St Peter's Church, Selsey

St Peter's Church
The church from the south–southeast
50°44′13″N 0°47′18″W / 50.7369°N 0.7884°W / 50.7369; -0.7884
Location	High Street/St Peter's Crescent, Selsey, West Sussex, PO20 0NP
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Website	http://www.stpetersselsey.com
History
Founded	13th century
Dedication	St Peter
Architecture
Status	Parish church
Functional status	Active
Style	Norman with Victorian Chancel
Administration
Parish	Selsey
Deanery	Chichester
Archdeaconry	Chichester
Diocese	Chichester
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Priest(s)	Fr Andy Wilkes (from 22.7.15)

St Peter's Church is the Parish Church of Selsey, West Sussex and dates from the 13th century. The Church building was originally situated at the location of St Wilfrid's first monastery and cathedral at Church Norton some 2 miles north of the present centre of population.

The church was at Church Norton until 1864, and at that date it consisted of two arcades of three bays each between the nave and the aisles, of the late 12th century; it had barely been finished when it was decided to lengthen the church by one bay westward. The chancel was of slightly later date, early 13th century. The date when the tower was begun is unknown. A sacristy or flanking chapel on the north of the chancel had disappeared before the 19th century.

The chancel (which still remains at Church Norton) has clasping buttresses at each east corner, a small buttress (apparently modern) near the west end of the north wall, and buttresses (the remains of the east walls of the aisles) to north and south of the west wall.

The east window is of three trefoil-headed lights with Perpendicular tracery, perhaps late 14th century; the rear-arch may be that of a former lancet triplet.

In the south wall are two pointed-headed niches with chamfered arrises, the eastern is now a credence, the western a piscina; though the style of these suggests a later date than the 13th century the original moulded string-course which runs round the south, east, and north sides of the chancel rises to clear them. Next are two 13th-century lancets with segmental rear-arches, and a priest's doorway with plain pointed exterior arch, 13th century but much repaired with cement, and segmental rear-arch; this is now blocked externally, and its recess serves as a cupboard. Next is a two-light window without tracery, the lights having semicircular heads, perhaps a 17th-century enlargement to light a reading-desk, the inner part of the splay and the rear-arch being those of a 13th-century lancet.

In the north wall are two lancets like those in the south; perhaps a third, now blocked, exists west of them. On the outside of this wall there is a weather-mould where the roof of a building adjoined it on the north.

By the middle of the 19th century the population had drifted away to Sutton (modern day Selsey), largely because of coastal erosion. It was therefore decided to move the church to the new centre of population. In 1864–66 the church was dismantled stone by stone and re-erected in its present position, only the chancel remaining at Church Norton. This is now styled St Wilfrid's Chapel, and is in the care of a national charity, the Churches Conservation Trust. A new Victorian chancel was added to the re-erected mediaeval nave.