The church is built of local materials, from its flint walls to its sandstone pillars and Horsham stone & handmade tile roof, and contains some unusual chalk carved figures around the arched windows. The chancel stone is from Caen, as are the chancel arch and columns: the carved capitals are very fine. The windows in the chancel are Decorated. Latterly, local craftsmen have celebrated their skills with the inclusion of fine oak screens in the Abergavenny Chapel.

St Margaret’s Church . . .

is a Grade I listed building. It sits on a sandy bluff just to the west of the cross roads, on a site that has been an ancient one for congregation since pre-Christian times. The present church sits on the site of an earlier small Saxon church, traces of which can still be seen in the west wall. It was re-built in the 12th century, when the south aisle was added, and extended again in the 13th century when the chancel was built. The chapel was added in the 14th century.

The Parish of Ditchling . . .
straddles Down and weald on the borders of East Sussex, immediately to the north of Brighton. It is a classic example of an ancient Saxon strip parish, some 6 miles north to south and about 1 mile wide. Ditchling had a large population at the time of the Domesday Book, once being the largest settlement in Sussex after Chichester and Lewes. The village under the South Downs contains some of the oldest and finest listed buildings in Sussex, centred around the cross roads, by the village pond and along the old coaching road from London to Lewes and Brighton. Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII’s 3rd wife, was given a manor in Ditchling as part of her divorce settlement, and with it the right to appoint the vicar.