History of Sussex
Encyclopedia
Sussex from the Old English 'Sūþsēaxe' ('South Saxons'), was a county in the south east
of England
. The foundation of the Kingdom of Sussex is recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
for the year AD 477, saying that Ælle arrived at a place called Cymenshore
in three ships with his three sons and killed or put to flight the local inhabitants.
The foundation story is regarded as somewhat of a myth by most historians, although the archaeology suggests that Saxons did start to settle in the area in the late 5th century. The Kingdom of Sussex became the county of Sussex; then after the coming of Christianity; the see originally founded in Selsey, was moved to Chichester in the 11th century. The See of Chichester was coterminous with the county borders. In the 12th century the see was split into two archdeaconries centred at Chichester and Lewes.
After the Reform Act of 1832 Sussex was divided into the eastern division and the western division, these divisions were coterminous with the two archdeaconries of Chichester and Lewes. Sussex ceased to exist as a political entity in 1974, when, under an act of parliament, its eastern division became the county of East Sussex and the western division the county of West Sussex. There are several organisations that still operate within the ancient borders of Sussex although it is now the two counties of East and West Sussex, some examples being the Diocese of Chichester
, Sussex Police
and Sussex Archaeological Society
.
Although the name Sussex is derived from the Saxon period between AD 477 to 1066, the history of human habitation in Sussex goes back to the Old Stone (Paleolithic
) Age. Sussex has been occupied since those times and although it has been an industrious county it has succumbed to various persecutions, wars, invasions, political unrest and migrations throughout its long history.
.
Boxgrove man apparently lived in a temperate stage immediately prior to the Anglian glaciation
, in the Lower Paleolithic period between 524,000 and 478,000 years ago.
In 1900 Upper Palaeolithic flintwork was found at a site in the Beedings. Then in 2007–08 Early Upper Palaeolithic archaeology was found at the same site. The archaeology at the Beedings spans a crucial cultural transition in the European Palaeolithic and therefore provides an important new dataset for the analysis of late Neanderthal groups in northern Europe and their replacement by modern human populations.
It is believed that during the Mesolithic
Age nomadic hunters arrived in Sussex from Europe. At the time (8000 BC), Britain was still connected to the continent, however the ice sheets over northern Europe were melting rapidly and causing the gradual rising of sea levels, which eventually led to the forming of the Straits of Dover, effectively cutting off the Mesolithic people of Sussex from the continent. There have been archaeological finds from these people, mostly in the central wealden
area to the north of the Downs. Large amounts of knives, scrapers, arrow heads and other tools have been found.
Close to the River Ouse
near Sharpsbridge, a polished axe, polished axe fragments, a chisel and other examples of Neolithic
flintwork have been found. The fact that these implements were found close to the River Ouse suggests that some land clearance may have taken place in the river valley during the Neolithic period.
From about 4300 BC to about 3400 BC the mining of flint for use locally and also for wider trade was a major activity in Neolithic Sussex. There was also a Neolithic pottery industry, with styles of pot reminiscent of finds elsewhere, such as Hembury and Grimston/ Lyle Hill.
in Sussex is marked by the appearance of Beaker pottery. There have been several finds including some in Beaker settlements, a significant settlement was one discovered near Beachy Head
, in 1909. The site was partially excavated in 1970 and the finds included pottery,flints, post settings, shallow pits and a midden
. The presence of Beaker pottery provides the first evidence of the migration of people from northern Europe since the early Neolithic period. Although some pre-historians now doubt the existence of the Beaker people as migrants and suggest that it was possible that the Beaker culture may have just been a new development of the local neolithic people.
From the Bronze Age
(about 1400-1100BC) settlements and burial sites have left their mark throughout Sussex.
Cissbury Ring
. A small number of agricultural settlements, or farmsteads, have been excavated on a large scale. The results of these excavations have provided a picture of the economy, based on mixed farming. Artefacts such as iron ploughshares and sickles were excavated.
The presence of animal bones, particularly cattle and sheep, attests to the pastoral element to their economy.
Various items have been found that indicate that they used to spin and weave the wool they produced.
The Sussex Iron Age dweller supplemented their diet with marine shellfish, the remains of which have been found on
several sites.
Towards the end of the Iron Age in 75BC, people from the Atrebates
one of the tribes of the Belgae
, a mix of Celtic and German stock, started invading and
occupying southern Britain. This was followed by an invasion by
the Roman army under Julius Caesar
that temporarily occupied the south-east in 55BC.
Then soon after the first Roman invasion had ended, the Celtic Regnenses
tribe under, their leader Commius
occupied the Manhood Peninsula
.
Tincomarus
and then Cogidubnus followed Commius as rulers of the Regnenses.
At the time of the Roman conquest in AD43 there was an oppidum
in the southern part of their territory, probably in the Selsey region.
(Chichester).
There are a variety of remains in the county from Roman times, coin hoards and decorated pottery have been found.
There are examples of Roman roads such as:
Also a variety of buildings, the best known being:
The coast of Roman Britain had a series of defensive forts on them, and towards the end of the Roman occupation the coast was subject to raids by Saxons
. Additional forts
were built against the Saxon threat, an example in Sussex being Anderitum
(Pevensey Castle
). The coastal defences were supervised by the Count of the Saxon Shore
. There is some suggestion that around the beginning of the fourth century the Roman authorities recruited mercenaries from the German homelands to defend the southern and eastern coasts of Britain. The area they defended was known as the Saxon Shore. It is possible that these mercenaries remained after the departure of the Roman army and merged with the eventual Anglo-Saxon invaders.
On Friday 13 October 1066, Harold Godwinson
and his English army arrived at Senlac Hill
just outside Hastings, to face William of Normandy and his invading army. On the 14th October 1066, during the ensuing battle, Harold was killed and the English defeated. It is likely that all the fighting men of Sussex were at the battle, as the county's thanes were decimated and any that survived had their lands confiscated. William built Battle Abbey
at the site of the battle, and the exact spot where Harold fell was marked by the high altar.
Norman influence was already strong in Sussex before the Conquest: the abbey of Fécamp had interest in the harbours of Hastings
, Rye, Winchelsea and Steyning; while the estate of Bosham
was held by a Norman chaplain to Edward the Confessor
. After the Norman conquest the 387 manors, that had been in Saxon hands, were replaced by just 16 heads of manors.
The 16 people, in charge of the manors, were known as the Tenentes in capite
in other words the chief tenants who held their land directly from the crown. The list includes nine ecclesiasticals although the portion of their landholding is quite small and was virtually no different to that under Edward the Confessor, and it is possible that two of the lords may have been Saxon. This means that 353 of the 387 manors in Sussex would have been wrested from their Saxon owners and given to Norman Lords by William the Conqueror
The county was of great importance to the Normans; Hastings and Pevensey being on the most direct route for Normandy. Because of this the county was divided into five new baronies, called rapes, each with at least one town and a castle. This enabled the ruling group of Normans to control the manorial revenues and thus the greater part of the county's wealth.
William, the Conqueror gave these rapes to five of his most trusted Barons:
Historically the land holdings of each Saxon lord had been scattered, but now the lords lands were determined by the borders of the rape. The unit of land, known as the hide
, in Sussex had eight instead of the usual four virgate
s,(a virgate being equal to the amount of land two oxen can plough in a season).
The county boundary was long and somewhat indeterminate on the north, owing to the dense forest of Andredsweald. Evidence of this is seen in Domesday Book
by the survey of Worth and Lodsworth under Surrey
, and also by the fact that as late as 1834 the present parishes of north and south Amersham
in Sussex were part of Hampshire
.
At the time of the Domesday Survey, Sussex contained fifty nine hundreds. This eventually increased to sixty-three hundreds and remained unchanged till the 19th century, with thirty eight retaining their original names. The reason why the remainder had their names changed was probably due to the meeting-place of the hundred court being altered. These courts were in private hands in Sussex; either of the Church, or of great barons and local lords.
Independent from the hundreds were the boroughs.
The county court had been held at Lewes and Shoreham until 1086, when it was moved to Chichester. After several changes the act of 1504, during the reign of Henry VII, arranged for it to be held alternately at Lewes and Chichester.
In 1107-9 there was construction of a county gaol, in Chichester Castle
, however the castle was demolished in around 1217 and another gaol built on the same site. That gaol is known to have been used until 1269, when the site of the prison was given to the Greyfriars
to build a priory. In 1242 the counties of Surrey and Sussex were formerly united, and a sharing of prison accommodation resulted almost immediately. Sussex men were imprisoned in Guildford gaol. There were requests for the provision of a county gaol in both Chichester and Lewes at various times to no avail. However the national gaol system became overloaded during the Peasants' Revolt
of 1381, and the earl of Arundel was obliged to imprison people in his castles at Arundel and Lewes. Thus Sussex managed to get a county gaol again at Lewes in 1487 and there it remained until it was moved to Horsham in 1541 for a period.
In the middle of the 16th century the assizes were usually held at Horsham or East Grinstead. In the middle of the 17th century a gaol was built in Horsham, then in 1775 a new gaol was built to replace it. In 1788 an additional gaol was built at Petworth, known as the Petworth House of Correction. There were further Houses of Correction built at Lewes and Battle.
It is believed that the last case of someone being executed by being pressed to death (peine forte et dure), in the country, was carried out in 1735 at Horsham. At the assizes a man who pretended to be dumb and lame, was indicted for murder and robbery. When he was brought to the bar, he would not speak or plead. Witnesses told the court, that they had heard him speak so he was taken back to Horsham gaol. As he would not plead they laid 100 pounds (45.4 kg) weight on him, then as he still would not plead, they added 100 pounds (45.4 kg) more, and a further 100 pounds (45.4 kg) making a total of 300 pounds (136.1 kg) weight, still he would not speak; so 50 pounds (22.7 kg) more was added, when he was nearly dead, the executioner, who weighed about 16 stone or 17 stone, laid down upon the board which was over him, and killed him in an instant.
In 1824 there were 109 prisoners in Horsham Gaol, 233 in Petworth House of Correction, 591 in Lewes House of Correction and 91 in Battle House of Correction. The last public hanging in Sussex was at Horsham in 1844, a year before the gaol finally closed.
The sheriff
's function was to be responsible for the civil justice within the county. Surrey and Sussex shared one sheriff until 1567 when the function was split. Then in 1571 the two counties again shared one sheriff, finally each county was given their own sheriff in 1636. The office of High Sheriff for Sussex then continued until 1974 when it was ended by the local government re-organisation that split Sussex into the two counties of East and West Sussex.
During time of internal unrest or foreign invasions it was usual for the monarch to appoint a lieutenant of the county. The policy of appointing temporary lieutenants continued till the reign of Henry VIII, when Lords Lieutenant were introduced as standing representatives of the crown. The first Lord Lieutenant of the County of Sussex was Sir Richard Sackville
in 1550, the Lord Lieutenant was usually also the custos rotulorum
of the county and Sackville had been given that the year before. The main duties of the Lords Lieutenant was to oversee the military in the county; in Sussex this was the Militia and the Sussex Yeomanry.
As with the Sheriff, the post of Lord Lieutenant of Sussex was ended, in 1974, by the local government re-organisation. There are now separate Sheriffs and Lords Lieutenant for East and West Sussex and the modern day role is largely ceremonial.
