The population covers a wide range of age groups and occupations. It is balanced between the many who work locally on farms, in shops and other small businesses, and those who commute, or live here in retirement.

The parish falls within the Diocese of Chichester, which has been reinvigorated in recent years following the appointment of Rt Revd Dr Martin Warner as Bishop. The Bishop has been very supportive to the parish advising us on the re-ordering of the West End and the construction of an extension leading from it to the North and dedicating it when completed. 

Village Life

Although the population of the village is sparsely spread, there is a strong community spirit, in which the Church plays a central role.

There is a very popular village shop on the High Street which has a flourishing trade, where residents, visitors and many cyclists enjoy a welcome stop to taste delicious homemade produce. The Sussex Sausage Rolls are a particular favourite!

Local meat and vegetables can be bought near the village in the local farm shop, Dennikers, which now also has a popular café serving breakfast, lunch and afternoon teas; Old Spot Farm; and the nearby Old Dairy Farm at Furners Green, all serving quality locally sourced produce. 

The local pubs are very well frequented and cater for every taste, all serving food - often supplied by local farms - and attract custom both locally and from much further afield. One of these, the Griffin Inn, a 13-bedroom coaching inn, has spectacular garden views towards Sheffield Park, and a long-established entry in both the Good Food Guide and the Good Pub Guide. There are plenty of others locally to choose from - The Peacock Inn, The Piltdown Man, the Coach and Horses at Chelwood Gate - we never go thirsty in Sussex!

Nearby Newick village offers further shops, a health centre, post office, bakery, and chemist and larger shopping centres with supermarkets, clothes shops, hairdressers and others catering for most daily needs are at Uckfield, Haywards Heath and nearby Lewes. More expensive shopping can be found with easy reach in Tunbridge Wells and Brighton.

Clubs and Societies

Cricket is very important to Fletching. The village was the birthplace of the Sheffield Shield, now the prize in Australian inter-state cricket. There are numerous clubs, including an active village team. The Armadillos CC has an active season in Sheffield Park Garden, Lord Sheffield’s former ground which has recently been restored. On Friday evenings in summer, over 50 young people gather for coaching on the village recreation ground.

Other organisations include the Fletching Branch of the Royal British Legion and Forget-me-Not Club (for the elderly). There are also Football and Stoolball clubs and two clay pigeon shooting enterprises. The Rugby Club meets in a barn with television - and some beer! Several fishing clubs enjoy the local waters

The Fletching Singers, around 70 singers drawn from a wide area, meet for rehearsals each week in the Village Hall, and put on three or four choral concerts a year in the Church and in venues nearby. The Chromatics are a Fletching-based Community Choir who sing at village events as well as in local care homes and hospices, supporting Dementia UK.Gardens, Art and Culture

Gardens, Arts and Culture

There are many places of interest in the area, including houses open to the public, many of which have literary or art associations and magnificent gardens.

The garden of Clinton Lodge within Fletching is open in the summer under the National Gardens Scheme, as is Town Place, which lies just outside the parish boundary to the west, but whose owners have actively supported our Church by allowing us to stage events in their garden.

The Brighton Festival, the Chichester Festival Theatre and the Glyndebourne Opera House all offer performances of the highest standard.

The Village Hall

The Village Hall, situated in the High Street, seats about 100 people and is well used by the community and a huge asset to the village. 

It belongs to an independent charity (Fletching Memorial Hall) and is available for hire for meetings, dramatic productions, concerts, choir rehearsals, parties, cake sales and many other community events. It is well-equipped with a fully working kitchen and toilet facilities. 

Village Hall bookings can be made by ringing 01825 722075

Recreation Ground

With extensive views over farmland to the Downs, the recreation ground is the envy of many Sussex villages. It has a modern pavilion and hosts regular matches for the various local sports clubs, as well as youth coaching, throughout the year. 

It is a huge asset for the Village to have, and has been used for the Village Fete and for other one-off events, such as a large Ball organised by the cricket club to raise funds to refurbish it, as well as money for Fletching Parish Church and St Peter and St James’ Hospice. 

A well-equipped children’s playground is at the North side of the ‘rec’ which is well-used by the local School as well as the younger members of our local community. 

The playground is well-kept and safe and has stunning views for all the long-suffering parents to enjoy!

Please refer to the guidelines issued by Fletching Parish Council for safety and COVID rules.

Communications

Our parish magazine is published monthly and is distributed free of charge to all households, paid for by advertising. It is produced in the joint names of the PCC and the Parish Council, with four pages dedicated to Church matters, including a monthly letter from the Vicar. 

