There are a few tantalising mysteries surrounding the picture-perfect little church of Burton, West Sussex. But when you visit you are left in no doubt that the residents of the big house, rarefied Burton Park, would prefer that you didn’t find it all.
The current Burton Park house dates from the first half of the 19th century and has since been carved into flats. It makes the little flint church look even more charming and dinky by comparison.
In The Buildings of England (Pevsner) Ian Nairn described the house as “very much a young man’s folly. Determinedly Grecian with all kinds of ornamental tricks. Unhappily, and perhaps inevitably, a rather heartless building also.”
The church is most probably a Norman foundation (1075) but has been sympathetically kept and restored. Its original dedication is unknown but it was named now for St. Richard of Chichester in 2003. The village has been known variously as Bodecton or Bodeton over the centuries and shouldn’t be confused with West Burton down towards Amberley. The estate was the home of the Goring family and their descendants for hundreds of years until the turn of the 20th century.
There’s no village now but with a Roman villa at Bignor a few miles away and a Roman hypocaust located at Duncton, which is even closer, demonsterates that the area has been settled for many centuries. And the mysterious discovery in the parkland of (what is believed to have been) an elephant skeleton in the 18th century just serves to get the imagination going about what might have happened here in the past.
There are some lovely memorials inside the church as well as an unusual Charles I crest, the Ten Commandments and the lovely rood screen. Another Burton mystery comes in the form of a flame-haired figure painted on the wall being crucified upside-down. Opinion is divided on who or what it depicts.
On our visit we were challenged by residents asking what we were doing there, and who we were visiting. But don’t be deterred by the unfriendly residents or the Private Road sign. The house and formal gardens may be for their exclusive use and not open to the public but the parkland is completely and legally accessible with established public rights of way. The church is usually open during daylight hours.
