The Norman Church at Horsted Keynes in the Weald

Horsted Keynes first appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 and means 'horse farm (stead) of the de Cahaignes family from Normandy'.

When the Normans arrived in 1066 and took the manor from the Saxons, the name was changed and became Horsted de Cahaignes, that is the horse-farm belonging to Ralf de Cahaignes, who was a Norman lord with possessions at Cahaignes in Normandy and who had fought with William the Conqueror at Hastings.

The Church in Horsted Keynes is dedicated to St Giles and is Norman in origin with a fine Norman chancel arch and a door in the north aisle.

The village of Horsted Keynes is now twinned with the French village of Cahagnes in Normandy. The church there was blown up during the 1939-1945 War, but photographs taken in the 1930s show it to have been very much like St Giles in Horsted Keynes. It seems probable that Ralf brought over in his entourage priests and builders from Cahagnes to rebuild the Saxon Church in his new village in England.