St Mary's Church, Slaugham

St Mary's Church
The church from the north
51°02′18″N 0°12′29″W / 51.0383°N 0.2080°W / 51.0383; -0.2080Coordinates: 51°02′18″N 0°12′29″W / 51.0383°N 0.2080°W / 51.0383; -0.2080
Location	The Green, Slaugham, West Sussex RH17 6AG
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Tradition	Open Evangelical
Website	www.stmarysparish.org.uk
History
Founded	12th century
Dedication	Mary
Architecture
Status	Parish church
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II*
Designated	10 September 1951
Style	English Gothic
Administration
Parish	Slaugham
Deanery	Rural Deanery of Cuckfield
Archdeaconry	Horsham
Diocese	Chichester
Province	Canterbury

St Mary's Church is an Anglican church in the village of Slaugham in Mid Sussex, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. The 12th- and 13th-century church, restored in the Victorian era, serves a large rural area of the Sussex Weald, covering three villages (each with current or former chapels of ease of their own) as well as the ancient settlement of Slaugham. It also controlled the church in the market town of Crawley—now one of the area's largest towns—for the first few centuries of its existence. A locally important family built a private chapel in the church in the 17th century, and a series of memorials to deceased family members are considered to be excellent examples of their type. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance.

By the time of the Norman Conquest, the historic county of Sussex was divided into six areas called rapes, each based on a town with a castle. One such division was the Rape of Lewes, which covered a large part of eastern and central Sussex bounded (clockwise from the north) by Surrey, the Rape of Pevensey, the English Channel coast and the Rape of Bramber. The parish of Slaugham, long from north to south but narrow, followed the western boundary of the rape for a long distance. Its manor and village existed in the 11th century: although not mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086, it was held by William de Warenne's Lewes Priory by 1098 (and possibly from as early as 1091), in common with many manors and estates in central Sussex.