North Marden is a tiny village on the spur of the South Downs

South Downs

The South Downs is a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen Valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east. It is bounded on its northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose...

 in the Chichester

Chichester (district)

Chichester is a largely rural local government district in West Sussex, England. Its council is based in the city of Chichester.-History:The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the municipal borough of Chichester and the Rural Districts of...

 district of West Sussex

West Sussex

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is within the civil parish

Civil parish

In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 of Marden, West Sussex

Marden, West Sussex

Marden is a civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. It lies on the South Downs and comprises the villages of North Marden and East Marden....

, 7.5 miles (12 km) northwest of Chichester

Chichester

Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...

 on the B2141 road.

North Marden is one of the smallest, out-of-the-way parishes in Sussex. At the end of the 19th century the population was between 20 and 30 inhabitants. The parish is mentioned in the Taxatio records of Pope Nicholas IV

Pope Nicholas IV

Pope Nicholas IV , born Girolamo Masci, was Pope from February 22, 1288 to April 4, 1292. A Franciscan friar, he had been legate to the Greeks under Pope Gregory X in 1272, succeeded Bonaventure as Minister General of his religious order in 1274, was made Cardinal Priest of Santa Prassede and...

 (1291) and in the Novae return (1341).

The plan of the Church of St Mary, approached through a farmyard, is simple but unusual in the chancel having an apsidal, or semi-circular termination. The elaborate Norman south doorway in Caen stone

Caen stone

Caen stone or Pierre de Caen, is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in northwestern France near the city of Caen.The limestone is a fine grained oolitic limestone formed in shallow water lagoons in the Bathonian Age about 167 million years ago...

 suggests a date of the middle of the 12th century. The three Norman windows in the apse have been restored, but the jambs and rere-arches are ancient along with the small Norman window at the west end. The Norman sandstone font was provided an octagonal stem base in the 14th century, and parts of the ancient flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

walls were repaired in places with 18th century brickwork. The single bell dates from 1829.