"I WILL lift up mine eyes unto the hills."

These words, no doubt were in the minds of the devout men who, centuries ago, first built a church where St. Michael's now stands. It is known that a British village was here, also a Roman Villa and a Saxon Church before the Norman Conquest. Although now hidden by the trees which surround it, there was a time when the Church stood like a beacon to the countryside.

Chalton was at that time the home village of the ancient Manor of Ceptune (Chalton) from which it takes its name. The Manor with its neighbour Idsworth was one of the richest agricultural districts in Wessex, so that a Church of such size as St. Michael's was necessary, not only for its spiritual work, but also at that time, as the centre of learning and the foundation from which knowledge was given to the countryside.

Many buildings in the course of centuries have disappeared, but the Church still stands, a symbol of the past.

Dotted along the top of the Down are a number of Tumuli. With the knowledge that flint instruments of the early stone age have been found, it can be assumed that Chalton was inhabited before Christianity came to this country. The early Christians held certain fears of the pagan gods, and built their churches on or close to pagan remains. One legend was that after Lucifer and his followers had been overthrown by the loyal angels, led by St. Michael, a number of the less sinful of the fallen angels were allowed to haunt the earth and lived in the woods and hills. So it was the practice of the early Christians to dedicate a church built on a hill to St. Michael.

The present building is of late eleventh or early twelfth century, and is of the two-cell type of that period of early Norman design.

The chancel is the oldest part. Its east window has four lights, uncusped, with two quatrefoils over them and a cinquefoil in the head. These windows were restored during the present century. Three of the lights represent St. Michael, St. James and St. Hubert, St. Michael's then being the mother Church of St. James', Clanfield, and St. Hubert's, Idsworth. The fourth light represents St. George of England. On the south side are three lancets, with a priests' door between the second and third. The third lancet is blocked, and can be seen only from the outside, from where also can be seen an incised sundial on the priests' door. Between this door and the east window on the inside, is a double piscina with trefoiled arches. These are usually of the thirteenth century and the scallop-shaped bowl in one was for the celebrant to wash his hands after cleansing the Holy vessels.

Under the blocked lancet is a low side window known as a Leper's window, although a more probable explanation is that this opening was fitted with shutters which were opened so that the Sanctus Bell could be heard outside the Church. Mass was usually said at 6 a.m., and again at 8 or 9 a.m., when a number of the villagers were expected to attend, the time being indicated to the others by the ringing of the bell. This window has lost its central mullion. It was once double, had an iron grating, and for a time was blocked up. Some of the original iron hinges are still to be seen.

In the north wall are three lancets, two of which are shorter than the other and closer together, the sill of the other being lower. Under the shorter ones is a locker, which was possibly an Easter Sepulchre of the fourteenth century, and made, prior to the Reformation, to hold the Host and Altar Crucifix, during the period of fasting from Good Friday to Easter morning. The door was added at the end of the nineteenth century.

In the cinquefoil in the head of the east window and in the southeast window are fragments of mediaeval glass worked in with pieces of eighteenth century glass.

There are a number of memorial tablets on walls of the chancel, but the most interesting is the monument to Richard Ball, Rector, who died in 1632, which shows a figure dressed as a Bachelor of Divinity of Oxford kneeling at a desk. Above are the Ball Arms, argent a lion sable on a chief sable three mullets argent. Several of those whose memorial tablets are on the walls were buried beneath the chancel.

The nave is slightly wider than the chancel and the earliest feature is a two-light window with a trefoiled circle in the head, of thirteenth century date, in the south wall. The window in the north wall, with two trefoiled lights and a quatrefoil in the head, is of the fourteenth century. There is also a similar light in the south wall.

The Transept, which now holds the font is on the south of the nave. It has a square-headed east window of two trefoiled lights, and a south window, also trefoiled lights, with a quatrefoil in the head. The exact date of this addition to the building is not known, but is thought to be fourteenth century. Its actual history is not recorded but these additions were usually built by Lords of the Manor, or in many cases, by a Trade Guild, but it might have been added as a chapel by the Abbey of Nuneaton to whom the advowson was granted by Henry II, 1154-89, to whom one of the bells is accredited.

In the floor here, as in other parts of the church, are portions of gravestones with parts of the inscriptions still discernible.

In the south-east comer of the nave is a black-lettered portion of a fifteenth century memorial, probably a portion of a coffin slab which usually had a cross lengthwise, with the inscription round it. This one shows what would be the foot of the cross.

There are other portions of memorial stones in the paving on the centre aisle, and evidence of burials here was found a few years ago when repairs to the nave were being carried out.

On the north wall are tablets to the memory of the whole family of Heberden who gave their name to the Heberdens Farm at neighbouring Idsworth. During repairs to the floor in 1955, the vaults containing the remains of the family were seen. A large vault stretching across the nave in line with a memorial tablet contains the remains of the Rev. Henry Wall, 36 years Rector of Monk Sherbome, Anne his wife, and her sister Mary, both daughters of John Heberden, of Idsworth. Until 1955 only the wood floor supporting the pews covered these vaults.