Private jurisdictions, both ecclesiastical and lay, played a large part in the county. The chief ecclesiastical franchises were those of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Chichester
and also that of Battle Abbey which was founded by William the Conqueror. The main lay francises were those of the Cinque Ports
and the Honour of Pevensey. The Cinque Ports were a group of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex that were given ancient rights and privileges. The main rights were the exemption of taxes and duties and the right to enforce the laws in their juristriction. In return for these privileges they were duty bound to provide ships and men in the time of war for the crown. Traditionally when a collection of lands owned by the Crown is held in tenancy then the tenant is known as the tenant-in-chief and the lands held in such a way was called an honour. The Honour of Pevensey was a collection of estates in Sussex. The Honour of Pevensey was also known as the Lordship of Pevensey Castle or the Honour of The Eagle after the lords of L'Aigle who invariably were the tenant-in-chief. The name L'Aigle (French for eagle) supposedly being derived from a town in Normandy that was named after an eagle that had built its nest in the area.
There have been finds across Europe that suggest that people believed in some sort of afterlife, but whether this represented a religion is not certain. The number of Palaeolithic graves found across Europe has been small and all those in the British region show signs of having been buried in a ritual way.
The Neolithic people of Sussex built causewayed enclosure
s, including those at Whitehawk Camp, Combe Hill
and The Trundle
.Hutton. Pagan Religions. pp. 44-51. There is an hypothesis that there was a ritual element in the construction of these sites, possibly to consecrate the enclosure. Important burials were in long mounds, known as barrows
and several have been found in Sussex, they contained cremated remains in pottery vessels. One of the better known long barrows in Sussex is that of Solomon’s or Baverse’s (Bevis’s) Thumb near Compton, it measures 150 feet (45.7 m) in length by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide.
The general way of life in the Bronze Age in Sussex was not too different to that of the Neolithic and this way of life continued for about one thousand years, until the arrival of the Celts from the south east.
Formal cemeteries and ritual centres have been found at Westhampnett and Lancing Down dating from the late Iron Age.
. There is not much known about the ancient Celtic religion and a lot of what we do know is based on the writings of ancient Greek and Roman scholars and archaeology. The Celtic religion was polytheistic
, and consisted of both god
s and goddess
es, some of which were venerated only in a small, local area, but others whose worship had a wider geographical distribution. Julius Caesar observed that some of the Celtic gods were similar to that of the Roman gods.
The first written account of Christianity in Britain comes from the early Christian Berber
author, Tertullian
, writing in the third century, who said that "Christianity could even be found in Britain." Emperor Constantine
(AD 306-337), granted official tolerance to Christianity with the Edict of Milan
in AD 313. Then, in the reign of Emperor Theodosius "the Great"
(AD 378-395), Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire
.
When Roman rule eventually ceased, Christianity was probably confined to urban communities.
, the exiled Bishop of York, landed at Selsey and is credited with evangilising the locals and founding the church in Sussex, and accordng to Bede
, it was the last area of the country to be converted.Bede.HE.IV.13
of 1075 decreed that sees should be centred in cities rather than vill
s.
Bishop Ralph Luffa
is credited with the foundation of the current Chichester Cathedral
.
The original structure that had been built by Stigand was largely destroyed by fire in 1114.
The archdeacon
ries of Chichester and Lewes were created in the 12th century under Ralph Luffa.
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Like the rest of the country the Church of Englands split with Rome during the reign of Henry VIII
, was felt in Sussex. In 1535, the vicar-general Sir Thomas Cromwell visited the monasteries in the county and the following year an act was passed that decreed the dissolution of most of them. Sussex did not do too badly compared to the rest of the country, as it only had one person in 500, who was a member of a religious order, compared to the national average of one in 256.
In 1538 there was a royal order for the demolition of the shrine of Saint Richard, in Chichester Cathedral. Thomas Cromwell saying that there was a certain kind of idolatry about the shrine.
Richard Sampson
, the Bishop of Chichester incurred the displeasure of Cromwell and ended up imprisoned in the Tower of London
at the end of 1539. Sampson was released, after the fall from favour and execution of Cromwell in 1540. Sampson then continued at the see of Chichester for a further two years. Sampson was succeeded as Bishop of Chichester by George Day
. Day opposed the changes, and incurred the displeasure of the royal commissioners who promptly suspended him as Bishop and allowed him only preach in his cathedral church.
Henry VIII died in 1547, his son Edward VI
continued on the path that his father had set. However his reign was only short-lived as he died after only six years.
The bishops of Chichester had not been for the Reformation until the appointment of John Scory
, to the episcopate, who replaced Day in 1552. During Henry VIII's reign two of the canons of Chichester cathedral had been executed for their opposition to the Reformation and during his sons Edward VI reign George Day ultimately had been imprisoned for his opposition to the reforms.
There had been twenty years of religious reform, when the catholic, Mary Tudor
succeeded to the throne of England in 1553. Mary expected her clergy to be unmarried, so Bishop Scory thought it prudent to retire as he was a married man, and George Day was released and restored to the see of Chichester.
Marys persecution of Protestants earned her the nickname Bloody Mary. The national figure for those Protestants burnt at the stake, during her reign, was around 288 and included 41 in Sussex. Most of the executions in Sussex were at Lewes. Of the total of 41 burnings, 36 can be identified to have come from specific parishes and the place of execution is known for 27 of them; this is because the details of the executions were recorded in the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
, published in 1563. There are Bonfire Societies
in Sussex that still remember the 17 Protestant martyrs that burned in Lewes High Street, and in Lewes itself they have a procession of martyrs crosses during the bonfire night celebration.
In 1558 Mary died and her Protestant sister Elizabeth I
replaced her.
Elizabeth re-established the break with Rome when she passed the 1559 Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the clergy were expected to take statutory oaths and those that did not were deprived of their living. In the county nearly half the cathedral and about 40% of the parish clergy had to be replaced, although some of the vacancies were due to ill health or death.
There were no battles of national significance, in Sussex, during the 1642–1651 English civil war, however there were small sieges at Chichester and Arundel. The west of the county was generally for the king although Chichester was for parliament and the east of the county, with some exceptions, was also for parliament. A few churches were damaged particularly in the Arundel area. Also, after the surrender of Chichester, the Cathedral was sacked by Sir William Wallers parliamentary troops. Bruno Ryves
, Dean of Chichester Cathedral said of the troops that they deface and mangle (the monuments) with their swords as high as they could reach.
About a quarter of the incumbents were forced from their parishes and replaced with Puritans. Many people turned away from the traditional churches and in 1655 George Fox
founded the Society of Friends at Horsham.
The Parliamentary
history of the county began in the 13th century. In 1290, the first year for which a return of knights of the shire is available, Henry Hussey and William de Etchingham were elected.
In 1801 the Members of Parliament(MPs) for the counties on the south coast of England were elected to a third of all the seats in parliament, although they represented only about 15% of the nations population. The way that the countrys electoral system worked had changed little since the first parliament in 1295. The counties each returned two MPs and each borough designated by Royal charter also returned two MPs. This produced the situation where some of the towns of the north that had grown large during the industrial revolution
had no representation whereas smaller towns in the south, that had been important in medieval times, were still able to have two MPs.
Although there had been various proposals to reform the system from 1770, it was not till 1830 when a series of factors saw the Reform Act 1832
introduced. The larger industrial towns of the north were enfranchised for the first time and smaller English boroughs (known as Rotten Boroughs) were disenfranchised,including Bramber
, East Grinstead
, Seaford
, Steyning
and Winchelsea
in Sussex. The Representation of the People Act 1884
and the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885
(together known as the Third Reform Act) were responsible for redistributing 160 seats and extending suffrage.
After the Reform Act of 1832 Sussex was divided into the eastern division and the western division and two representatives were elected for each division. In June 1832 the Honorable C.C. Cavendish and H.B.Curteis Esquire were elected in the eastern division and the Earl of Surrey and Lord John George Lennox were elected for the western division. There was a total of 3478 votes cast in the eastern division and 2365 votes in the western division.
Before the 1832 reform two members each had been returned by Arundel
, Chichester, Hastings, Horsham
, Lewes, Midhurst
, New Shoreham (with the rape of Bramber) and Rye
. Arundel, Horsham, Midhurst and Rye were each deprived of a member in 1832, Chichester and Lewes in 1867, and Hastings in 1885. Arundel was disfranchised in 1868, and Chichester, Horsham, Midhurst, New Shoreham and Rye in 1885.
Under the new system the constituencies were based on unit numbers rather than historic towns. The reforms of the 19th century made the electoral system more representative, but it was not till 1928 there was universal suffrage.
In 1264 there was a civil war in England, between the forces of a group of barons, led by Simon de Montfort
, against the royalist forces, led by Prince Edward
, in the name of Henry III
, known as the Second Barons' War
. On the 12 May 1264, Simon de Montfort forces occupied a hill known as 'Offam Hill' outside Lewes, the royalist forces tried to storm the hill but ultimately were defeated by the barons'. The actual site, of what became known as the Battle of Lewes
, is somewhere between the town and the hill, the battle was bitterly fought for over five hours. In the 19th century, when a railway was being constructed in the area of the battle, navvies discovered a mass grave with around 2000 bodies in it.
During the Middle Ages the Wealden peasants rose up in revolt on two ocaasions, the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 under Watt Tyler, and in Jack Cade
's rebellion of 1450. Cade's rebellion was not just supported by the peasant class, many gentlemen, craftspeople and artisans also the Abbot of Battle and Prior of Lewes flocked to his standard in revolt against the corrupt government of Henry VI
. Jack Cade was fatally wounded in a skirmish at Heathfield
in 1450.
At the time of the English Civil War the counties sympathies were divided , Arundel supported the king, Chichester, Lewes and the Cinque Ports were for parliament. Most of the west of the county were for the king and included a powerful group with the bishop of Chichester and Sir Edward Ford, sheriff of Sussex, in their number. Exceptionally, Chichester was for parliament largely due to an influential brewer named William Cawley
. However the group of royalists led by Edward Ford managed to get a force together to capture Chichester, in 1642, for the king and imprisoned 200 parliamentarians.
The roundhead
army under Sir William Waller besieged Arundel and after its fall marched on Chichester and restored it to parliament. A military governor, Algernon Sidney was appointed in 1645. Chichester was then demilitarised, in 1647-1648 and remained in parliaments hands for the rest of the civil war. The brewer William Cawley became a MP for Chichester in 1647 and was one of the signatories on King Charles I
death warrant.
At the beginning of the 19th century agricultural labourers conditions took a turn for the worse with an increasing amount of them becoming unemployed, those in work faced their wages being forced down. Conditions became so bad that it was even reported to the House of Lords
in 1830 that four harvest labourers (seasonal workers) had been found dead of starvation. The deteriorating conditions of work for the agricultural labourer eventually triggered off riots in Kent during the summer of 1830. Similar action spread across the county border to Sussex where the riots lasted for several weeks, although the unrest continued until 1832 and were known as the Swing Riots
.
The Swing riots were accompanied by action against local farmers and land owners. Typically, what would happen is a threatening letter would be sent to a local farmer or leader demanding that automated equipment such as threshing machine
s should be withdrawn from service, wages should be increased and there would be a threat of consequences if this did not happen, the letter would be signed by a mythical Captain Swing
. This would be followed up by the destruction of farm equipment and occasionally arson.
