St. Peter’s Church at Stapley

St. Peter’s Church at Stapley is a small, historic church on the former estate of Stapley Manor. Its importance to the present-day story rests on two linked inheritances: an old chest transferred from St. Joseph’s Church in Banfield, and the concealed chronicle of Thomas Woolgar, a sixteenth-century priest whose writings connect the church to the persecution and death of Einor. When Gerry Fenn follows that history to Stapley, the building becomes more than an archival destination: it is the place where his research encounters the force he has been trying to understand.

Setting and Architecture

The church stands within the grounds of Stapley Manor, in Stapley Park near Barham. The estate’s wide grounds, approached through iron gates and a deer grid, contrast with the church’s modest scale. Its squat square tower rises about forty feet, and an iron gate and heavy door shelter the entrance. Nearby, a small graveyard sits beyond a flint wall; the land opposite the church drops toward a wooded valley and the slopes of the South Downs.

Inside, Fenn finds enclosed pews, a low barrel ceiling, a tiny altar, and a raised pulpit beside a door he supposes leads to the vestry. The church’s compact, compartmentalized interior gives the old chest a prominent place: it stands beside a wall beneath a polished wooden board inscribed with the names and dates of the clerics who served there. The building is described as unusual but plainly still a place of worship, with weekly Mass served by Father Conroy, the priest whose parish was at Storrington.

The Estate and the Church’s Earlier History

Before the English Reformation, the Catholic Church owned the Stapley estate and the land on which St. Peter’s stands. In 1540, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII granted Stapley Manor and its estate to Richard Staffon, a London mercer. Staffon and his family were later driven into exile during the reign of Mary Tudor, while many others were executed as heretics. The estate subsequently passed by devious means to Sir John Woolgar, a wealthy Sussex businessman rewarded for his loyalty to the Catholic Church during Henry VIII’s reign.

St. Peter’s had once stood at the center of a small village. According to Father Conroy’s account, a mysterious plague in the early 1400s killed most of the inhabitants; the settlement was then regarded as a source of infection, and the houses around the church were destroyed. The church itself underwent repeated alteration and restoration, supported by successive lords of the manor, whether Catholic or Protestant. Its historic character also made it an attraction for summer visitors to the estate.

The Chest and Its Banfield Connection

Fenn learns of St. Peter’s while searching archival records for information about St. Joseph’s Church. A warden at Arundel prompts him to recall the connection between Stapley Manor and Banfield, while Father Conroy supplies further details. Conroy confirms that St. Peter’s contains an ancient chest matching the description Fenn is seeking. After consulting Monsignor Delgard by telephone, he authorizes the church keys to be handed to Fenn and permits him to remove useful documents, provided he lists and signs for them and allows Conroy to inspect them.

The chest had reportedly been brought from Banfield to St. Peter’s as acknowledgment of a stained-glass window Sir John Woolgar donated to St. Joseph’s Church. This transfer gives the chest a material history connecting the two churches, while its contents are associated with the records of St. Joseph’s and the parish of Banfield. At St. Peter’s, Fenn sees the long, low chest beneath the clerical board. Its description fits his research: thick elm or oak planks, metal bands, battered wood, and three distinctive padlocks. The object’s presence makes the church a repository for evidence that had been displaced from the place where the underlying events occurred.

Thomas Woolgar and the Hidden Chronicle

The board above the chest lists Thomas Woolgar among St. Peter’s clerics. Fenn identifies him as Sir John’s son, who had served as a priest at St. Joseph’s in Banfield before being moved to his father’s estate. The record indicates that Thomas died in 1560, at about thirty-five. In the chronicle later found in the chest, Thomas describes being sent to St. Peter’s after his mental condition became a source of concern to his father and the Church authorities. His writings present the transfer as a way to remove him from Banfield and keep his increasingly alarming testimony at a distance.

Thomas’s account ties the church to his history with Einor. He admits to a relationship with her and to complicity in grave wrongdoing, including the deaths of three children, but repeatedly tries to explain his actions through her supposed influence and supernatural power. He recounts how he denounced Einor as a witch, after which Banfield villagers seized and killed her. His chronicle portrays that collective violence as the culmination of religious accusations, personal guilt, and the villagers’ demand for vengeance. It also describes Einor cursing those involved as she died. These are claims made within Thomas’s manuscript, not an independently verified account: the chronicle itself records his fear that others will dismiss his testimony as madness, while the people who later speak to him reject his supernatural explanations.

Fenn’s Search and the Church’s Uncanny Role

On reaching St. Peter’s in severe rain, Fenn recognizes the chest and the clerical board, then hesitates before opening the three locks. He questions whether events more than four centuries old can explain what is happening at St. Joseph’s, including Alice Pagett’s sleep speech and the mark on her body. The doubts matter because the church initially offers him documents and historical inference, not a simple answer. Inside the chest he finds three Latin books dated 1556, 1557, and 1558, as well as loose, undated leaves written in a different, less disciplined hand. He packs the books and leaves into his holdall as the storm worsens, then replaces the other materials and closes the chest.

The building’s role changes from archive to threatening enclosure. As Fenn prepares to leave, the door shakes in the storm and he senses a presence inside the church. He sees a hooded figure in the side room; the wind bursts through the entrance, and he struggles to reach the doorway while the figure remains beyond touching distance. The scene connects the uncanny episode at St. Peter’s with the chronicle’s account of Thomas being pursued by Einor after her death. Later, while reading Delgard’s translation and notes, Fenn encounters Thomas’s description of Einor as dead yet still present, and of the church as the place where he was confined to serve as pastor. St. Peter’s therefore binds together the physical trail of the chest, Thomas’s account of guilt and persecution, and Fenn’s direct experience of a presence that appears to exceed the documentary past.