Singleton

When you approach Singleton village from the north on the A.286 Midhurst to Chichester road, the tower of Singleton parish church is a visible landmark. The church, which is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, is on the south of the village. The oldest part of the building is the tower, which contains "Three Saxon Windows", which were double-splayed, to allow the maximum amount of light to shine inside the church. (This means that their surrounding edges were turned outwards on both the inside and outside of the window.) Some Roman tiles – possibly from a much earlier church - were used in the stonework surrounding these windows.

The building is over a thousand years old, but when an excavation was carried out in 1978, it showed that the main body of the church, which included the chancel and the nave, was originally older than the tower. In 1983 the 1,000th anniversary celebrations were held. Before the Norman Conquest, Singleton Church was a hundredal or central church, which served an area far larger than Singleton. (A hundred was a Saxon division of land, probably intended to provide sufficient land for a hundred families.)