Eventually the army was mobilised to contain the situation in the eastern part of the county, whereas in the west the Duke of Richmond
took action against the protesters by the use of the yeomanry and special constables. The Sussex Yeomanry
were subsequently disparagingly nicknamed the workhouse guards. The protesters faced charges of arson, robbery, riot, machine breaking and assault. Those convicted faced imprisonment, transportation
or ultimately execution.
The grievances continued encouraging a wider demand for political reform, culminating in the introduction of the Reform Act 1832.
One of the main grievances of the Swing protesters had been what they saw as inadequate Poor Law
benefits, Sussex had the highest poor-relief costs during the agricultural depression of 1815 to the 1830s and its workhouses were full. The general unrest, particularly about the state of the workhouses, was instrumental in the introduction of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
.
and Napoleonic wars
(1793–1815), a European coalition was formed, that included Britain, with the intention of crushing the newly founded French Republic, so defensive measures were taken in Sussex.
In 1793 at Brighton
two batteries
were built on the towns east and west cliffs (replacing older installations). The Sussex Yeomanry was founded in 1794, and numbers of gentlemen and yeomanry volunteered to join the part time cavalry regiment to serve in case of invasion by Bonaparte
. Between 1805 and 1808 a series of defensive towers known as Martello tower
s were erected along the Sussex and Kent coasts, and later on the east coast. The Admiralty
commissioned a visual signalling system to allow communications between ships and the shore and from there to the Admiralty in London; Sussex had a total of 16 signalling stations on its coast. A central fort and supply base for the towers, the Eastbourne Redoubt
at Eastbourne
was constructed between 1804-1810. It is now home to the Royal Sussex Regiment Museum. In the 1860s, possible wars
with France prompted more defence building, including the fort at Newhaven
.
At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the landowners of the county employed their local leadership roles to recruit volunteers for the nations forces. The owner of Herstmonceux Castle, a Claude Lowther
, recruited enough men for three Southdown Battalians who were known as Lowthers Lambs. The Royal Sussex Regiment fielded a total of 23 battalions in the Great War. After the war, St Georges Chapel, in Chichester Cathedral, was restored and furnished as a memorial to the fallen of the Royal Sussex Regiment. Nearly 7,000 of the regiment lost their lives, in the First World War, and their names are recorded on the panels that are attached to the walls of the chapel.
With the declaration of the Second World War, on 3 September 1939, Sussex found itself part of the country's frontline with its airfields playing a key role in the Battle of Britain
and with its towns being some of the most frequently bombed.
The first line of defence was the coastal crust consisting of pillboxes, machine-gun posts, trenches, rifle posts, anti-tank obstacles plus scaffolding, mines and barbed wire. As the Sussex regiments were serving overseas for large parts of the war, the defence of the county was undertaken by units of the Home Guard with help between 1941 to early 1944 from the First Canadian Army
.
During the war every part of Sussex was affected. Army camps of both the tented and also the more permanent variety sprang up everywhere. Sussex played host to many servicemen and women, including the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division
, the 4th Armoured Brigade, the 30th US Division, the 27th Armoured Brigade and the 15th Scottish Division. Besides airmen and women from the British Commonwealth, fighter squadrons from the Free French
, Free Czechs
, Free Polish
were regularly based at airfields around Sussex.
During the lead up to the D-Day
landings, the people of Sussex were witness to the build up of military personnel and materials, including the assembly of landing crafts and construction of Mulberry harbour
s off the countys coast. Five new airfields were built to provide additional support for the D-Day landings, four near Chichester and one near Billingshurst.
A legacy of the D-Day landings are the sections of Mulberry harbour that lay broken and abandoned on the sea floor 2 miles off the coast, of Selsey Bill, having missed the invasion.
Iron Age wrought iron was produced by means of a bloomery
followed by reheating and hammering. With the type that was common in Sussex a round shallow hearth was dug out, clay hard-packed to line it, then layers of hammered ore and charcoal were put down and the whole lot covered by a clay beehive structure, with holes at the side for the insertion of foot or hand bellows. The material inside the beehive furnace was then ignited and it took two to three days for the process to complete, leaving semi-molten lumps of iron, known as blooms on the hearth. The output from these types of furnace, was very small as everything had to cool down before the iron could be retrieved. The iron so retrieved could then be worked by using the heat and beat technique to form wrought iron implements such as weapons or tools. Around a dozen pre-Roman sites have been found in eastern Sussex, the westernmost being at Crawley.
The Romans made full use of this resource, continuing and intensifying native methods, and iron slag was widely used as paving material on the Roman roads of the area. The Roman iron industry was mainly in East Sussex with the largest sites in the Hastings area. The industry is thought to have been organised by the Classis Britannica
, the Roman navy.
Little evidence has been found of iron production after the Romans left until the ninth century when a primitive bloomery, of a continental style, was built at Millbrook on Ashdown Forest
, with a small hearth for reheating the blooms nearby. Production based on bloomeries then continued till the end of the 15th century when a new technique was imported from northern France that allowed the production of cast iron
. A permanent blast furnace was constructed; into the furnace chamber was inserted a pipe fed by bellows that could be operated by a wheel; the wheel was rotated by the use of water power, oxen or horses. Pairs of bellows continuously forced air into the furnace chamber, producing higher temperatures such that the iron completely melted and could be could be run off from the base of the chamber and into moulds. This allowed a continuous process that usually ran during the winter and spring seasons, ceasing when water supplies to drive the bellows dwindled in the summer.
Henry VIII, urgently needed cannon for his new coastal forts, but casting these in the traditional bronze would have been very expensive. Previously iron cannons had been made by building up bands of iron bound together with iron hoops; such cannons had been used at Bannockburn
in 1314. There had also been some cast cannons made in the Weald but with separate barrels and breeches.
In Buxted the local vicar, the Reverend William Levett
, was also a gun-founder, he recruited a Ralf Hogge
to help him produce cannon and in 1543 his employee cast an iron muzzle-loading cannon. It was cast in one piece, using a pattern based on the latest bronze ordnance. The navy, complained that the new guns were too heavy but bronze was ten times more costly, so in fortifications and for arming merchant ships iron guns were preferred. Gradually, owing to their toughness and validiti, an important export trade in wealden guns built up and they remained dominant internationally until displaced by Swedish guns around 1620. Both men made a lot of money out of the trade, and Hogge built a house on the road to Levetts church. Hogge put a rebus, on his house, with a hog on it as a pun for his name.
The large supply of wood in the county made it a favourable centre for the industry, all smelting
being done with charcoal
till the middle of the 18th century.
then to Alfold, Ewhurst, Billinghurst and Lurgashall. Many of the artisans in the industry were immigrants from France and Germany. The manufacturing process used timber for fuel, sand and potash(which served as flux).
Glass production in the English midlands using coal for the smelting process, plus opposition to the use of timber in Sussex, led to the collapse of the Sussex glass making industry in 1612.
The first real description of the forest that, at the time, covered the Sussex Weald was provided by, the annal commissioned in the 9th century by King Alfred, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which says that the forest was 120 miles wide and 30 miles deep (although probaby closer to 90 miles wide). The forest was so dense that even the Domesday Book did not record some of its settlements.
The Weald was not the only area of Sussex that was forested in Saxon times, for example at the western end of Sussex is the Manhood Peninsula, which these days is largely deforested, however the name is probably derived from the Old English maene-wudu meaning "men's wood" or "common wood" indicating that it was once woodland.
During and before the reign of Henry VIII, England imported a lot of the wood for its naval ships from the Hanseatic league
. Henry wanted to source the materials for his army and navy domestically. So it was largely the forests of Sussex that met this demand for wood, Sussex oak
being considered the finest shipbuilding
timber. Vast amounts of wood were consumed to build ships and produce charcoal for the foundry furnaces. Faced with diminishing stocks of wood due to the large consumption from the ship, iron and glass making industries, parliament introduced bills to manage the stocks more efficiently however the parliamentary bills were never past, with the result that the countys forests were decimated. The poet Michael Drayton
in his poem Poly-Olbion
, published in the early 17th century, made the trees denounce the iron trade:
However despite parliaments efforts the forests, of Sussex, continued to be consumed until 1760, when an Abraham Darby
discovered how to replace charcoal with coke in his blast furnaces, this resulted in production being moved to the parts of the country, nearer the coal mines. By that time the forests had been completely devastated and the roads ruined by the transport of ore and pig iron.
The High Weald still has about 35905 hectares (138.6 sq mi) of woodland, including areas of ancient woodland
equivalent to about 7% of the stock for all England. When the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was compiled in the 9th century there was thought to be about 2700 square miles (699,296.8 ha) of forest in the Sussex Weald.
commanded that his Chancellor should sit on the woolsack in council as a symbol of the pre-eminence of the wool trade at the time. In 1341 the greatest wool production in Sussex was in the eastern part of the county, and in the west of the county, the port of Chichester was extended along the whole coast from Southampton to Seaford for the collection of customs on wool. Also Chichester, despite its geographical disadvantages ranked as the seventh port in the kingdom and was one of the wool ports named in the Statute of the Staple
of 1353.
In the early 15th century most production of wool was within 15 miles of Lewes.
In the 16th century weavers were to be found in nearly every parish as were fullers
and dyers. Chichester was an early centre of the weaving
of cloth and also for the spinning of linen.
In 1566 an act that prohibited the export of "unwrought or unfinished cloths" led to the demise of the industry in Sussex, and by the beginning of the 18th century it had virtually collapsed; Daniel Defoe
commented, in 1724, that the "..whole counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, are not employ'd in any considerable Woolen Manufacture;".
Other turnpike acts followed with the roads being built and maintained by local trusts and parishes. The majority of the roads were maintained by a toll levied on each passenger (who usually would have been transported by stage coach), a few roads were still maintained by the parishes with no toll levied. There were 152 Acts of Parliament by the mid 19th century, for the formation, renewel and amendment of the turnpikes in the county. A report on the county's turnpike trusts, published in 1857, said that there were fifty-one trusts covering 640 miles of road, with 238 toll gates or bars, giving an average of one toll gate every 2.5 miles.
The last turnpike to be constructed in the county was between Cripps Corner and Hawkhurst
in 1841.
The system of turnpikes, coaches and coaching inns collapsed in the face of competition from the railways. By 1870 most of the county's Turnpike Trusts were wound up putting hundreds of coachmen and coachbuilders out of business. The conditions of the county's roads then deteriorated until the creation of the new county council in 1889, who assumed responsibility for the maintenance of the county's roads.
At the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all the first class roads had been turnpikes in 1850. During the course of the 20th century, the car and the lorry challenged the supremacy of the railways.
The two counties of East and West Sussex only have a total of 12 kilometre of motorway and relatively small amounts of dual carriageway. Two of the "A" roads that traverse Sussex from east to west are the A27
and the A259
, a combination of the these two roads provide the major route across Sussex, the route is only dual-carriageway for part of its length; both roads run parallel to the Sussex coast. The main north south road, that connects the coast to the London orbital M25
, is the M23
/ A23
. According to the Highways Agency
the removal of most of the east/ west bottlenecks, for example improvements to the Chichester by-pass, will not occur for some time to come.
s that were constructed in Sussex, can be described as navigations, in that their purpose was to make the lower reaches of the county's rivers navigable. The rivers had suffered from centuries of neglect, which had made navigation, even for small craft, difficult.