Rather unique is the west door, now used only to enter the tower. It was once the main entrance to this ancient building. It is unusual in that it is, perhaps, one of the few Galilee Porches. The outer archway is now blocked. One can picture the scene centuries ago when from this entrance one looked down the slope of the hill on which St. Michael's stands to the village below, to the south-west and north over the countryside, then turning, through the porch which joined the base of the tower, to the doorway and the lofty nave to the chancel and altar, the bell-ringers standing inside the inner arch to ring the bells, as evidenced by the grooves worn by the bell-ropes in the stonework of the arch itself. On certain Festival days a procession led by the celebrant was supposed to symbolise our Lord leading the disciples into Galilee after the resurrection, and so the name "Galilee Porches."

The nave has also a south and a north door. Outside the north door is a comparatively modem porch, although it contains timbers of the fifteenth century. This porch no doubt replaces one which was built when
the outer arch of the tower was blocked, and the north door became the main entrance.

The tower which is now entered from the nave,is of Saxon design, has many times been repaired, and is now partly flint, partly brick. The thickness of the walls is the same as those of the main building, i.e. three feet.

There are three bells in the tower. The smallest bearing the name of John Fleet, Churchwarden, was cast by William Eldridge of Chertsey, in 1674. The largest was cast by Roger Landon of Wokingham, Berks., and
is dated between 1400 and 1450. The third bell has no inscription or date. One of the bells bears the inscription "When St. Michael bell dothe toll, Evil thoughts dothe leave ye soule."

The font is of similar design to that of St. Hubert's, Idsworth, and is dated 1400. It is octagonal in shape with quatrefoil panels enclosing blank shields or paterae carved with heads or foliage. The broken hinges of the once locked cover are discernible. Like the font at St. Hubert's, it was broken at the base of the bowl during the Civil Wars.

The organ, now at the west end of the nave, Just inside the north door, once stood in the chancel and later in the south transept.

The roof of the chancel inside has been repaired and boarded, while the nave still has its original plaster ceiling, the ancient tie-beams having been covered with modem woodwork.

The outside of the walls of the nave have been redressed while those of the chancel still have some of their original plaster covering. The drainage round the base of the outer wall was made early in the present
century to stop the dampness which was a serious problem at that time. Up to that time, too, the tower had a strong buttress to its south-west comer, but this was taken away when the tower itself was reconditioned by Sir Henry Clarke-Jervoise, Bart., then Lord of the Manor.

On the South wall of the nave are memorials to members of the Clarke-Jervoise family who lived at Idsworth for two hundred years and, as Lords of the Manor, were closely associated with Chalton. A recent memorial to Major Arthur Francis Clarke-Jervoise, JP, DL, records that he was the last of his family to live at Idsworth.

Among the church plate of Chalton is a silver chalice and cover dated 1568, and a two-handled dish, dated 1630, which although made like the sweetmeat dish of the day, is thought to be a cleansing dish, the engraved interlocking triangles symbolising the Holy Trinity.

A history of St. Michael's, however short, would not be complete without extracts from Church Registers, which are some of the oldest in existance, dating from 1653. Therein is recorded the following:—

"The Inventorie of all goods Jewells Bells Plate Vestmets and ornaments of the church of Chalton taken the XV day of Julie Anno Sexto Edwardi Sexti. (15th July, 1552). In primis thrie bells in the stepell It I sance bell and ij saqaringe bells It one hande bell
It a pix of coper and ij corporos
It ij chalisses of siluer wth patens
It iij crosses of coper
It fower candelsticks for the Awlter
It iij copes and ij tyneclis for the deaco and subdeacon of baudkyn
It vj awlter clothes
It iij vestemets and iij albs of baudkyn
It ij surpleses and one rachat
It iij towels
It iij coffers
It one paier of sensors and a shippe of brase
It a holie water pott of brase
It a coverled a heres cloth
It vj banners and ij clothes to hangge before the awlter
It a paynted cloth wt a frenge
It a cloth to cover the fonte
It a basin of lattine
It ij cruets of tine
It a vayll to drawe over the chawcell
It a paxe of siluer
It a broche ij andiars, a bras pott

Churchwardens

Steven Hunt pson John Machan
Edward Carpeter

The Register Books, the earliest of which was written in the thirtieth year of the reign of Henry VIII, the year of our Lord 1538, contain the first recorded Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, the first entry being in December, which according to the Church Year at that time would have been December 1537.

All the books are strongly and carefully bound, with a transcript inside, and indices of contents. The first book runs from 1538 to 1653, with a gap 1641-7, the second from 1684 to 1746, and the third, dealing with burials in woollen, from 1678 to 1746. The entries for the years between the first and second volumes, 1653-84, are in a separate book. The fourth and fifth books contain baptisms and burials from 1747 to 1807, and marriages to 1753, the sixth is the printed book of marriages 1754-1812, and a seventh has the baptisms and burials to 1812.