Harting 450 - a year of celebrations during 2026

THE HISTORY

The year 1576 was not a happy one here in Harting.  Sometime that year a fire broke out at the parish church, and it was quickly engulfed by flames.  We can imagine everyone looking on in horror, powerless to intervene.  The church was the centre of their life and the most prominent local building.  But now, before their eyes, it was reduced to a roofless, smouldering shell. 

1576 was about midway through the reign of Good Queen Bess.  Shakespeare was still in his adolescence.  Francis Drake was about to sail round the world.  During the next decade he would defeat the Armada.  Life for most people was nasty, brutish and short.  Disaster always lurked around the corner.  And there was no means of insuring against it.

Somehow, the people of Harting found the will and the resources to rebuild their church. They could have abandoned it, but instead they chose to enlarge it and make it even more beautiful than before.  The nave was made taller.  The crossing was remodelled.  And - most glorious of all - a magnificent new chancel roof was constructed, supported on a framework of beams reminiscent of a great Tudor Hall. 

How did they accomplish something so ambitious?  Was it their own work or did they recruit craftsmen?  How did they pay for it?  One of the chancel beams still bears the date 1577.  How did they complete it so quickly?  We will never know the answers to these questions, but their achievement was remarkable.  450 years later we are privileged to have a parish church of immense dignity and distinction.

The PCC wants to celebrate this anniversary – 450 years since the fire of 1576 – in a way that will involve the whole local community.  The church is your church; it was your forebears who enabled its renaissance.  You may not be C of E, you may not be religious, but the church still belongs to you.  It is the symbol and the container of our local history.  Its doors are open every day of the year.

Special events will be taking place at the church this year under the heading of ‘Harting 450’, and we hope that you will come and enjoy them.  They have been designed to appeal to a wide variety of tastes, from choral evensong to Pink Floyd, from maypole dancing to a string quartet.  It will be exciting to use the church in such different ways and to enable more people to come and feel part of it.

Below is the programme of events.  Please note them carefully and look out for details as the year progresses.  Shakespeare himself said that ‘ruin'd love when it is built anew / grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.’  450 years ago our ruined church was built anew, and from the ashes of the fire emerged a building ‘more strong, far greater’ than its predecessor.  For that we are profoundly thankful.