This church formerly stood on the island of Ebony, the hogsback you see on the right as you go down the road to Appledore. The old graveyard is still there clearly marked by the clump of trees on the rise as you look up from the road.

How the church came to be moved here, to Reading Street, in 1858 – a good mile from its old site – is explained in a note by the Rev. W W Kirby, Vicar of Appledore and Ebony 1856-62, which is framed on the north wall. Briefly the population had long deserted the island for the healthier and more accessible hamlet of Reading Street, the nearest house was three quarters of a mile away and the fabric of the church was in bad need of repair. With great initiative, the new Vicar and his Churchwarden decided to pull the old building down to move the stone work by horse and cart over a mile of rough track, and to build it anew. The whole job was done in three months at a cost of £270 – to the credit of Mr S Teale the architect and with well known local builders Bourne and Chandle of Woodchurch.

From the sketch made in 1809, also hung on the north wall, you can see that the old church was rebuilt on very much the same plan and most of the old masonry including much ashlar and red black stone quarried locally was preserved. The only changes were that the buttresses were eliminated, the porch door was placed nearer to the west end and the new west window was inserted. Nearly all the stonework of the three perpendicular windows on the south and the two on the north wall survived the move, as did the find early English window and porch doorway. The floor, roof and furniture are new, apart from an old fragment of oak, carved with oak leaves and acorns on the reading desk and the very fine Royal Arms of George III made by J Marten of Tenterden in 1768

Ebony is included in the AD1070 list of churches in Kent and there are many records of the mediaeval church on the island. It used to be much larger and richly furnished with all the ornaments of the pre-reformation church.

Lights burned before the statues of five saints and at the church’s holy well. There were four bells and a sanctus bell. All this went at the Reformation and in 1570 lightning struck the church. The laity raised £200 and from the remains the parish built the church, the remains of which after many vicissitude were moved here in 1858. A few remnants of the ancient Church survived to be incorporated in the present building. As well as the early English east window and the porch door (with a fragment of a gargoyle dripstone still to be seen) you can see, if you search closely the watch dial of the mass clock, half way up the right hand side of the door frame to the outside vestry door and at the base of its inside frame a dedication cross.

Unfortunately a third feature of the mediaeval; church a most interesting primitive stone crucifix which was discovered in the masonry of the old building which was taken down in 1858 was mounted on the east gable to be shattered by a German flying bomb in the 1939 war. A modern cross marks its place. A picture of this crucifix drawn at the time of its discovery hangs on the North wall.

Strangers may wonder how the old island of Ebony could once have been surrounded by water. The explanation is that up to about 1650 the Rother flowed through Robertsbridge, Bodiam and Newenden, as it still does, but then turned left handed to pass the Isle of Oxney on its north side. After passing Smallhythe it forked at Ebony surrounding it on both sides and then in a broad estuary founds its way to the sea past Appledore into Rye Harbour. The river was tidal and at high tides the salt water swirled all over the levels, leaving Ebony isolated by a sea of water. All this changed when the landowners wanting to increase the value of their land, after much litigation and great expense, cut a new channel below Newenden to divert the Rother to its present course over the Wittersham levels to Iden and its old estuary at Rye.

So long as the main sea channel flowed past it, Ebony benefited by the sea trade and could move its people and its crops by water. The monks of Canterbury owned the manor of Ebony and thus increased the wealth of the Church. Barley, grown at Ebony, was as is known by an entry of 1311, sent to the monks granary at Canterbury and the monks in return for the wealth they drew from the parish saw that the needs of the church were met.

Since the Reformation the parish have kept the church going and its small population still work hard and with affection to preserve it as a place of worship.

It is customary to hold a Pilgrimage one a year generally in early September to the ancient site of the church on Chapel Bank where an open air service is held in memory of all it stood for in past years.