Independently edited by volunteers, the magazine contains a varied range of contributions from many groups and individuals, together with advertisements from many of our local businesses who we are always keen to support.

The recently updated parish website not only keeps the community up-to-date with Church events, but also informed about the many activities taking place throughout the local community.

Together with feature articles about local scenic sites, local history, local characters, various wildlife topics, and ‘days in the life of’, it makes for a very enjoyable read. The new website will hopefully become the ‘Voice of the Village’ and a true community asset, with an increased following, where the community will be able to source and share all its local news. 

We have also recently launched Facebook and Instagram pages with a view to broadening our audience, especially to younger members of the community, by sharing pictures and news of the beautiful surrounding countryside and recording our many village events.

The Church Building

The building provides great interest for its many visitors; guidance sheets are available. ‘Welcome’ notice boards inside and outside the entrance are well-used and kept up-to-date, providing further information. 

Automatic lighting highlights key items of interest to the visitor, including the Neville Achievements, the Leche and Dalyngrigge monuments and the door to the Sheffield Mausoleum.

Visitors’ comments on the warmth of the welcome found and the beauty of the Church testify to the success of this aspect of our mission.

The Church is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for visitors and for private meditation. It has Holy Water in the porch and a much-used votive candle tray.

The ‘Living Churchyard’, a part of the closed graveyard in front of the Church, is managed on ecological principles being cut only once or twice a year in order to promote diversity of plant and insect life. Some beautiful photographs of the wildlife, provided by Nigel Symington, can be seen in the Living Churchyard gallery section of our website.

The West End

The original driver for ‘Project Refresh’, so-called for the modernising and refreshing of the interior to make it more usable, and to meet the expectations of the 21st Century, was in particular to create space for meetings and social activities, as well as the provision of toilet facilities. 

The meeting space was provided by the removal of five rows of pews on either side of the nave, and installing a mini-kitchen and serving unit in the West end of the North aisle. The Rood Cross was cleaned and moved from an obscure position on the North wall to a place of much greater prominence on the West wall.

The building work began in October 2014 and was completed in September 2015. We also had to manage the challenging task of raising the sum of £170,000 to finance the project. The sum was raised within the parish in little over a year through some vigorous fundraising, led by volunteer Andrew Wright and his team, who arranged concerts, recitals, quiz nights, a Village Fete, Garden Party, Flower Festival, a celebrity talk and a Golf Day. 

The facilities were opened in time for the annual school Garden Trail held in the Summer of 2015 and are now regularly used for events including the ‘Cake and Cuppa’ afternoons organised by Emma Hannay each month; the Chromatics Choir; a regular Pilates class; the School PTA; the Piltdown Residents’ Association; the Parish Council; as well as for art exhibitions and many other activities. What a success it has been!

The West End is also availale for hire for private functions following weddings, christenings and funerals offering seating for 60 people.

Maintaining the Church

The Grade I listed structure has thankfully been well-maintained over the years. We are fortunate to have been able to complete all repairs and maintenance specified in the quinquennial in recent years, although this is always an on-going challenge. 

We are currently embarking upon a new fund-raising campaign to finance a new boiler before it fails, repair guttering, make good stonework both inside and outside the Church, and numerous other costly refurbishments which are required in order to maintain the fabric of the building. 

The list seems endless, but with the help of our very supportive community, we hope to achieve this work over the next five years in line with the quinquennial plan drawn up by our resident Chartered Surveyor, John Gould. 

The target is £135,000, so much-needed support is to be encouraged.  To this end we have introduced a ‘DONATE HERE’ button on our website, where readers can find out more about how they can contribute towards this mammoth task. All donations however small will of course be hugely appreciated.

Church Life

The congregation is committed to making the worship at our Church authentic and attractive. We aim to be the prayerful heart for our village.

The worship style at Fletching is best described as broadly Catholic. The 10am principal Sunday service is Common Worship Parish Communion when the St Thomas Mass setting is sung. Currently, around fifty adults attend each Sunday, drawn from a much larger pool of regular attenders. They are joined by a number of children attending with their parents. At major festivals the church fills up.

Common Worship is also used for Holy Communion on Wednesday at 10am and other services, including Evensong and Compline, are as announced. 

Care is taken to make services attractive to newcomers and visitors, whilst also nourishing the regular congregation. Special annual events include a Pets Service, services for the agricultural year, Remembrance Sunday and Christmas.

