Seasalter Old Church, St Alphege

Seasalter Old Church, St Alphege

This small rectangular church comprises the surviving chancel of a medieval church that once occupied this site on Church Lane in Seasalter. The building is constructed primarily of Kentish ragstone with some ironstone, flint, and re-used earlier stone, beneath a red tiled roof.

The church's present appearance dates largely from 1845, when the medieval nave was demolished and the chancel was retained and refronted to serve as a burial chapel. This Victorian refacing was carried out by H. Marshall and the building was consecrated on 9 October 1845. The west front is entirely of this 1845 construction, executed in flint with stone dressings arranged in a distinctive chequerboard pattern. The façade features wide gabled end buttresses, an advanced central section with a pointed arch doorway below a lancet window, and a raised belfry above. The quoins are integrated into the overall patterned effect.

The north wall retains rubble ragstone with some pink ironstone and contains a single central lancet; a deep buttress marks the north-east corner. The east end displays a curious assortment of exposed rubble and re-used stone, with three simple modern lancets at the centre and substantial lancets at each end. The south wall, similarly constructed of ragstone rubble peppered with flint, has two single lancets and deep buttresses at the south-east corner.

The interior is very modest and small in scale. The east window is set in splayed stone surrounds with exposed ragstone to the arch. A piscina with an ogee arch survives, and a timber panelled dado extends across the east end. Victorian pews furnish the chapel. The south wall features two deep splayed window surrounds containing single lancets of simple coloured glass; at the centre is what appears to have been a doorway, though no corresponding opening exists on the exterior wall. The west wall holds a deeply set window with a single lancet of coloured glass depicting St Alphege above the entrance doorway, which has a depressed arch. Marble monuments commemorate Sarah Hyder of Court Lees (died 1836), Elizabeth Eagleton (died 1835), and Captain William Augustine Ryder (died 1842).

The dedication to St Alphege, the Saxon archbishop murdered by Danes at Greenwich and brought to Canterbury Cathedral in 1023, is an unusually national dedication and particularly associated with Kent. The medieval church on this site dated to the late 12th century. By the 1840s it had fallen into poor condition, prompting the decision to construct a new St Alphege's Church in nearby Whitstable. The old church now stands surrounded by mid-20th-century housing, occupying a high point on a hill within an open churchyard planted with mature trees.