Adam and Eve and the Lord God

The church at Hardham is a small simple building constructed of sandstone and ironstone rubble interspersed with Roman tiles; originally it was whitewashed. It was built without a tower, but a bell turret was added in Victorian times. There are no features which prove that it was built before the Conquest, but three of the deeply-splayed windows are primitive; one of them has a rebate on the outside for a shutter. Other windows were cut later, the earliest being a double lancet behind the altar which dates from the thirteenth century. The church consists of a nave, 9.6 m x 5.8 m (31 ft 6 in x 19 ft), and chancel, 5.2 m x 4.7 m (17 ft x 15 ft 6 in). The insertion of the lancet window has destroyed the centrepiece of the decorative scheme of paintings which extended over both parts of the church and formed an integrated whole (Johnston 1901a, 74; 1901b, 62; Milner Gulland 1985, 27, 43; Baker 1986, 49–49). In both nave and chancel the theme of the decoration is the contrast between good and evil. Thus, in the nave the Sacrificial Lamb with angels waving censers is placed over the chancel arch and is confronted by a representation of the damned in hell which faces it on the west wall. In the chancel, Christ seated in Majesty, adored by Cherubim and the Elders of the Apocalypse, was painted on the east wall and faced a representation of the Fall of Man and the history of Adam and Eve on the east face of the chancel arch. This scheme interprets the words of St Paul, As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive' (I Corinthians xv, v 22). The central part of this composition was destroyed by the insertion of the thirteenth-century window. The theological idea that sin was brought into the world by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and could only be expunged by the Life and Passion of Christ, is often illustrated in the Middle Ages. This, for instance, is the theme of the illustrations in the St Albans Psalter, which was produced during the first half of the twelfth century (Dodwell et al. 1960, 49; see especially Pacht 1962, 49–53)

Altar · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Frieze · Nave · Painting · Rubble · Tower · Visual arts · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Medieval Literature and History

• Hardham Church, and its Early Paintings

  Philip Mainwaring Johnston•Archaeological Journal•1901

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• The Early Wall Paintings in Coombes Church, Sussex, and their Iconography

  Clive Rouse, Audrey Baker•Archaeological Journal•1979

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