Tortington: church and priory

Tortington Parish Church

Sandwiched between the partly 16th-century and Georgian Manor Farm and greatly enlarged farm buildings to the south, this church is one of great charm and interest, with a neat white-painted timber belfry at the west end. Norman, probably mid 12th-century in date, the little church had a south aisle added in the 13th century. Thankfully, the builders valued the ornately carved Norman south doorway sufficiently highly to re-use it. The aisle itself was rebuilt, and a south chapel added to the chancel around 1903, again re-using the Norman doorway.

The chancel arch is of great interest, its arch fringed with the Norman ‘beakhead’ ornament. Each arch stone is carved with grotesque bird and animal heads grasping a stone roll. At the top of the arch is a keystone, inserted in 1750 to prevent the arch collapsing due to the outward tilting walls. The font is also a Norman one, large and cup shaped, decorated with a frieze of arches on columns.

Tortington Priory

The priory was founded before 1200 as a house of Augustinian canons. It was never a big priory, and had the dubious distinction of being used as a place of banishment for disobedient canons, as well as for the recuperation of monks disabled by illness. One of the early priors was described unflatteringly in a papal bull issued in 1376. The Pope wrote, ‘on account of the evil rule of our beloved son John Palmere (the Prior) – if indeed he ought to be called beloved…’

Of the original priory only the north wall of the nave of the church remains, with blocked 13th-century windows and vaulting shafts, preserved by having been incorporated in a barn. The old fish ponds to the south remain as ornamental ones, much altered.

Park at the western end of Dallaway Road, near the footpath post by an electricity substation. Walk round the stile, follow the path through a wood and leave it on reaching a lane. Cross the lane to continue ahead, still in woodland. Soon reaching another lane cross it and pass a stile to continue ahead, now in hazel coppiced woodland. Cross a stream via a footbridge and, reaching a footpath post, bear left to the edge of the wood.

Out of the wood continue ahead across an arable field. At the trees continue ahead within the tree belt and leave it via a footbridge. Bear left along the field-edge, next going left at a footpath post along a farm track. Follow this track, which bends by barns.

Turn right along a road past Manor Farm Livery Stables and follow the lane, passing The Arundel Equine Hospital, then past a pillar box by Tortington Manor. After the manor go left at a footpath post, past a pond, to cross the lawns of Tortington Manor to another footpath guide post. Here bear right to enter the churchyard of St Mary Magdalene parish church via an iron gate between high gate piers.

After visiting this delightful little Norman church retrace your steps through the gateway and back to the lane. Here turn right along it as far as the pillar box and bear half right through a kissing gate. Continue quarter left across grass, cross the lawn to the signpost, and then cross the large arable field, aiming for the point on the far side where the overhead cables leave the field; Arundel Castle and Cathedral are visible far ahead.

At the far end of this huge arable field cross a footbridge and immediately bear right over another, then left up what can be a rather nettly path. To your right, but not particularly visible, are the medieval fishponds that supplied carp and other fish to the table of the canons of Tortington Priory. Continue to the road, passing the converted buildings of Priory Farm, now partly renamed ‘Brooklands’. At the lane bear right for about 50yds (46m).

Pause here and look right towards a thatched barn. This incorporates on its south wall the remaining part of Tortington Priory, the north wall of the nave. Retrace your steps and continue along the lane past Priory Farm Cottage. Reaching the woods bear right at the footpath signpost and through the wood back to the stile at Point 1