Stapley Park is a Sussex estate whose manor house and medieval St. Peter’s Church link local history to the events under investigation at Banfield. Once owned by the Roman Catholic Church, the estate passed through several hands during the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. In the present-day narrative, its church becomes a destination for Gerry Fenn: an old chest there offers a possible route from the history of Thomas Woolgar to the unexplained events at St. Joseph’s.

Setting and buildings

The estate lies at Barham, with open fields and the South Downs forming the landscape around its principal buildings. A road through the grounds divides, one branch continuing toward the gray-stone Stapley Manor and the other leading to a car park and, beyond it, St. Peter’s Church at Stapley. The church stands about a quarter of a mile from the car park, while the manor is visible farther away. The arrangement places the small church within the larger estate rather than presenting it as an isolated parish building.

St. Peter’s is described as a twelfth-century church. Its square tower rises no more than forty feet, and its interior has enclosed pews, a low barrel ceiling, a small altar, and a raised pulpit. A graveyard lies beyond a flint wall, with closely set gravestones alongside more spacious plots and older wooden crosses. These details give the church a modest, historically layered character distinct from the imposing manor. The grounds also serve visitors to the estate: the church and house are both historic attractions, particularly during the summer months.

Ownership and religious history

Before the English Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church owned the Stapley estate, including the ground on which St. Peter’s stands. In 1540, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII granted Stapley Manor and the entire estate to Richard Staffon, a London mercer. Staffon and his family lived there until the Counter-Reformation under the Catholic queen Mary Tudor. They were driven into exile with other Protestants; nearly three hundred others were executed as heretics during the period.

The estate later passed by devious means to Sir John Woolgar, described as a wealthy Sussex businessman rewarded for his loyalty to the Catholic Church during Henry VIII’s reign. Woolgar’s only son became a priest at St. Joseph’s in Banfield. This succession makes Stapley Park more than a nearby historic property: its ownership links the church at Stapley with the parish and family history that Fenn is trying to understand in Banfield.

The village once clustered around St. Peter’s, but a mysterious plague in the early 1400s killed most of its inhabitants. The remaining houses around the church were subsequently destroyed. The manor and church continued to be maintained, with successive lords contributing to restoration whether Catholic or Protestant. The narrative therefore presents the church as a survivor of both population loss and changing religious authority, preserved partly for its historical importance and its value to estate visitors.

The church chest and its connection to Banfield

The old chest in St. Peter’s gives the estate its immediate importance to Fenn’s investigation. On Monsignor Delgard’s advice, Fenn visits Arundel Cathedral, where he learns about Stapley Manor and the church. Father Conroy, who serves the parish at Storrington and says Mass at St. Peter’s weekly, confirms that the church contains a large ancient chest matching Fenn’s description. After consulting Delgard, Conroy authorizes Fenn to take useful documents on the condition that he make a complete signed list and let the priest examine what he removes. Fenn prefers to search alone.

Conroy also recalls that the chest was brought from Banfield to St. Peter’s as an acknowledgment of a stained-glass window donated to St. Joseph’s by Sir John Woolgar. The object thus embodies an exchange between the two churches: a historic gift from Woolgar’s connection to Banfield is remembered through a chest now held on the Stapley estate. That transfer gives Fenn a practical reason to look beyond Banfield for records, while tying his search to the Woolgar family’s history.

Inside the chest, Fenn finds old vestments, books, papers, and church records. Among them are three stiff, yellow-vellum books dated in consecutive years, beginning in 1556, as well as loose leaves in Latin. The older material is difficult to read, but its dates and handwriting place it near the period in which the Woolgar connection becomes relevant. A plaque in the church lists its past clerics, including Thomas Woolgar, whom Fenn recognizes as Sir John’s son and the priest associated with Banfield. The records and memorial inscription together turn St. Peter’s into a repository of clues rather than merely the setting for an archival search.

Narrative significance

Stapley Park connects physical places, church history, and the investigation’s chronology. Fenn arrives having gathered records and information from Arundel and from Father Conroy; the estate allows those fragments to converge around the Woolgars, St. Peter’s, and the chest’s earlier home in Banfield. The search is not simply for a document in an old building: it follows a chain of religious ownership, family ties, and transfers between parishes.

The church’s historical setting also alters the scale of Fenn’s inquiry. His interest in Alice Pagett’s use of an archaic language and in the significance of a bodily mark leads him to consider whether events at St. Joseph’s have a history extending several centuries into the past. At St. Peter’s, the dated books offer material evidence from the sixteenth century, but their presence does not by itself establish what that past means for the present. Stapley Park therefore functions as both an archive and a threshold in the investigation: it supplies concrete historical connections while leaving their ultimate explanation unresolved.