Examples of navigations in Sussex are:
Eventually, true canals were also built, examples being:
When the railways arrived, in Sussex, they provided an alternative to the canals and waterways, the canal companies revenue quickly dropped resulting in most of them closing for business by the beginning of World War I.
, a Cornish engineer, built the first steam locomotive for a railway. His seven-tonne locomotive hauled 10 tonnes of iron and 70 passengers on a 9 miles (14.5 km) journey from the Penydarren Ironworks near Merthyr Tydfil to the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon, reaching a top speed of almost 5 miles per hour (8 km/h).
George Stephenson
built the engine Locomotion
for the Stockton and Darlington railway
, which was opened in 1825 for both passenger and goods traffic; Locomotion pulled thirty-six wagons containing coal, grain and 500 paassengers a distance of 9 miles at a top speed of 15 miles per hour (24.1 km/h).
The Manchester to Liverpool railway of 1830 was the first to convey passengers and goods entirely by mechanical traction. Stephenson's Rocket
, which won the famous Rainhill trials in 1829, was the first steam locomotive designed to pull passenger traffic quickly.
Brightons proximity to London made it an ideal place to provide short holidays for Londoners. In the 1830s, during the summer, the London Brighton road would see around 40 coaches a day plus a number of private carriages taking visitors to the coast. The road was in a poor condition so proposals to build a railway was suggested as early as 1806. However, it was not till 1823 that a serious scheme was mooted. There followed years of discussion and argument with various groups proposing different routes, then finally in 1837 the London and Brighton Railway Bill with branches to Shoreham and Newhaven received Royal assent. In 1838 the directors of the London and Brighton Railway Company (L&BR) stated that the railroad would be different to the rest of the country in that it would be a passenger only railway.
In the 18th century Brighton had been a town in terminal decline until two things happened:
These two events increased the amount of visitors to the town, however in 1841 when the L&BR opened for business, of Brighton's 8,137 stock of houses, 1,095 stood empty. But within 40 years of the railways arrival Brighton's resident population had doubled.
After the opening of the Brighton line, within a few years branches were made to Chichester on the west and Hastings and Eastbourne to the east. In 1846 the L&BR merged with the London and Croydon Railway
(L&CR), the Brighton and Chichester Railway
and the Brighton, Lewes and Hastings Railway to form the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
(LB&SCR). The LB&SCR continued as an independent entity until the Railways Act 1921
, which saw the merger of various rail companies, in the south and south east, into the Southern Railway Company
(SR); formed on 1 January 1923. Two railway companies in the county, that were not absorbed by the SR, was Volk's Electric Railway
the world's first electric railway, that runs along the front at Brighton and opened in 1883, and the West Sussex Railway
, a light railway between Chichester and Selsey, opened in 1897.
SR was the smallest of four groups that were brought together by the Railways Act 1921. The LB&SCR had partly electrified their network before World War I, however that had been an overhead system
, SR decided to electrify their network using the third rail
DC system.
During World War II the SR was heavily involved with transporting armed services traffic and was bombed on many occasions. After the war SR was nationalised in 1948, and became the Southern Region of British Railways.
Following John Major
's victory in the 1992 General Election
, the conservative government
published a white paper
, indicating their intention to privatise the railways.
The government went ahead with their plans and franchises were awarded to train operating companies
(TOC).
Currently the main TOCs in Sussex are Southern Railway
, for the southcoast and services to Victoria and London Bridge
; First Capital Connect
for services from Brighton to Bedford
via London and the London and South Eastern Railway
for services between eastern Sussex and London.
, opened in 1579, and at Shoreham
opened in 1760. Other ports such as Pevensey, Winchelsea, and Rye now lie stranded from the current coastline. Other harbours that existed such as Fishbourne
, Steyning, Old Shoreham, Meeching and Bulverhythe are long since silted up and have been built over.
South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The foundation of the Kingdom of Sussex is recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...
for the year AD 477, saying that Ælle arrived at a place called Cymenshore
Cymenshore
Cymenshore is the place in Southern England where according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ælle of Sussex landed in 477 AD and battled the Welsh with his three sons Cymen, Wlencing and Cissa.-Historical context:The account of Ælle and his three sons landing at Cymenshore, in the Anglo Saxon...
in three ships with his three sons and killed or put to flight the local inhabitants.
The foundation story is regarded as somewhat of a myth by most historians, although the archaeology suggests that Saxons did start to settle in the area in the late 5th century. The Kingdom of Sussex became the county of Sussex; then after the coming of Christianity; the see originally founded in Selsey, was moved to Chichester in the 11th century. The See of Chichester was coterminous with the county borders. In the 12th century the see was split into two archdeaconries centred at Chichester and Lewes.
After the Reform Act of 1832 Sussex was divided into the eastern division and the western division, these divisions were coterminous with the two archdeaconries of Chichester and Lewes. Sussex ceased to exist as a political entity in 1974, when, under an act of parliament, its eastern division became the county of East Sussex and the western division the county of West Sussex. There are several organisations that still operate within the ancient borders of Sussex although it is now the two counties of East and West Sussex, some examples being the Diocese of Chichester
Diocese of Chichester
The Diocese of Chichester is a Church of England diocese based in Chichester, covering Sussex. It was created in 1075 to replace the old Diocese of Selsey, which was based at Selsey Abbey from 681. The cathedral is Chichester Cathedral and the bishop is the Bishop of Chichester...
, Sussex Police
Sussex Police
Sussex Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing East Sussex, West Sussex and City of Brighton and Hove in southern England. Its head office is in Lewes, Lewes District, East Sussex.-History:...
and Sussex Archaeological Society
Sussex Archaeological Society
The Sussex Archaeological Society, founded in 1846, is the largest county-based archaeological society in the UK. Its headquarters are in Lewes, Sussex...
.
Although the name Sussex is derived from the Saxon period between AD 477 to 1066, the history of human habitation in Sussex goes back to the Old Stone (Paleolithic
Lower Paleolithic
The Lower Paleolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current archaeological record, until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the...
) Age. Sussex has been occupied since those times and although it has been an industrious county it has succumbed to various persecutions, wars, invasions, political unrest and migrations throughout its long history.
Stone Age
In 1993 a human-like tibia was found at Boxgrove near Chichester. Then in 1996 further hominid remains were found: two incisor teeth from a single individual recovered from the lower freshwater deposits at the site. The remains came to be known as "Boxgrove man" and are thought to be a species known as Homo HeidelbergensisHomo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species of the genus Homo which may be the direct ancestor of both Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Homo sapiens. The best evidence found for these hominins date between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago. H...
.
Boxgrove man apparently lived in a temperate stage immediately prior to the Anglian glaciation
Anglian glaciation
The Anglian Stage is the name for a middle Pleistocene stage used in the British Isles. It precedes the Hoxnian Stage and follows the Cromerian Stage in the British Isles. The Anglian Stage is equivalent to the Elsterian Stage of northern Continental Europe, the Mindel Stage in the Alps and Marine...
, in the Lower Paleolithic period between 524,000 and 478,000 years ago.
In 1900 Upper Palaeolithic flintwork was found at a site in the Beedings. Then in 2007–08 Early Upper Palaeolithic archaeology was found at the same site. The archaeology at the Beedings spans a crucial cultural transition in the European Palaeolithic and therefore provides an important new dataset for the analysis of late Neanderthal groups in northern Europe and their replacement by modern human populations.
It is believed that during the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
Age nomadic hunters arrived in Sussex from Europe. At the time (8000 BC), Britain was still connected to the continent, however the ice sheets over northern Europe were melting rapidly and causing the gradual rising of sea levels, which eventually led to the forming of the Straits of Dover, effectively cutting off the Mesolithic people of Sussex from the continent. There have been archaeological finds from these people, mostly in the central wealden
Weald
The Weald is the name given to an area in South East England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It should be regarded as three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the centre; the clay "Low Weald" periphery; and the Greensand Ridge which...
area to the north of the Downs. Large amounts of knives, scrapers, arrow heads and other tools have been found.
Close to the River Ouse
River Ouse, Sussex
The River Ouse is a river in the counties of West and East Sussex in England.-Course:The river rises near Lower Beeding and runs eastwards into East Sussex, meandering narrowly and turning slowly southward...
near Sharpsbridge, a polished axe, polished axe fragments, a chisel and other examples of Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
flintwork have been found. The fact that these implements were found close to the River Ouse suggests that some land clearance may have taken place in the river valley during the Neolithic period.
From about 4300 BC to about 3400 BC the mining of flint for use locally and also for wider trade was a major activity in Neolithic Sussex. There was also a Neolithic pottery industry, with styles of pot reminiscent of finds elsewhere, such as Hembury and Grimston/ Lyle Hill.
Bronze Age
The transition from the late neolithic to the Early Bronze AgeBronze Age Britain
Bronze Age Britain refers to the period of British history that spanned from c. 2,500 until c. 800 BC. Lasting for approximately 1700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the era of Iron Age Britain...
in Sussex is marked by the appearance of Beaker pottery. There have been several finds including some in Beaker settlements, a significant settlement was one discovered near Beachy Head
Beachy Head
Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m above sea level. The peak allows views of the south...
, in 1909. The site was partially excavated in 1970 and the finds included pottery,flints, post settings, shallow pits and a midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
. The presence of Beaker pottery provides the first evidence of the migration of people from northern Europe since the early Neolithic period. Although some pre-historians now doubt the existence of the Beaker people as migrants and suggest that it was possible that the Beaker culture may have just been a new development of the local neolithic people.
From the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
(about 1400-1100BC) settlements and burial sites have left their mark throughout Sussex.
Iron Age
There are over fifty Iron Age sites that are known throughout the Sussex Downs. Probably the best known are the hill-forts such asCissbury Ring
Cissbury Ring
Cissbury Ring is a hill fort on the South Downs, in the borough of Worthing, and about from its town centre, in the English county of West Sussex.-Hill fort:...
. A small number of agricultural settlements, or farmsteads, have been excavated on a large scale. The results of these excavations have provided a picture of the economy, based on mixed farming. Artefacts such as iron ploughshares and sickles were excavated.
The presence of animal bones, particularly cattle and sheep, attests to the pastoral element to their economy.
Various items have been found that indicate that they used to spin and weave the wool they produced.
The Sussex Iron Age dweller supplemented their diet with marine shellfish, the remains of which have been found on
several sites.
Towards the end of the Iron Age in 75BC, people from the Atrebates
Atrebates
The Atrebates were a Belgic tribe of Gaul and Britain before the Roman conquests.- Name of the tribe :Cognate with Old Irish aittrebaid meaning 'inhabitant', Atrebates comes from proto-Celtic *ad-treb-a-t-es, 'inhabitants'. The Celtic root is treb- 'building', 'home' The Atrebates (singular...
one of the tribes of the Belgae
Belgae
The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...
, a mix of Celtic and German stock, started invading and
occupying southern Britain. This was followed by an invasion by
the Roman army under Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
that temporarily occupied the south-east in 55BC.
