The Priory of Sele
In 1073 William de Braose re-built Bramber Castle as his central defensive position in the “Rape of Bramber”. He also built there (that year) the Church of St. Nicholas and established a small religious community, known as a College of Canons (monks).
Just seven years later, in 1080, the monks were taking up too much precious space, and so were moved out of the Castle and over the River Adur to the Church of St. Peter in the neighbouring village of Beeding, where de Braose had also been busy with rebuilding work, incorporating some stone elements of the earlier Saxon church. Here the monks became established as the “Sele Priory” community, a daughter Priory of the Abbey of St. Florent at Saumur, on the Loire in France.
There were usually fewer than 20 members of this community at any time. They averaged 16, namely the Prior (monk in charge), 6 other (lay) monks, 2 monks who were priests, 1 monk who was a deacon, and 6 associated members of the community (a forester, a mason, a cook, and 3 servants).
The Beeding brothers became responsible for running most churches in the local area (except St. Andrew’s at Steyning). They launched (in 1220) a mission to the Horsham area, basing themselves in St. Leonard’s Forest, and established a mission base which they called “Lower Beeding”. The village of Lower Beeding is now a thriving community, 6 miles from Horsham. [It remained an isolated island-part of Beeding parish until as recently as 1838.]
The monks of Sele ran a chapel (St. Mary’s) on the central buttress of Bramber Bridge. They rebuilt many local churches, and established other new ones (such as All Saints at Buncton). They rebuilt St. Peter’s (Beeding) itself in 1307 / 1308 to enlarge the facility for both monks and villagers.
Sele Priory became independent of its French mother house (for political reasons) in 1396 (by order of King Richard II), but was already in decline, and never became an Abbey in its own right. In 1459 the Priory finally closed, its property passing to the newly-founded Magdalen College, Oxford.
The religious life continued briefly, for the premises were rented by Carmelite monks from Shoreham (whose own Priory had become flooded due to changes in the course of the River Adur). However, King Henry VIII wickedly suppressed the lesser monasteries in 1535 in order to cease their assets and line his own pockets. So in that year Sele Priory finally closed for ever.
Although the Priory is gone, its name and its memory live on, and the (parish) community at Beeding continues to honour the traditions of regular prayer, with Word and Sacrament, to the present day
