Sussex churches: West Stoke
I had a great sense of achievement at getting out to visit a church a week after chemotherapy. I was prompted to try again at West Stoke which had been locked when I attempted to visit it in the pouring rain during the covid period. Looking for evidence for a chapter of my book on women’s experience of religion, I turned to Jude Jones’s thesis which had a chapter on four monuments built by women in churches in Hampshire and West Sussex. As Jude highlighted, although these monuments may appear conventional, they often give subtle indicators of these women’s sense of their own status or religious identities.
The monument at West Stoke by Mary Stoughton, wife of J.P. Adrian Stoughton, records that they were married for thirty-one years and had sixteen children: ‘Thomas, Adrian, Anne, Mary, Sara, Elizabeth, Anne, Elinor, the rest died young.’ Mary distinguishes between those children who died young and those who lived long enough for her to establish an emotional relationship with them, and each of the named children is represented as a distinct individual on the monument as an expression of that relationship.
On the right are the five daughters, each with their own style of dress and hairstyle. Those carrying skulls have died. The last sole survivor is Anne at the end, who is without a skull.
Particularly of interest to me is that Anne was the wife of Peter Jermyn, a minister and, according to Jude, ‘wears the traditional garb of a country gentlewoman, namely a gown, mantle, cap and hat’ that she would have worn to church, seemingly alluding to her role as a minister’s wife. For my thesis I searched long and hard to find depictions of clergy wives in this period - they are like hens’ teeth. The only other sculptural likeness I know, to Anne Nutt at Berwick, also in Sussex, looks from a drawing to be a fine monument, but is now (annoyingly!) hidden behind organ pipes.
Anne’s sisters also beautifully individuated. Headgear and ruff appear to indicate respectable married status.
The church has several other interesting features including an Anglo-Saxon doorway and some recently discovered wall-paintings above the chancel arch. These are easier to make out on the drawing in the church:
This one is thought to represent the sun and be paired with an image representing the moon (see also sun/moon images at Clare in Suffolk which survived Dowsing).
The church also possesses a rare Commonwealth-era silver salver: its plainness has led to the conclusion that it must have been originally for domestic use, but wouldn’t a plain-style also be in keeping with Commonwealth religious practice? There is a sole piece of old stained glass surviving, from that which was smashed during the civil war period:
