The twelfth-century church of St Mary the Virgin at Shipley, Sussex, has received only scant attention in print. This paper seeks to redress the situation and argues that the church is of considerable interest and importance as one of the earliest buildings of the Knights Templars to survive in England.

History

The most substantial historical account of the Templar connexion with Shipley was for long that of Blaauw published in 1857, but this was highly inaccurate and claimed a date for the foundation of Shipley earlier than the date usually accepted for the introduction of the Templars to England. Lees’ classic work of 1935 set the historical record straight: yet still the erroneous date was repeated by Knowles and Hadcock. The very implausibility of this date has hitherto distracted architectural historians from looking at the church with more than perhaps a sceptical curiosity, and has prevented them from analysing its real significance.

The church of Shipley is first mentioned in 1073 when William de Braose included the tithe and church among his donations to his newly founded collegiate church of St Nicholas at Bramber. The reafter Shipley seems to have been associated with the complicated fortunes of this new foundation. Circa 1079-80 William gave the church of Bramber to St-Florent-de-Saumur to form the endowment for a daughter house at Briouze: the donation apparently included ‘the church of Shipley, the land of one plough et cetera'. However, the new abbey of Briouze was never founded, and St-Florent itself came to establish a priory at Sele near Bramber.

In a charter of 1126 Philip de Braose confirmed his father's gift to St-Florent, mentioning the priory of Sele. With reference to Shipley, however, it is stated that‘the monks of St-Florent exchanged the church of Shipley for the church of Washington'; yet they still had an income of 4s a year and ail the tithe of the demesne from Shipley.’ The interpretation of this is not without difficulties, but for the present purpose it is probably reasonable to conclude that Shipley church, after being held for a time by St Nicholas of Bramber and then by St-Florent-de-Saumur under William I de Braose (died c.1093x 1096), by c.1126 was back in the hands of Philip de Braose, except for a part of the revenues. The next historical point of reference is the charter of donation to the Templars.