A building’s stones tell its story.  Simply by looking at a building you can learn a very great deal. Once you understand the language you can read different buildings, and gain an understanding of how they evolved.

The Virtual Tour of Amberley Church has two objectives:

• the first is to help you learn the language of buildings, by showing you how to look at one particular building interpret what you see there;
• the second is to provide more detail on what we actually know about this building.

Looking can tell you much, and answer many questions. But it will rarely answer all questions, and will — it should — normally raise more.  We shall try to answer as many questions as we are able to, given our present knowledge.  In each segment of the tour we supplement the discussion of what we see, by adding what we know.

St Michael’s has undergone many changes during its long, 900-year history. The church as you see it now is not what you would have seen when it was first built. But its evolution is visible. Its story is written on it and in it. Just by looking – and with just a little bit of knowledge about old churches – you will be able to understand a great deal about this building.  What you will learn here will help you look at other buildings and understand how they, too, evolved.

After taking this tour of Amberley Church we hope that you will be encouraged to look at other buildings, of whatever type or age, with a more enquiring eye.  We hope that you will be able to see and understand more clearly how other buildings have evolved in time.  And perhaps, if you have not already done so, you will visit St Michael’s and look at the features actually seen in the church rather than what are seen as photographs in this guide.

St Michael’s is the main church within the Wildbrooks Benefice, which also includes the medieval churches of St Mary the Virgin, North Stoke, St Peter’s, Parham, Greatham Church and Wigginholt Church.  These churches are all very different, and we would encourage you to visit them too, and try to read them using what you learn here. They are all within walking distance of Amberley and a few minutes by car.

NOTES:

We have not provided detailed descriptions of the carved stone-work in St Michael’s Church.  We recommend the following websites for more information about these carvings:

1. The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland (CRSBI): www.crsbi.ac.uk.
2. John Allen’s excellent site on Sussex Parish Churches: sussexparishchurches.org/product/amberley-st-michael/

Most terms which may be unfamiliar are shown underlined and are linked to the Glossary. Other terms with a dotted underline display tooltips showing more text.