St Andrew’s Parish Church, Alfriston
St Andrew’s Parish Church is a Grade I listed building dating back to 1370. It was built in a cruciform shape and is referred to as The Cathedral of the Downs. There is a siting legend attached to St Andrews Church dating back to its original construction. The first choice of site for the church was thought to be Savyne Croft, but each night after the builders had finished work, the stones they had laid moved to a piece of land known as The Tye. At first there was confusion as to whether this was the Devil’s work or not. Then four pure white oxen were spotted in The Tye lying down to form the shape of a cross. This was seen as a good omen and also dictated the shape in which the church should be built.
Re: St Andrew’s Parish Church, Alfriston
A Leisurely Tour in England (1913)
Of Alfriston a halting couplet runs:
Poor parson, poor people,
Sold their bells to repair their steeple.
But that, I take it, was a long while ago — if it ever was^ for I have heard similar couplets of many other places ; a few may possibly have some foundation in fact, but I doubt the rest, and in some, alas, the word "drunken" is substituted for "poor"! After the Alfriston people had sold their bells, tradition, that unreliable jade, avers that the bell of a ship, wrecked on the coast, was purchased to take the place of the lost peal, and by the side of the ancient pilgrims’ hostel in the same village stands a ship’s figure-head in the shape of a boldly carved lion, fierce of countenance, said to have come from the same ship that provided the bell ; this, as long as the oldest inhabitant can remember — and what memories these oldest inhabitants have — has rejoiced in a coat of brilliant vermilion, hence the local saying, apropos of what I know not, " As red as the Alfriston lion." Such, at least, were the tales told to me, and many were the tales I heard as I travelled on.