evangelical
Website	www.allsaintspatcham.org.uk
History
Dedication	All Saints
Administration
Parish	Patcham, All Saints
Deanery	Rural Deanery of Brighton
Archdeaconry	Chichester
Diocese	Chichester
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Vicar(s)	Rev. A Flowerday

All Saints Church is the Anglican parish church of Patcham, an ancient Sussex village which is now part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. A place of worship has existed on the hilltop site for about 1,000 years, but the present building has Norman internal features and a 13th-century exterior. Several rounds of restoration in the Victorian era included some structural additions. A wide range of monuments and wall paintings survive inside, including one commemorating Richard Shelley—owner of nearby Patcham Place and one of the most important noblemen in the early history of Brighton. The church, which is Grade II* listed, continues to serve as the Anglican place of worship for residents of Patcham, which 20th-century residential development has transformed from a vast rural parish into a large outer suburb of Brighton.

Patcham's first church served a large rural area north of the fishing village of Brighthelmston—the ancient predecessor of Brighton. A nucleated settlement developed around this building, which was reconstructed during the Norman era. A wide-ranging series of alterations were carried out by Victorian church restorers to improve the building's structural condition and provide more space to cater for the growing population. As Patcham developed into a suburb in the 20th century, more churches opened in the area and were administered from All Saints Church. The building's plain exterior contrasts with its well-preserved and, in parts, ancient interior whose features include wall paintings and stone memorials. The churchyard has a set of Grade II-listed tombs.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the area now covered by the county of Sussex was reached by Saxon forces in 477. Within a few years, they controlled land along the English Channel coast as far as Pevensey. By the 10th century, the Kingdom of the South Saxons was fully established; its boundaries match those of the present county. The area was divided into smaller administrative areas called hundreds. Patcham and its neighbouring village of Preston were part of Preston Hundred, one of four hundreds covering present-day Brighton and Hove. The lowest administrative level was the parish, based around a church. The parish of Patcham was recorded (under the name Piceham) at the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, by which time a church existed at the centre of a small village on a spur of land near the top of the South Downs. The parish, which covered 4,325 acres (1,750 ha), was unusually large, and its 11th-century population of about 1,750 was one of the largest for any Sussex parish.William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, who held most of the land in the local hundreds, owned the manor. The area around the church gradually became the centre of population within the parish, and a village developed on the hillside leading up to the church, east of the modern London Road.