There is a Sunday School most Sundays, offering craft-based activities at the back of church. There is a Whatsapp group to keep parents up to date on when Sunday School is meeting.

After every Sunday morning service coffee, biscuits and frequently, cake, are served in the new space at the back of the Church, built in 2015. 

An unsurprisingly large number of weddings take place in this beautiful Church each year, including local couples and also people with a ‘qualifying connection’.  There are around six christenings a year, although the supply of babies is not in the church’s control. Village families also bring their loved ones to church for funerals and memorial services. 

Lay support for the Church

There is a strong and wide group of sidesmen and women, Lay Ministers of Communion, readers and intercessors.

There are several teams committed to the running of the Church, such as the Flower Guild, the Church Cleaning team, the catering team and gardeners. 

There are around 170 people on the church electoral roll, some from outside the parish.

Church Music

We have two hymn books regularly in use, ‘Ancient and Modern Hymns and Songs for Refreshing Worship’ and the ‘New English Hymnal’. 

There is an unrobed choir of up to 25 members lead by our Choir Leader, Susanna Martin. 

We are blessed with outstanding organists, one of whom holds regular recitals. The Fletching organ is a two manual instrument with tracker action, built by Forster & Andrews of Hull. It was a gift of Lord Sheffield, and was installed in 1880 following the major restoration of the church by the architect John Oldrid Scott. It has remained largely unchanged over the years, so it still sounds very much as it would have done 135 years ago. 

The sound system throws both the music and the voices of the choir into the main body of the Church. 

We also have a committed band of bell-ringers, and another of hand-bell ringers. The ages have ranged from 11 to 94!

Fletching Church of England Primary School

Fletching has a thriving voluntary controlled Church of England Primary School, which provides excellent early education for around 85 children, with about two thirds of these coming from outside the parish.

There is a strong link between the school and the Church. The school is now in federation with a neighbouring school in Chailey. The vicar remains an ex-officio governor of this expanded school organisation. 

The Vicar and other clergy from the church lead regular assemblies, sometimes in the Church as well as the school, and a service to mark the end of term. The school Harvest Festival service is held in the Church each year.

The school summer performances and the popular Christmas nativity play (and the rehearsals|) are staged in the Church. Each production has two performances.

The Church is included in the annual PTA Garden Trail which takes place each June and allows visitors and parishioners to see smaller gardens in and near the village. This year, 2021 following a period of COVID lockdown, the turnout was unprecedented and, blessed by fantastic weather too.  With a lot of hard work from the PTA and the local gardeners, the amount raised exceeded all expectations - about double the amount normally previously achieved.

Thankfully the school is thriving, well-supported and a hugely important part of our village life.

Church Finances

The PCC

The PCC is in a healthy position. The Church finances ran at a loss for a number of years, but through careful budgeting, expenses management and increased giving, the Church is now running a surplus. At the end of 2020, the general reserve balance was £ 35,000.

The Parish Share has been paid in full every year. Stewardship is seen as increasingly important. 

There are different offering schemes in place including standing order, the envelope scheme, Parish Giving Scheme, and a newly introduced donation card reader at the back of the Church, all giving increased generosity and gift aid is claimable. 

Recently we have signed up to the online giving site, supported by the Diocese of Chichester, called easyfundraising.org.uk where FREE donations are raised through online shopping, something that we all can easily contribute towards.

The PCC has a strong track record of fund raising including from retiring collections, tea and cake gatherings and Christmas sale stalls, which means the Church gives regularly to local and overseas charities.

There is also one-off fund raising such as the hugely successful ‘Project Refresh’, and in 2021 we will be embarking upon another fundraising campaign called ‘Project Restore’, for repairs and renewals to the Church building with a target of £135,000 over five years.

The cash content of the offertory on every third Sunday of the month is divided, at the end of the year, between three charities chosen by the PCC. These reflect local (The Kenward Trust), diocesan (Family Support Work) and overseas (Embrace the Middle East) organisations.

We fill ‘Link to Hope’ shoeboxes each Christmas, and collections at special services are donated to related charities e.g. British Legion.

The Leche & Smith combined charity is a local charity of which the Vicar is an ex-officio trustee. It offers financial help to one deserving young person a year in preparation for working life and is offered to anyone suitable who lives within the parishes of Fletching and Danehill. 

The Friends of Fletching Parish Church

‘The Friends’, an independent charity founded in 1991, is a key contributor to the preservation and enhancement of the fabric of the Church.

Its role is to help raise funds for major projects, and they organise events throughout the year in order to achieve this. 

Prepared: October 2021

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