Then soon after the first Roman invasion had ended, the Celtic Regnenses
Regnenses
The Regnenses, Regni or Regini were a British Celtic kingdom and later a civitas of Roman Britain. Their capital was Noviomagus Reginorum, known today as Chichester in modern West Sussex....
tribe under, their leader Commius
Commius
Commius was a historical king of the Belgic nation of the Atrebates, initially in Gaul, then in Britain, in the 1st century BC.-Ally of Caesar:...
occupied the Manhood Peninsula
Manhood Peninsula
The Manhood Peninsula is the southernmost part of Sussex in England. It has the English channel to its south and Chichester to the north.The peninsula is bordered to its west by Chichester Harbour and to its east by Pagham Harbour, its southern headland being Selsey Bill.-Name:The name Manhood has...
.
Tincomarus
Tincomarus
Tincomarus was a king of the Iron Age Belgic tribe of the Atrebates who lived in southern central Britain shortly before the Roman invasion...
and then Cogidubnus followed Commius as rulers of the Regnenses.
At the time of the Roman conquest in AD43 there was an oppidum
Oppidum
Oppidum is a Latin word meaning the main settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome. The word is derived from the earlier Latin ob-pedum, "enclosed space," possibly from the Proto-Indo-European *pedóm-, "occupied space" or "footprint."Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age...
in the southern part of their territory, probably in the Selsey region.
Roman Sussex
After the Roman invasion Cogidubnus was placed or confirmed by the Romans as ruler of the Regnenses and he took the name Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus and claimed to be ‘'rex magnus Britanniae'’. His name is mentioned on two exceptionally early Roman inscriptions in his capital of Noviomagus ReginorumNoviomagus Reginorum
Noviomagus Reginorum was the Roman town which is today called Chichester, situated in the modern English county of West Sussex. Alternative versions of the name include Noviomagus Regnorum, Regnentium and Regentium..-Development:...
(Chichester).
There are a variety of remains in the county from Roman times, coin hoards and decorated pottery have been found.
There are examples of Roman roads such as:
- Chichester to Silchester WayChichester to Silchester WayThe Chichester to Silchester Way is a Roman Road between Chichester in South-East England, which as Noviomagus was capital of the Regnenses, and Silchester or Calleva Atrebatum, capital of the Atrebates. The road had been entirely lost and forgotten, leaving no Saxon place names as clues to its...
- Chichester to London Stane Street
Also a variety of buildings, the best known being:
- Bignor Roman VillaBignor Roman VillaBignor Roman Villa is a large Roman courtyard villa which has been excavated and put on public display on the Bignor estate in the English county of West Sussex...
- Fishbourne Roman PalaceFishbourne Roman PalaceFishbourne Roman Palace is in the village of Fishbourne in West Sussex. The large palace was built in the 1st century AD, around thirty years after the Roman conquest of Britain on the site of a Roman army supply base established at the Claudian invasion in 43 AD. The rectangular palace surrounded...
The coast of Roman Britain had a series of defensive forts on them, and towards the end of the Roman occupation the coast was subject to raids by Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
. Additional forts
Saxon Shore
Saxon Shore could refer to one of the following:* Saxon Shore, a military command of the Late Roman Empire, encompassing southern Britain and the coasts of northern France...
were built against the Saxon threat, an example in Sussex being Anderitum
Anderitum
Anderitum is a commonly cited spelling of a Saxon Shore Fort actually spelled Anderidos, in the Roman province of Britannia. It is located at in eastern Pevensey in the English county of East Sussex and was later converted into a medieval castle known as Pevensey Castle.-Roman fort:It was built by...
(Pevensey Castle
Pevensey Castle
Pevensey Castle is a medieval castle and former Roman fort at Pevensey in the English county of East Sussex. The site is a Scheduled Monument in the care of English Heritage and is open to visitors.-Roman fort:...
). The coastal defences were supervised by the Count of the Saxon Shore
Count of the Saxon Shore
The Count of the Saxon Shore for Britain was the head of the "Saxon Shore" military command of the later Roman Empire.The post was possibly created during the reign of Constantine I and was probably existent by AD 367 when Nectaridus is elliptically referred to as one by Ammianus...
. There is some suggestion that around the beginning of the fourth century the Roman authorities recruited mercenaries from the German homelands to defend the southern and eastern coasts of Britain. The area they defended was known as the Saxon Shore. It is possible that these mercenaries remained after the departure of the Roman army and merged with the eventual Anglo-Saxon invaders.
Norman Sussex
On Friday 13 October 1066, Harold Godwinson
Harold Godwinson
Harold Godwinson was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England.It could be argued that Edgar the Atheling, who was proclaimed as king by the witan but never crowned, was really the last Anglo-Saxon king...
and his English army arrived at Senlac Hill
Senlac Hill
Senlac Hill , was the ridge on which Harold Godwinson deployed his army for the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. The high ground the hill offered gave the English a great advantage over the Normans, who made repeated charges up the hill but to no avail. Only when the Normans feigned retreat...
just outside Hastings, to face William of Normandy and his invading army. On the 14th October 1066, during the ensuing battle, Harold was killed and the English defeated. It is likely that all the fighting men of Sussex were at the battle, as the county's thanes were decimated and any that survived had their lands confiscated. William built Battle Abbey
Battle Abbey
Battle Abbey is a partially ruined abbey complex in the small town of Battle in East Sussex, England. The abbey was built on the scene of the Battle of Hastings and dedicated to St...
at the site of the battle, and the exact spot where Harold fell was marked by the high altar.
Norman influence was already strong in Sussex before the Conquest: the abbey of Fécamp had interest in the harbours of Hastings
Hastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
, Rye, Winchelsea and Steyning; while the estate of Bosham
Bosham
Bosham is a small coastal village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, about ) west of Chichester on an inlet of Chichester Harbour....
was held by a Norman chaplain to Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....
. After the Norman conquest the 387 manors, that had been in Saxon hands, were replaced by just 16 heads of manors.
| The owners of Sussex post 1066 | Number of manors | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | William I | 2 |
| 2 | Lanfranc Lanfranc Lanfranc was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombard by birth.-Early life:Lanfranc was born in the early years of the 11th century at Pavia, where later tradition held that his father, Hanbald, held a rank broadly equivalent to magistrate... , Archbishop of Canterbury Archbishop of Canterbury The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group... |
8 |
| 3 | Stigand, Bishop of Selsey* Stigand of Selsey Stigand was the last Bishop of Selsey, and first Bishop of Chichester.-Life:Shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066, there was a purge of the English episcopate, Archbishop Stigand was deposed in 1070 along with four other bishops, including Æthelric II of Selsey, probably because of his... |
9 |
| 4 | Gilbert, Abbot of Westminster | 1 |
| 5 | Abbot of Fécamp | 3 |
| 6 | Osborn, Bishop of Exeter | 4 |
| 7 | Abbot of Winchester | 2 |
| 8 | Gauspert, Abbot of Battle | 2 |
| 9 | Abbot of St Edward's | 1 |
| 10 | Odo** | 1 |
| 11 | Eldred** | 1 |
| 12 | William son of Robert, Count of Eu | 108 |
| 13 | Robert, Count of Mortain Robert, Count of Mortain Robert, Count of Mortain, 1st Earl of Cornwall was a Norman nobleman and the half-brother of William I of England. Robert was the son of Herluin de Conteville and Herleva of Falaise and was full brother to Odo of Bayeux. The exact year of Robert's birth is unknown Robert, Count of Mortain, 1st... |
81 |
| 14 | William de Warenne William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Seigneur de Varennes is one of the very few proven Companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066... |
43 |
| 15 | William de Braose William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber William de Braose , First Lord of Bramber was previously lord of Briouze, Normandy. He was granted lands in England by William the Conqueror soon after he and his followers had invaded and controlled Saxon England.- Norman victor :De Braose was given extensive lands in Sussex by 1073... |
38 |
| 16 | Roger, Earl of Montgomery | 83 |
| |align="right"| Total | 387 | |
| Notes: * The See was moved from Selsey to Chichester during Stigands tenure. ** Odo and Eldred may have been Saxon Lords. |
||
The 16 people, in charge of the manors, were known as the Tenentes in capite
Tenant-in-chief
In medieval and early modern European society the term tenant-in-chief, sometimes vassal-in-chief, denoted the nobles who held their lands as tenants directly from king or territorial prince to whom they did homage, as opposed to holding them from another nobleman or senior member of the clergy....
in other words the chief tenants who held their land directly from the crown. The list includes nine ecclesiasticals although the portion of their landholding is quite small and was virtually no different to that under Edward the Confessor, and it is possible that two of the lords may have been Saxon. This means that 353 of the 387 manors in Sussex would have been wrested from their Saxon owners and given to Norman Lords by William the Conqueror
The county was of great importance to the Normans; Hastings and Pevensey being on the most direct route for Normandy. Because of this the county was divided into five new baronies, called rapes, each with at least one town and a castle. This enabled the ruling group of Normans to control the manorial revenues and thus the greater part of the county's wealth.
William, the Conqueror gave these rapes to five of his most trusted Barons:
- Roger of Montgomery - the combined Rapes of Chichester and Arundel.
- William de Braose - Rape of BramberRape of BramberThe Rape of Bramber is one of the rapes, the traditional sub-divisions unique to the historic county of Sussex in England. Bramber is a former barony, originally based around the castle of Bramber and its village, overlooking the river Adur.-History:...
. - William de Warenne - Rape of Lewes
- Robert, Count of Mortain - Rape of Pevensey
- Robert, Count of Eu - Rape of Hastings
Historically the land holdings of each Saxon lord had been scattered, but now the lords lands were determined by the borders of the rape. The unit of land, known as the hide
Hide (unit)
The hide was originally an amount of land sufficient to support a household, but later in Anglo-Saxon England became a unit used in assessing land for liability to "geld", or land tax. The geld would be collected at a stated rate per hide...
, in Sussex had eight instead of the usual four virgate
Virgate
The virgate or yardland was a unit of land area measurement used in medieval England, typically outside the Danelaw, and was held to be the amount of land that a team of two oxen could plough in a single annual season. It was equivalent to a quarter of a hide, so was nominally thirty acres...
s,(a virgate being equal to the amount of land two oxen can plough in a season).
The county boundary was long and somewhat indeterminate on the north, owing to the dense forest of Andredsweald. Evidence of this is seen in Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
by the survey of Worth and Lodsworth under Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, and also by the fact that as late as 1834 the present parishes of north and south Amersham
Amersham
Amersham is a market town and civil parish within Chiltern district in Buckinghamshire, England, 27 miles north west of London, in the Chiltern Hills. It is part of the London commuter belt....
in Sussex were part of Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
.
Jurisdiction
The system of hundreds had been introduced during the time of the Saxons. In the 7th century Sussex has been estimated to have contained 7,000 families or hides. The creation of the rapes by the Normans introduced boundaries that divided some of the hundreds (and also some of the manors) causing a certain amount of fragmentation. The Arundel Rape covered nearly all of what is now West Sussex until about 1250 when it was split into two rapes, the Arundel Rape and the Chichester Rape. Ultimately Sussex was divided into six rapes; Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings.At the time of the Domesday Survey, Sussex contained fifty nine hundreds. This eventually increased to sixty-three hundreds and remained unchanged till the 19th century, with thirty eight retaining their original names. The reason why the remainder had their names changed was probably due to the meeting-place of the hundred court being altered. These courts were in private hands in Sussex; either of the Church, or of great barons and local lords.
