About

Reputedly the oldest wooden church in the world dating from the 11th century. The wooden walls of this tiny church were already standing when William the Conqueror landed at Hastings in 1066. They are made from split tree trunks smoothed by the adze and one thousand years of prayer. Specialists call this structure 'stave-built' and it even attracts visitors from Norway, where there are many wooden churches but none so old. Tradition has it that the body of martyred St Edmund, King of the East Angles, rested here on its final journey in 870 AD. Certainly there are the traces of earlier foundations beneath the present ones.

The brickwork of the chancel and sanctuary is from Tudor times, and the tower from the 17th century. The ancient grave slab on the right of the porch is thought to mark a crusader's grave.