A nicely composed and well detailed, traditional, building of some architectural quality. The font is an important survival.  

The Church of Our Lady of Sorrows was built in 1913, the architect being Edward Bonner. The priest’s house, linked to the east end of the church, was probably added one or two decades later.

Ian Nairn in the Surrey volume of The Buildings of England writes of this building “It looks more medieval than the parish church” and, at first glance, Our Lady of Sorrows might be mistaken for a thirteenth century Downland church. Like many buildings of this kind, it has a sturdy tower with a pyramidal roof, cat-slide roofs sweeping down to cover both aisles, and its walls are faced with knapped flint.

Inside the church looks equally traditional. It has an open timber roof supported by a tall arcade and the walls are painted white. There is a font thought to date from the sixteenth century in the south-east corner of the church. This has also been painted white. There used to be a baldacchino in the sanctuary but this was removed in 1976 when the church was reordered and a rose window filled with stained glass was inserted in the east wall. At the same time the life-size statue of the Pieta, probably of Italian workmanship, was moved from the church to its present position in the churchyard.

Heritage Details