The church is cruciform in shape and then the original church, built about 50 years before the Norman Conquest was consisted of a navesouth plus a small chancel to the , central crossing, with transepts or arms to the north and east chancel, that is Just on the other side of the arch which leads on to the present It is important to visualise that the original Anglo-Saxon chancel arch was round headed, much narrower and not so tall.

When the church was built. Nether Wallop belonged to Earl Godwin, Earl of Wcssex, who in about 1020 married the Danish Princess Gytha and so became related to King Canute. It was customary in the later Saxon times to paint over the chancel arch a "Christ in Majesty". That is a seated figure of Christ with his right hand raised in a benediction surrounded by an oval frame, or mandoria, supported by an host of angels.

Ir marked the entrance to the chancel, the church triumphant from the nave, where you are now standing, the church militant. When the chancel arch was later widened and heightened by the Normans the central part of the "Majesty" was destroyed, but sufficient of the original painting remains to see the tip of the mandoria and four nimbed flying angels with their plump round adult faces, turn up to the tips of their wings and long flowing dresses with pretty crinkled hems.

The painting, the most important treasure in the church, is in the style of the IIth c. 'Winchester School' of manuscript illuminators and is very similar in many of its details to the frontispiece of the New Minster of Winchester's "Liber Vitae" which depicts Canute, soon after becoming King in 1016, presenting that Monastery with a Golden Cross assisted by his Queen.

The painting of the angels, is the only known fragment of an Anglo-Saxon mural painting and is of very great interest to Art Historians. The angels too remind us that this church has been hallowed by constant worship for nearly one thousand years.

Ear! Godwin died in 1053, but his widow Gytha continued to hold Nether Wallop. Their daughter Edith married King Edward the Confessor, their son became King Harold, he and Godwin's brother Alwinus, Abbot of New Minster, were both slain fighting William of Normandy at Hastings. As a result William seized all of the Ear! of Wessex's manors including Nether Wallop which became a Royal Manor.

Sometime, about 1160 King Henry 11 gave this beautiful little Saxon church, with its fine decorations to York Minster, in whose hands the advowson, or right to present to the living, remains to this day.

To the Normans the church was much too small. They at first widened it on the south side by building a narrow lean-to aisle, the arcade is late Norman. They widened the chancel arch about the year 1200 destroying the central feature of the painting, the "Majesty" and continued their enlargement scheme by similarly forming an aisle on the north side, the arcade is Transitional. Then they built a lofty west tower. For two hundred years there was little change and then there was another complete and fundamental alteration in the entire architectural setting for worshipmade in , as great a change as Bishop William of Wykeham Winchester Cathedral when he changed the style from Norman to Perpendicular.

If you look up to the ceiling you can see how the slim Saxon walls were raised, clerestory windows inserted and the pitched roof changed to almost a flat one. At the same time both aisles were widened to incorporate the transepts and given tall windows, also the roofs were raised and built in the form you can see in the south aisle.

At the east end of the church there was a new chancel with a Rood at the entrance. Only the entrance to the Rood loft remains.

After such drastic alterations the church was completely redecorated with a new theme, this time in keeping with the times the paintings were designed to teach the "Moralities".

The first painting represents the 'Sabbath Breakers'. To quote from the fourth commandment. "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days shalt though labour, and do all thou hast to do; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shall do no manner of work."

The teaching is that if you work on the Sabbath your tools will injure Our Lord. You can see the drops of blood on Our Lord's left leg. The tools were of course all in use in the early 15th century. It is easy to make out a variety of axes and knives, a pair of scales and a small quern for grinding corn. There are many more to be seen here.

To the right of this painting may be seen the Patron Saint of England, "Saint George slaying the Dragon". The teaching here is the detail, of evil by the inherent "Goodness" of Christianity.

Christianity is represented by St George in armour mounted on a fline steed. Evil is the Dragon, not easily discernible but the coils of his tail can be made out.

The story is this . . . "The Town of Silene was much troubled by a dragon where the townsfolk to appease its insatiate appetite were compelled periodicaly to offer as a sacrifice from among themselves a young maiden. One day the lot fell on the King's daughter Cleodolinda who was duly placed outside the Town Gate to await the dragon. Of course Saint George arrived at the critical moment to save the princess and the painting shows him piercing through the dragons head while his horse tramples the dragon's belly underfoot."

On top of the gate the King and Queen, wearing their crowns can be very easily made out. They arc worth looking at carefully for the marvellous expressive painting of their faces. The king in admiration at the prowess of St George below impaling the dragon, while the Queen's is distraught for the life of their daughter. Unfortunately the painting of the Princess has been lost.

In the decorative scheme for the whole church the reveals, or splayed sides to the windows were decorated with pictures of the Saints. Only one remains. It is that (if Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in Syria, and the patron Saint of children.

The brass is to Mary Gore, Abbess of Amesbury and thought to be the only brass of an Abbess. She died in 1436 soon after the reconstruction had been carried out and the decorations completed. Perhaps Mary Gore was patron of the new decorative scheme and was buried in the centre of the nave surrounded by the new paintings.

After looking around the other treasures and peculiarities or this ancient church, its old pews and well lettered monuments, turn back and look up at the 18th century painting of a bell above the tower arch. It calls the faithful
to church.

The oldest bell was cast in 1585 by John Wallis of Salisbury and is inscribed "Be meek and lowly to hear the word of the Lord".

As you go out take a glance at the Norman doorway and its old 14th century oak door.