Over 1000
Years Of History
Saint Giles
Saint Giles was born in Athens where he lived for
years as a hermit and an abbot. Not wanting recognition for his good deeds,
Giles went to France and lived again as a hermit at a deserted spot near the
mouth of the River Rhone. One day a prince was hunting in the area and a deer,
his prey, fled to the saint for protection.
At another time, the King of France was
hunting and accidentally shot Giles in the knee. The saint decided not to tend
to his wounded knee and remained a cripple for life. The King of France was
greatly pleased with Giles and gave him land to build a monastery. This became a
large and popular abbey.
St. Giles is shown here as an old man
with an arrow in his knee with a deer at his side. Because of his injury, he is
known as "the patron saint of cripples." There are churches in many countries
that are named after Saint Giles.
Early History
There was some kind of settlement in
Horsted Keynes long before the Church was built. Antiquarians believe there once
may have been a dolmen circle here where two ancient trackways cross. You can
see earthworks in the churchyard itself and around the present school playground
to the North of the Church. Christianity came late to Sussex. When St. Wilfred
brought the Christian Gospel in AD 681-686, most of the Weald of Sussex was
covered by thick forest and travel was difficult. The great forest was known to
the Saxons as Andreaswald. Once Christianity had been introduced to the area
many churches were built; so much so that Sussex was called "Selig Sussex", that
is, Holy Sussex.
Christian missionaries often had churches built on the
sites of pagan temples and that is what may have happened here. It is an
interesting coincidence that the orientation of the Church is not East and West
as is usual, but nearer North-East and South-West; in fact, only a couple of
degrees different from Stonehenge. High ground to the East would make sunrise a
little later than on the more level area of Salisbury Plain and our Church may
well have been built on the site of a pagan temple orientated to receive the
rays of the rising sun at the Summer solstice.
At the time when the people of this
settlement adopted Christianity we think the village was a collection of wooden
framed, thatched, Saxon huts next to the Church in the place where the school
now is. The Church may have been a wooden one with a thatched roof too, but
there is some evidence that some of the stonework of the tower and also one of
the doorways is of Saxon date. The Saxon name of the place was Horsted - a place
where horses are kept.
Archbishop Robert Leighton
Robert was a member of the Episcopal
Church of Scotland and was at one time Bishop of Dunblane and later Archbishop
of Glasgow. He was an eminent theologian and his works greatly influenced the
Wesleys and other reformers of the Eighteenth Century. Robert's father had been
outspoken against the Episcopal Church and had suffered mutilation on that
account. However, Robert was a gentle, forgiving man who set a fine example of
tolerance in an age of bigotry and he was greatly loved. He spent the last ten
years of his life living at Broadhurst in the home of his sister Saphira and
greatly influenced the thinking of his nephew, Edward Lightmlaker.
When the Archbishop died in 1684 most of his books were
sent by sea in barrels to Dunblane in Scotland, where a library was formed. This
library still exists. The remainder of his books were kept by his nephew Edward
and later given to the School which he set up. In a case near the font is more
information about the Archbishop.
