All Saints Church is of vital historic interest and work needs to be started as soon as possible to restore and repair the fabric of the building. In order to provide funding for these capital works we have sought support from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and have been fortunate enough to have been allocated a Grant of £100,000 towards the restoration. This has been matched by All Saints PCC with match funding of £100,000. We still need £150,000 to complete the restoration work.

All Saints Church is the Parish Church of Patcham, Hollingbury and Westdene which has a population of over 19.000. The church was listed as Grade 2* in 1952. All Saints has a history dating back to Saxon times and is built in the vernacular flint which was widely used for building construction in Sussex in the middle ages, with sections of the present building dating from as early as the 12th century. The nave is Norman and dates from the 12th century. The tower dates from the 13th century and the chancel from the 14th century. In 1898 a north aisle was created which used brick and flint in its construction. The remaining exterior cannot be accurately dated due to the cement render, applied to the building sometime in the 19th century. In the nave of the church and positioned over the chancel arch is a 13th century Last Judgement or Doom painting, uncovered in 1879. Conflicting dates are attributed to the Doom painting, that of 1170, 1225 and 1230.

The cement render, being a very hard material, with no allowance for movement, has developed serious cracks, particularly around windows. These have been re-pointed in the past, but have opened up again, allowing water ingress into the flint rubble walls. The water is therefore unable to escape from the walls, as the cement render does not permit the walls to "breath" in the manner that a lime render would. The capital works will halt the deterioration in the fabric of All Saints and will dramatically improve the appearance of both the interior and the exterior of the church, taking it back to the vernacular.

We urgently need to halt the deterioration in the church fabric, in particular the water ingress to the South Wall of the Chancel and the Nave, which is causing severe damage to the interior of the church. Significant dampness is now showing through the wall and finishes, and the surfaces are friable and breaking down as a result of a build-up of salts in the wall. The decorations over the piscine had also been coated with a heavy cement-based coating and shows signs of significant deterioration. The window jambs are also in a poor state. Given the increasing presence of dampness as well as the presence of the cement rendered finishes internally and externally, remedial work is increasingly urgent flint as so many other Sussex Downland churches have been restored.