East Lavant

St Mary's Church

St Mary’s Church was founded in the 12th century. The North aisle was added in the 13th century - one of the columns separating the nave from the north aisle remains, the others are 19th-century. The lancet window is also original. The 15th century appears to have brought the five stalls with their misericords.

The south tower was constructed in 1671 and the south west window nave window was inserted at the same date. Most of the north aisle, the arcade between the nave and the north aisle, much of the nave and chancel seems to have been rebuilt in 1863.

In 1628, an ecclesiastical case is preserved that relates to a game of cricket being played at East Lavant on a Sunday. Two defendants, Edward Taylor and William Greentree, were charged with playing cricket at the time of evening service. Taylor argued that he had not played during evening prayer time but only before and after. It did him no good as he was fined the statutory 12d and ordered to do penance. Doing penance involved confessing his guilt to the whole East Lavant congregation the following Sunday.

The Royal Oak

The village public house is called "The Royal Oak". It is believed to be haunted by a lady in white who appears in a front upper floor bedroom. In the 1940s it drew national attention due to the famous "Drinking Pig". A local farmer used to give one of his pigs, the runt of the litter, a drink of beer to build it up. A national paper heard the story and sent a reporter. Unfortunately the beer had worked and the pig had been slaughtered. The resourceful farmer merely found another pig and this appeared in the newspaper article. Thus a fine picture of the pig and the farmer appeared in the paper, with the landlord, James Pafford and his family standing proudly behind the bar.