SUSSEX IMAGE LIBRARY - MANAGED BY PPL PHOTO AGENCY - COPYRIGHT FREE The village church at Horsted Keynes, West Sussex. PHOTO CREDIT: Iain McGowan/WSCC/PPL TEL: +44 (0)1243 555561 FAX: +44 (0)1243 555562 *** Local Caption *** The church of St Giles is 900 years old and has recently been refurbished. The site of the church was originally probably a dolmen circle. Christian missionaries often had churches built on sites of pagan temples and that may have happened here. There are signs of an early Saxon church but the church as we see it now is a Norman one. The orientation of the church is not east and west as is usual, but nearer north-east and south-west, only a couple of degrees different from Stonehenge. It probably follows that of the pagan temple. High ground to the east would make sunrise a little later than the more level area of Salisbury Plain. At the time when the people of the settlement adopted Christianity it is likely that the village was a collection of wooden framed, thatched Saxon huts where the school is now. The church may have been wooden with a thatched roof. There is some evidence of some of the stonework in the tower and also one of the doorways is of Saxon date. After 1066 the Normans took over and built semi-circular arches. The remains of Norman windows can be found on the south wall of the nave. The Norman church was of cruciform plan (a cross) with a central tower and transepts to north and south, a nave to the west and a chancel or apse to the east.