Independent from the hundreds were the boroughs.
In 1107-9 there was construction of a county gaol, in Chichester Castle
Chichester Castle
Chichester Castle stood in the city of the same name in West Sussex . Shortly after the Norman Conquest of England, Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, ordered the construction of a castle at Chichester. The castle at Chichester was one of 11 fortified sites to be established in Sussex...
, however the castle was demolished in around 1217 and another gaol built on the same site. That gaol is known to have been used until 1269, when the site of the prison was given to the Greyfriars
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
to build a priory. In 1242 the counties of Surrey and Sussex were formerly united, and a sharing of prison accommodation resulted almost immediately. Sussex men were imprisoned in Guildford gaol. There were requests for the provision of a county gaol in both Chichester and Lewes at various times to no avail. However the national gaol system became overloaded during the Peasants' Revolt
Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, Wat Tyler's Rebellion, or the Great Rising of 1381 was one of a number of popular revolts in late medieval Europe and is a major event in the history of England. Tyler's Rebellion was not only the most extreme and widespread insurrection in English history but also the...
of 1381, and the earl of Arundel was obliged to imprison people in his castles at Arundel and Lewes. Thus Sussex managed to get a county gaol again at Lewes in 1487 and there it remained until it was moved to Horsham in 1541 for a period.
In the middle of the 16th century the assizes were usually held at Horsham or East Grinstead. In the middle of the 17th century a gaol was built in Horsham, then in 1775 a new gaol was built to replace it. In 1788 an additional gaol was built at Petworth, known as the Petworth House of Correction. There were further Houses of Correction built at Lewes and Battle.
It is believed that the last case of someone being executed by being pressed to death (peine forte et dure), in the country, was carried out in 1735 at Horsham. At the assizes a man who pretended to be dumb and lame, was indicted for murder and robbery. When he was brought to the bar, he would not speak or plead. Witnesses told the court, that they had heard him speak so he was taken back to Horsham gaol. As he would not plead they laid 100 pounds (45.4 kg) weight on him, then as he still would not plead, they added 100 pounds (45.4 kg) more, and a further 100 pounds (45.4 kg) making a total of 300 pounds (136.1 kg) weight, still he would not speak; so 50 pounds (22.7 kg) more was added, when he was nearly dead, the executioner, who weighed about 16 stone or 17 stone, laid down upon the board which was over him, and killed him in an instant.
In 1824 there were 109 prisoners in Horsham Gaol, 233 in Petworth House of Correction, 591 in Lewes House of Correction and 91 in Battle House of Correction. The last public hanging in Sussex was at Horsham in 1844, a year before the gaol finally closed.
The sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
's function was to be responsible for the civil justice within the county. Surrey and Sussex shared one sheriff until 1567 when the function was split. Then in 1571 the two counties again shared one sheriff, finally each county was given their own sheriff in 1636. The office of High Sheriff for Sussex then continued until 1974 when it was ended by the local government re-organisation that split Sussex into the two counties of East and West Sussex.
During time of internal unrest or foreign invasions it was usual for the monarch to appoint a lieutenant of the county. The policy of appointing temporary lieutenants continued till the reign of Henry VIII, when Lords Lieutenant were introduced as standing representatives of the crown. The first Lord Lieutenant of the County of Sussex was Sir Richard Sackville
Richard Sackville (escheator)
Sir Richard Sackville of Ashburnham and Buckhurst in Sussex and Westenhanger in Kent; was an English administrator and Member of Parliament.-Career:...
in 1550, the Lord Lieutenant was usually also the custos rotulorum
Custos rotulorum
Custos rotulorum is the keeper of an English county's records and, by virtue of that office, the highest civil officer in the county...
of the county and Sackville had been given that the year before. The main duties of the Lords Lieutenant was to oversee the military in the county; in Sussex this was the Militia and the Sussex Yeomanry.
As with the Sheriff, the post of Lord Lieutenant of Sussex was ended, in 1974, by the local government re-organisation. There are now separate Sheriffs and Lords Lieutenant for East and West Sussex and the modern day role is largely ceremonial.
Private jurisdictions, both ecclesiastical and lay, played a large part in the county. The chief ecclesiastical franchises were those of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Chichester
Bishop of Chichester
The Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the Counties of East and West Sussex. The see is in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...
and also that of Battle Abbey which was founded by William the Conqueror. The main lay francises were those of the Cinque Ports
Cinque Ports
The Confederation of Cinque Ports is a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. It was originally formed for military and trade purposes, but is now entirely ceremonial. It lies at the eastern end of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest...
and the Honour of Pevensey. The Cinque Ports were a group of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex that were given ancient rights and privileges. The main rights were the exemption of taxes and duties and the right to enforce the laws in their juristriction. In return for these privileges they were duty bound to provide ships and men in the time of war for the crown. Traditionally when a collection of lands owned by the Crown is held in tenancy then the tenant is known as the tenant-in-chief and the lands held in such a way was called an honour. The Honour of Pevensey was a collection of estates in Sussex. The Honour of Pevensey was also known as the Lordship of Pevensey Castle or the Honour of The Eagle after the lords of L'Aigle who invariably were the tenant-in-chief. The name L'Aigle (French for eagle) supposedly being derived from a town in Normandy that was named after an eagle that had built its nest in the area.
Prehistory
The tendency of humans to dispose of their dead ceremonially is considered to distinguish them from other species of animals. This started to happen in Europe about 80,000 years ago. The human record in Sussex goes back to the Palaeolithic age. No human bones have been found in Sussex from that period, although the discovery of large flint implements indicate that there was human occupation .There have been finds across Europe that suggest that people believed in some sort of afterlife, but whether this represented a religion is not certain. The number of Palaeolithic graves found across Europe has been small and all those in the British region show signs of having been buried in a ritual way.
The Neolithic people of Sussex built causewayed enclosure
Causewayed enclosure
A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. More than 100 examples are recorded in France and 70 in England, while further sites are known in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Ireland and Slovakia.The term "causewayed enclosure" is...
s, including those at Whitehawk Camp, Combe Hill
Coombe Hill, East Sussex
Coombe Hill or Combe Hill is the name of a hill near Jevington in the English county of East Sussex. It is the site of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and much later archaeological evidence....
and The Trundle
Trundle (hill fort)
Trundle is an Iron Age hill fort on Saint Roche's Hill about north of Chichester, Sussex, England. Trundle is one of just four hill forts built in Sussex. The fort was built around a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, of which very little can be seen on the ground.- History :St...
.Hutton. Pagan Religions. pp. 44-51. There is an hypothesis that there was a ritual element in the construction of these sites, possibly to consecrate the enclosure. Important burials were in long mounds, known as barrows
Long barrow
A long barrow is a prehistoric monument dating to the early Neolithic period. They are rectangular or trapezoidal tumuli or earth mounds traditionally interpreted as collective tombs...
and several have been found in Sussex, they contained cremated remains in pottery vessels. One of the better known long barrows in Sussex is that of Solomon’s or Baverse’s (Bevis’s) Thumb near Compton, it measures 150 feet (45.7 m) in length by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide.
The general way of life in the Bronze Age in Sussex was not too different to that of the Neolithic and this way of life continued for about one thousand years, until the arrival of the Celts from the south east.
Formal cemeteries and ritual centres have been found at Westhampnett and Lancing Down dating from the late Iron Age.
Celtic
From about 600BC Celts started settling in Britain. In 75BC the Belgae arrived in Sussex, bringing with them the Gods and Cult symbols they revered in GaulGaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
. There is not much known about the ancient Celtic religion and a lot of what we do know is based on the writings of ancient Greek and Roman scholars and archaeology. The Celtic religion was polytheistic
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
, and consisted of both god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
s and goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
es, some of which were venerated only in a small, local area, but others whose worship had a wider geographical distribution. Julius Caesar observed that some of the Celtic gods were similar to that of the Roman gods.
Roman
After the Roman conquest of AD 43, the Celtic society of Sussex became heavily Romanized.The first written account of Christianity in Britain comes from the early Christian Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
author, Tertullian
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
, writing in the third century, who said that "Christianity could even be found in Britain." Emperor Constantine
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
(AD 306-337), granted official tolerance to Christianity with the Edict of Milan
Edict of Milan
The Edict of Milan was a letter signed by emperors Constantine I and Licinius that proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire...
in AD 313. Then, in the reign of Emperor Theodosius "the Great"
Theodosius I
Theodosius I , also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War, establishing their homeland...
(AD 378-395), Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
.
When Roman rule eventually ceased, Christianity was probably confined to urban communities.
Saxon
After the departure of the Roman army, the Saxons arrived in Sussex in the fifth century and brought with them their polytheistic religion. The Saxon pagan culture probably caused a reversal of the spread of Christianity. Then in 691AD Saint WilfridWilfrid
Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Gaul, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon...
, the exiled Bishop of York, landed at Selsey and is credited with evangilising the locals and founding the church in Sussex, and accordng to Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
, it was the last area of the country to be converted.Bede.HE.IV.13
Norman and Angevin
Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, there was a purge of the English episcopate in 1070. The Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Selsey was deposed and replaced with William the Conquerors personal chaplain Stigand. During Stigand's episcopate the see that had been established at Selsey was transferred to Chichester after the Council of LondonCouncil of London (1075)
The Council of London in 1075 AD was a council of the Roman Catholic church in England held by the new Norman archbishop of Canterbury Lanfranc five years after his installation. Other attendees included Gisa and William the Norman...
of 1075 decreed that sees should be centred in cities rather than vill
Vill
Vill is a term used in English history to describe a land unit which might otherwise be described as a parish, manor or tithing.The term is used in the period immediately after the Norman conquest and into the late medieval. Land units in Domesday are frequently referred to as vills, although the...
s.
Bishop Ralph Luffa
Ralph de Luffa
Ralph de Luffa was an English bishop of Chichester, from 1091 to 1123. He built extensively on his cathedral as well as being praised by contemporary writers as an exemplary bishop. He took little part in the Investiture Crisis which took place in England during his episcopate...
is credited with the foundation of the current Chichester Cathedral
Chichester Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It is located in Chichester, in Sussex, England...
.
The original structure that had been built by Stigand was largely destroyed by fire in 1114.
The archdeacon
Archdeacon
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in Anglicanism, Syrian Malabar Nasrani, Chaldean Catholic, and some other Christian denominations, above that of most clergy and below a bishop. In the High Middle Ages it was the most senior diocesan position below a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church...
ries of Chichester and Lewes were created in the 12th century under Ralph Luffa.
The Reformation
Like the rest of the country the Church of Englands split with Rome during the reign of Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, was felt in Sussex. In 1535, the vicar-general Sir Thomas Cromwell visited the monasteries in the county and the following year an act was passed that decreed the dissolution of most of them. Sussex did not do too badly compared to the rest of the country, as it only had one person in 500, who was a member of a religious order, compared to the national average of one in 256.
In 1538 there was a royal order for the demolition of the shrine of Saint Richard, in Chichester Cathedral. Thomas Cromwell saying that there was a certain kind of idolatry about the shrine.
Richard Sampson
Richard Sampson
Richard Sampson was an English clergyman and composer of sacred music, who was Anglican bishop of Chichester and subsequently of Coventry and Lichfield.-Biography:...
