Barfreston comes from the Old English ‘tūn’ meaning an ‘enclosure, a farmstead, village’
combined with a personal name; therefore, ‘Beorhtfri’s farm/homestead’. The Domesday
Book records Barfreston as Berfrestone. Edward Hasted in his topographical survey
of 1800 refers to it as Barson.
Barfreston parish church is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, and built by the Normans
between 1170 and 1185. An unknown founder cast a bell in the mid-13th century. Hasted
describes the Barfreston church, which he refers to as St Mary’s, as ‘a small building
of great antiquity; the outside is curiously adorned with carve-work in stone, with
circular arches and windows, especially at the east end; the west end has a fine
circular arch with Saxon ornaments and zig-zag border; and in the inside is another
like arch between the body and chancel. This church, so well known to every lover
of antiquity, of which so many engravings have been made, is a most curious specimen
of Anglo Saxon architecture. It consists of a body and chancel, separated by a circular
arch, supported by two elegant wreathed pillars; a row of singular uncouth heads
are round the cornice; a beautiful circular window is at the east end; at the foot
of the wall are two circular arches, forming recesses, probably for places of sepulture,
and not improbably for the founders of the church. The grand south entrance, now
partly hid by a modern porch, is most curiously sculptured with rows of figures of
various kinds. Nitches for statues are all round the building. There is no steeple,
a small wooden turret having been taken down a few years since. There is only one
bell’. R C Hussey carried out a major restoration in 1839. Around 1900, they hung
the bell in a Yew tree…. more
