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St George's Church is an Anglican church in the village of Eastergate in West Sussex, England. It is the ancient parish church of Eastergate, although since 1992 it has been administered as part of a joint ecclesiastical parish with the churches in neighbouring Barnham and Aldingbourne. As part of this group, the building is still in regular use for worship on Sundays and weekdays. Eastergate village school has links with the church, and pupils regularly attend services. There is historic and structural evidence of a Saxon place of worship on the site, and some 11th-century work survives in the chancel, but the present appearance of the church is mostly 13th-century. It was then restored in the Victorian era, and some further rebuilding work was undertaken in the 20th century. The "long, straggling village" of Eastergate is administratively located in the district of Arun, one of seven local government districts in West Sussex. The church is in a rural situation south of the village street; it is approached through a farmyard next to the manor house, and a "magnificent" Elizabethan granary building that was originally part of the farm has been used by the church for various purposes since the 1970s. English Heritage has listed both buildings for their architectural and historical importance: St George's Church at Grade II *, and the former granary at the lower Grade II. ==History== In its earliest form, the parish of Eastergate covered of flat, flood-prone land on the Sussex coastal plain, about northeast of the modern seaside resort of Bognor Regis and a similar distance southwest of the ancient town of Arundel. Romans apparently occupied the area, and may have established a villa near the modern village.〔 A church in the parish was recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086; it was near the western edge of the parish, so St Mary the Virgin's Church at Barnham was more convenient for some parishioners, and likewise some residents of the neighbouring parish of Aldingbourne worshipped at Eastergate.〔 By the following year, it was associated with the Norman Abbey of Séez, whose other holdings in the area included the manors of Atherington (with Bailiffscourt Chapel) and Littlehampton. The present building was started around the time of the Norman conquest of England. Several church historians have come to different conclusions about its origins: it has been suggested that the chancel is Saxon, that the whole building is the one recorded in the ''Domesday Book'', that it is "possibly pre-Conquest", or that (per Gerard Baldwin Brown) it dates from "within 50 years of the Norman conquest" and lacks any "distinctive Saxon features".〔 An ancient surviving feature is the herringbone pattern masonry in the south wall of the chancel: this extends to about and is up to thick.〔 Some more herringbone brickwork, now covered up, exists in the south wall of the nave. Much Roman brickwork has been reused, both in the herringbone work and in the form of a course of long bricks in the south wall of the chancel.〔〔 Again, sources disagree as to whether this reuse of old material is a late Saxon〔 or early Norman feature.〔 Elsewhere, only one window survives from the church's earliest times: a "primitive" narrow opening in the north wall of the chancel.〔 The nave in its present form dates from the 13th and 14th centuries: no features remain from the original structure.〔 There is a wide range of medieval windows throughout, ranging from 14th-century openings in the nave and Early English Gothic lancets in the chancel to a 15th-century Perpendicular Gothic east window in the chancel and an arched window of 1534 in the west wall.〔〔〔 The church was re-roofed internally in two stages: the nave in the 16th century (it was given a crown post roof), and the chancel in the following century.〔 A structural survey in 1776 indicated that the chancel was deteriorating but the nave was sound. The first round of Victorian restoration came in 1856, when a gallery was inserted; the chancel was rebuilt and heightened between 1876 and 1877; and in 1883 the nave was altered, a vestry was added, the gallery was taken out and a wooden bell-turret was built at the west end of the building.〔 Nikolaus Pevsner stated that after this work, the church was "too heavily restored to be attractive",〔 and others have noted that the present appearance of the church is derived mostly from its 19th-century modifications.〔 Later work included the replacement of the Victorian vestry with a new equivalent in the 1920s,〔 the replacement of some stained glass and internal fittings around the same time, and the provision of modern facilities including a "welcome area" near the entrance, toilets, kitchen facilities, new heating and better lighting in 2000.〔 A modern wooden sculpture of Saint George has also been provided, and a late-20th-century tapestry commemorates the history of Eastergate parish and the church.〔 It makes reference to the ''Domesday Book'' entry for the village, which uses its original name of ''Gate''.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「St George's Church, Eastergate」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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