, the Bishop of Chichester incurred the displeasure of Cromwell and ended up imprisoned in the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
at the end of 1539. Sampson was released, after the fall from favour and execution of Cromwell in 1540. Sampson then continued at the see of Chichester for a further two years. Sampson was succeeded as Bishop of Chichester by George Day
George Day (bishop)
George Day was Bishop of Chichester.-Life:He graduated at the University of Cambridge in 1520–21, and became a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge on 19 September 1522...
. Day opposed the changes, and incurred the displeasure of the royal commissioners who promptly suspended him as Bishop and allowed him only preach in his cathedral church.
Henry VIII died in 1547, his son Edward VI
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
continued on the path that his father had set. However his reign was only short-lived as he died after only six years.
The bishops of Chichester had not been for the Reformation until the appointment of John Scory
John Scory
John Scory was a Cambridge Dominican order friar who later became a Bishop in the Church of EnglandHe was Bishop of Rochester from 1551 to 1552, Bishop of Chichester from 1552 to 1553...
, to the episcopate, who replaced Day in 1552. During Henry VIII's reign two of the canons of Chichester cathedral had been executed for their opposition to the Reformation and during his sons Edward VI reign George Day ultimately had been imprisoned for his opposition to the reforms.
There had been twenty years of religious reform, when the catholic, Mary Tudor
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
succeeded to the throne of England in 1553. Mary expected her clergy to be unmarried, so Bishop Scory thought it prudent to retire as he was a married man, and George Day was released and restored to the see of Chichester.
Marys persecution of Protestants earned her the nickname Bloody Mary. The national figure for those Protestants burnt at the stake, during her reign, was around 288 and included 41 in Sussex. Most of the executions in Sussex were at Lewes. Of the total of 41 burnings, 36 can be identified to have come from specific parishes and the place of execution is known for 27 of them; this is because the details of the executions were recorded in the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
John Foxe
John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...
, published in 1563. There are Bonfire Societies
Sussex Bonfire Societies
The Sussex Bonfire Societies are responsible for the series of bonfire festivals around Central/Eastern Sussex along with parts of Surrey and Kent from September - November....
in Sussex that still remember the 17 Protestant martyrs that burned in Lewes High Street, and in Lewes itself they have a procession of martyrs crosses during the bonfire night celebration.
In 1558 Mary died and her Protestant sister Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
replaced her.
Elizabeth re-established the break with Rome when she passed the 1559 Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the clergy were expected to take statutory oaths and those that did not were deprived of their living. In the county nearly half the cathedral and about 40% of the parish clergy had to be replaced, although some of the vacancies were due to ill health or death.
Civil War
There were no battles of national significance, in Sussex, during the 1642–1651 English civil war, however there were small sieges at Chichester and Arundel. The west of the county was generally for the king although Chichester was for parliament and the east of the county, with some exceptions, was also for parliament. A few churches were damaged particularly in the Arundel area. Also, after the surrender of Chichester, the Cathedral was sacked by Sir William Wallers parliamentary troops. Bruno Ryves
Bruno Ryves
Bruno Ryves was an English royalist churchman, editor in 1643 of the Oxford newsbook Mercurius Rusticus, and later dean of Chichester and dean of Windsor...
, Dean of Chichester Cathedral said of the troops that they deface and mangle (the monuments) with their swords as high as they could reach.
About a quarter of the incumbents were forced from their parishes and replaced with Puritans. Many people turned away from the traditional churches and in 1655 George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
founded the Society of Friends at Horsham.
19th Century
In 1851 the authorities organised a census of places of worship in England and Wales. The figures for Sussex indicated that there were more Anglican than non-conformist places of worship. In the neighbouring counties of Hampshire and Kent, there were more non-conformist places than Anglican.| Sussex Places of Worship 1851 Table based on figures in Census of Great Britain 1851. Religious Worship.. |
||
| Denomination | Places of Worship | |
|---|---|---|
| Church of England | 350 | |
| Independents | 78 | |
| Baptists | 40 | |
| Society of Friends | 5 | |
| Unitarians | 5 | |
| Methodists | 75 | |
| Isolated Congregations* | 32 | |
| Roman Catholics | 8 | |
| Catholic and Apostolic | 1 | |
| Latter Day Saints | 2 | |
| Jewish | 1 | |
| * Isolated Congregations do not belong to any particular sect and are independent of each other. | ||
21st Century
Lists of all current and former places of worship in Sussex by district are as follows:- Adur District
- Arun District
- Brighton and Hove
- Crawley
- Eastbourne
- Hastings
- Horsham District
- Lewes District
- Mid Sussex
- Rother
- Wealden
- Worthing
Parliamentary history
The Parliamentary
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
history of the county began in the 13th century. In 1290, the first year for which a return of knights of the shire is available, Henry Hussey and William de Etchingham were elected.
In 1801 the Members of Parliament(MPs) for the counties on the south coast of England were elected to a third of all the seats in parliament, although they represented only about 15% of the nations population. The way that the countrys electoral system worked had changed little since the first parliament in 1295. The counties each returned two MPs and each borough designated by Royal charter also returned two MPs. This produced the situation where some of the towns of the north that had grown large during the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
had no representation whereas smaller towns in the south, that had been important in medieval times, were still able to have two MPs.
Although there had been various proposals to reform the system from 1770, it was not till 1830 when a series of factors saw the Reform Act 1832
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
introduced. The larger industrial towns of the north were enfranchised for the first time and smaller English boroughs (known as Rotten Boroughs) were disenfranchised,including Bramber
Bramber
Bramber is a village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It is located on the northern edge of the South Downs and on the west side of the River Adur. Nearby are the communities of Steyning to the west and Upper Beeding to the east, and the other side of the river....
, East Grinstead
East Grinstead
East Grinstead is a town and civil parish in the northeastern corner of Mid Sussex, West Sussex in England near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders. It lies south of London, north northeast of Brighton, and east northeast of the county town of Chichester...
, Seaford
Seaford, East Sussex
Seaford is a coastal town in the county of East Sussex, on the south coast of England. Lying east of Newhaven and Brighton and west of Eastbourne, it is the largest town in Lewes district, with a population of about 23,000....
, Steyning
Steyning
Steyning is a small town and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the north end of the River Adur gap in the South Downs, four miles north of Shoreham-by-Sea...
and Winchelsea
Winchelsea
Winchelsea is a small village in East Sussex, England, located between the High Weald and the Romney Marsh, approximately two miles south west of Rye and seven miles north east of Hastings...
in Sussex. The Representation of the People Act 1884
Representation of the People Act 1884
In the United Kingdom, the Representation of the People Act 1884 and the Redistribution Act of the following year were laws which further extended the suffrage in Britain after the Disraeli Government's Reform Act 1867...
and the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885
Redistribution of Seats Act 1885
The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was a piece of electoral reform legislation that redistributed the seats in the House of Commons, introducing the concept of equally populated constituencies, in an attempt to equalise representation across...
(together known as the Third Reform Act) were responsible for redistributing 160 seats and extending suffrage.
After the Reform Act of 1832 Sussex was divided into the eastern division and the western division and two representatives were elected for each division. In June 1832 the Honorable C.C. Cavendish and H.B.Curteis Esquire were elected in the eastern division and the Earl of Surrey and Lord John George Lennox were elected for the western division. There was a total of 3478 votes cast in the eastern division and 2365 votes in the western division.
Before the 1832 reform two members each had been returned by Arundel
Arundel
Arundel is a market town and civil parish in the South Downs of West Sussex in the south of England. It lies south southwest of London, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester. Other nearby towns include Worthing east southeast, Littlehampton to the south and Bognor Regis to...
, Chichester, Hastings, Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...
, Lewes, Midhurst
Midhurst
Midhurst is a market town and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, with a population of 4,889 in 2001. The town is situated on the River Rother and is home to the ruin of the Tudor Cowdray House and the stately Victorian Cowdray Park...
, New Shoreham (with the rape of Bramber) and Rye
Rye, East Sussex
Rye is a small town in East Sussex, England, which stands approximately two miles from the open sea and is at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham and the Brede...
. Arundel, Horsham, Midhurst and Rye were each deprived of a member in 1832, Chichester and Lewes in 1867, and Hastings in 1885. Arundel was disfranchised in 1868, and Chichester, Horsham, Midhurst, New Shoreham and Rye in 1885.
Under the new system the constituencies were based on unit numbers rather than historic towns. The reforms of the 19th century made the electoral system more representative, but it was not till 1928 there was universal suffrage.
Rebellions, riots and unrest
Sussex, from its position, was constantly the scene of preparations for invasion, and was often concerned in rebellions.In 1264 there was a civil war in England, between the forces of a group of barons, led by Simon de Montfort
Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester
Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, 1st Earl of Chester , sometimes referred to as Simon V de Montfort to distinguish him from other Simon de Montforts, was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. He led the barons' rebellion against King Henry III of England during the Second Barons' War of 1263-4, and...
, against the royalist forces, led by Prince Edward
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
, in the name of Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
, known as the Second Barons' War
Second Barons' War
The Second Barons' War was a civil war in England between the forces of a number of barons led by Simon de Montfort, against the Royalist forces led by Prince Edward , in the name of Henry III.-Causes:...
. On the 12 May 1264, Simon de Montfort forces occupied a hill known as 'Offam Hill' outside Lewes, the royalist forces tried to storm the hill but ultimately were defeated by the barons'. The actual site, of what became known as the Battle of Lewes
Battle of Lewes
The Battle of Lewes was one of two main battles of the conflict known as the Second Barons' War. It took place at Lewes in Sussex, on 14 May 1264...
, is somewhere between the town and the hill, the battle was bitterly fought for over five hours. In the 19th century, when a railway was being constructed in the area of the battle, navvies discovered a mass grave with around 2000 bodies in it.
During the Middle Ages the Wealden peasants rose up in revolt on two ocaasions, the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 under Watt Tyler, and in Jack Cade
Jack Cade
Jack Cade was the leader of a popular revolt in the 1450 Kent rebellion during the reign of King Henry VI in England. He died on the 12th July 1450 near Lewes. In response to grievances, Cade led an army of as many as 5,000 against London, causing the King to flee to Warwickshire. After taking and...
's rebellion of 1450. Cade's rebellion was not just supported by the peasant class, many gentlemen, craftspeople and artisans also the Abbot of Battle and Prior of Lewes flocked to his standard in revolt against the corrupt government of Henry VI
Henry VI of England
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, his realm was governed by regents. Contemporaneous accounts described him as peaceful and pious, not suited for the violent dynastic civil wars, known as the Wars...
. Jack Cade was fatally wounded in a skirmish at Heathfield
Heathfield, East Sussex
Heathfield is a small market town, and the principal settlement in the civil parish of Heathfield and Waldron in the Wealden District of East Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, England.-Location:...
in 1450.
At the time of the English Civil War the counties sympathies were divided , Arundel supported the king, Chichester, Lewes and the Cinque Ports were for parliament. Most of the west of the county were for the king and included a powerful group with the bishop of Chichester and Sir Edward Ford, sheriff of Sussex, in their number. Exceptionally, Chichester was for parliament largely due to an influential brewer named William Cawley
William Cawley
William Cawley was a regicide and seventeenth century English politician. He was born in Chichester in 1602, the son of a wealthy brewer, and was educated at Chichester Grammar School, Oxford University and Gray's Inn....
. However the group of royalists led by Edward Ford managed to get a force together to capture Chichester, in 1642, for the king and imprisoned 200 parliamentarians.
The roundhead
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
army under Sir William Waller besieged Arundel and after its fall marched on Chichester and restored it to parliament. A military governor, Algernon Sidney was appointed in 1645. Chichester was then demilitarised, in 1647-1648 and remained in parliaments hands for the rest of the civil war. The brewer William Cawley became a MP for Chichester in 1647 and was one of the signatories on King Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
death warrant.
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
in 1830 that four harvest labourers (seasonal workers) had been found dead of starvation. The deteriorating conditions of work for the agricultural labourer eventually triggered off riots in Kent during the summer of 1830. Similar action spread across the county border to Sussex where the riots lasted for several weeks, although the unrest continued until 1832 and were known as the Swing Riots
Swing Riots
The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising by agricultural workers; it began with the destruction of threshing machines in the Elham Valley area of East Kent in the summer of 1830, and by early December had spread throughout the whole of southern England and East Anglia.As well as the attacks on...
.
The Swing riots were accompanied by action against local farmers and land owners. Typically, what would happen is a threatening letter would be sent to a local farmer or leader demanding that automated equipment such as threshing machine
Threshing machine
The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine , was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture. It was invented for the separation of grain from stalks and husks. For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with flails,...
s should be withdrawn from service, wages should be increased and there would be a threat of consequences if this did not happen, the letter would be signed by a mythical Captain Swing
Captain Swing
Captain Swing was the name appended to some of the threatening letters during the rural English Swing Riots of 1830, when labourers rioted over the introduction of new threshing machines and the loss of their livelihoods...
. This would be followed up by the destruction of farm equipment and occasionally arson.
Eventually the army was mobilised to contain the situation in the eastern part of the county, whereas in the west the Duke of Richmond
Duke of Richmond
The title Duke of Richmond is named after Richmond and its surrounding district of Richmondshire, and has been created several times in the Peerage of England for members of the royal Tudor and Stuart families...
took action against the protesters by the use of the yeomanry and special constables. The Sussex Yeomanry
The Sussex Yeomanry
The Sussex Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army formed in 1794, with its last remnants disbanding finally in 1999. It was initially formed when there was a threat of French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars.-World War I:...
were subsequently disparagingly nicknamed the workhouse guards. The protesters faced charges of arson, robbery, riot, machine breaking and assault. Those convicted faced imprisonment, transportation
Penal transportation
Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...
or ultimately execution.
The grievances continued encouraging a wider demand for political reform, culminating in the introduction of the Reform Act 1832.
One of the main grievances of the Swing protesters had been what they saw as inadequate Poor Law
Poor Law
The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98...
benefits, Sussex had the highest poor-relief costs during the agricultural depression of 1815 to the 1830s and its workhouses were full. The general unrest, particularly about the state of the workhouses, was instrumental in the introduction of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, sometimes abbreviated to PLAA, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Lord Melbourne that reformed the country's poverty relief system . It was an Amendment Act that completely replaced earlier legislation based on the...
.
Wars
During the French revolutionaryFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
(1793–1815), a European coalition was formed, that included Britain, with the intention of crushing the newly founded French Republic, so defensive measures were taken in Sussex.
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
two batteries
Artillery battery
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...
were built on the towns east and west cliffs (replacing older installations). The Sussex Yeomanry was founded in 1794, and numbers of gentlemen and yeomanry volunteered to join the part time cavalry regiment to serve in case of invasion by Bonaparte
Bonaparte
The House of Bonaparte is an imperial and royal European dynasty founded by Napoleon I of France in 1804, a French military leader who rose to notability out of the French Revolution and transformed the French Republic into the First French Empire within five years of his coup d'état...
. Between 1805 and 1808 a series of defensive towers known as Martello tower
Martello tower
Martello towers are small defensive forts built in several countries of the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the Napoleonic Wars onwards....
s were erected along the Sussex and Kent coasts, and later on the east coast. The Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
commissioned a visual signalling system to allow communications between ships and the shore and from there to the Admiralty in London; Sussex had a total of 16 signalling stations on its coast. A central fort and supply base for the towers, the Eastbourne Redoubt
Eastbourne Redoubt
Eastbourne Redoubt is a fort on what is now Royal Parade, Eastbourne, East Sussex, England.-History:The Redoubt was built between 1804 and 1810 to support the associated Martello towers in defending against the threat of an invasion by Napoleon. It has defended the Eastbourne coast for nearly 200...
at Eastbourne
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...
was constructed between 1804-1810. It is now home to the Royal Sussex Regiment Museum. In the 1860s, possible wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
with France prompted more defence building, including the fort at Newhaven
Newhaven Fort
Newhaven Fort was built on the recommendation of the 1859 Royal Commission to defend the growing harbour at Newhaven, on the south coast of England...
.
At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the landowners of the county employed their local leadership roles to recruit volunteers for the nations forces. The owner of Herstmonceux Castle, a Claude Lowther
Claude Lowther
Colonel Claude William Henry Lowther was an English Conservative politician. He was the son of Francis William Lowther and Louise Beatrice de Fonblanque; Francis William was the illegitimate son of the Earl of Lonsdale and an opera singer, and received £125,000 on the Earl's death.Lowther was...
, recruited enough men for three Southdown Battalians who were known as Lowthers Lambs. The Royal Sussex Regiment fielded a total of 23 battalions in the Great War. After the war, St Georges Chapel, in Chichester Cathedral, was restored and furnished as a memorial to the fallen of the Royal Sussex Regiment. Nearly 7,000 of the regiment lost their lives, in the First World War, and their names are recorded on the panels that are attached to the walls of the chapel.
On the Sussex boys are stirring
In the wood-land and the Downs
We are moving in the hamlet
We are rising in the town;
For the call is King and Country
Since the foe has asked for war,
And when danger calls, or duty
We are always to the fore.
From Lowthers Lambs marching song.
With the declaration of the Second World War, on 3 September 1939, Sussex found itself part of the country's frontline with its airfields playing a key role in the Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
and with its towns being some of the most frequently bombed.
The first line of defence was the coastal crust consisting of pillboxes, machine-gun posts, trenches, rifle posts, anti-tank obstacles plus scaffolding, mines and barbed wire. As the Sussex regiments were serving overseas for large parts of the war, the defence of the county was undertaken by units of the Home Guard with help between 1941 to early 1944 from the First Canadian Army
First Canadian Army
The First Canadian Army was the senior Canadian operational formation in Europe during the Second World War.The Army was formed in early 1942, replacing the existing unnumbered Canadian Corps, as the growing number of Canadian forces in the United Kingdom necessitated an expansion to two corps...
.
During the war every part of Sussex was affected. Army camps of both the tented and also the more permanent variety sprang up everywhere. Sussex played host to many servicemen and women, including the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division
2nd Canadian Infantry Division
The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division was an infantry division of the First Canadian Army, mobilized on 1 September 1939 at the outset of the Second World War. It was initially composed of volunteers within brigades established along regional lines, though a halt in recruitment in the early months of...
, the 4th Armoured Brigade, the 30th US Division, the 27th Armoured Brigade and the 15th Scottish Division. Besides airmen and women from the British Commonwealth, fighter squadrons from the Free French
Free French Air Force
The Free French Air Force was the air arm of the Free French Forces during the Second World War.-Fighting for Free France — the FAFL in French North Africa :...
, Free Czechs
Czech Air Force
The Czech Air Force is the air force branch of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. The Air Force, with the Land Forces, comprises the Joint Forces, the main combat power of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic...
, Free Polish
Polish Armed Forces in the West
Polish Armed Forces in the West refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies...
were regularly based at airfields around Sussex.
During the lead up to the D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
landings, the people of Sussex were witness to the build up of military personnel and materials, including the assembly of landing crafts and construction of Mulberry harbour
Mulberry harbour
A Mulberry harbour was a British type of temporary harbour developed in World War II to offload cargo on the beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy....
s off the countys coast. Five new airfields were built to provide additional support for the D-Day landings, four near Chichester and one near Billingshurst.
A legacy of the D-Day landings are the sections of Mulberry harbour that lay broken and abandoned on the sea floor 2 miles off the coast, of Selsey Bill, having missed the invasion.
Industrial Sussex
Sussex was an industrial county, from the stone age, with the early production of flint implements till when the use of coal and steam power moved industry nearer the coalfields, of the north and midlands.Iron working
Bloomery
A bloomery is a type of furnace once widely used for smelting iron from its oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. A bloomery's product is a porous mass of iron and slag called a bloom. This mix of slag and iron in the bloom is termed sponge iron, which...
followed by reheating and hammering. With the type that was common in Sussex a round shallow hearth was dug out, clay hard-packed to line it, then layers of hammered ore and charcoal were put down and the whole lot covered by a clay beehive structure, with holes at the side for the insertion of foot or hand bellows. The material inside the beehive furnace was then ignited and it took two to three days for the process to complete, leaving semi-molten lumps of iron, known as blooms on the hearth. The output from these types of furnace, was very small as everything had to cool down before the iron could be retrieved. The iron so retrieved could then be worked by using the heat and beat technique to form wrought iron implements such as weapons or tools. Around a dozen pre-Roman sites have been found in eastern Sussex, the westernmost being at Crawley.
The Romans made full use of this resource, continuing and intensifying native methods, and iron slag was widely used as paving material on the Roman roads of the area. The Roman iron industry was mainly in East Sussex with the largest sites in the Hastings area. The industry is thought to have been organised by the Classis Britannica
Classis Britannica
The Classis Britannica was a provincial naval fleet of the navy of ancient Rome. Its purpose was to control the English Channel and the waters around the Roman province of Britannia...
, the Roman navy.
Little evidence has been found of iron production after the Romans left until the ninth century when a primitive bloomery, of a continental style, was built at Millbrook on Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest is an ancient area of tranquil open heathland occupying the highest sandy ridge-top of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is situated some south of London in the county of East Sussex, England...
, with a small hearth for reheating the blooms nearby. Production based on bloomeries then continued till the end of the 15th century when a new technique was imported from northern France that allowed the production of cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
. A permanent blast furnace was constructed; into the furnace chamber was inserted a pipe fed by bellows that could be operated by a wheel; the wheel was rotated by the use of water power, oxen or horses. Pairs of bellows continuously forced air into the furnace chamber, producing higher temperatures such that the iron completely melted and could be could be run off from the base of the chamber and into moulds. This allowed a continuous process that usually ran during the winter and spring seasons, ceasing when water supplies to drive the bellows dwindled in the summer.
"Full of iron mines it is in sundry places, where for the making and fining whereof there bee furnaces on every side, and a huge deale of wood is yearely spent..."
From William Camden's description of 17th century Sussex.
Henry VIII, urgently needed cannon for his new coastal forts, but casting these in the traditional bronze would have been very expensive. Previously iron cannons had been made by building up bands of iron bound together with iron hoops; such cannons had been used at Bannockburn
Bannockburn
Bannockburn is a village immediately south of the city of Stirling in Scotland. It is named after the Bannock Burn, a burn running through the village before flowing into the River Forth.-History:...
in 1314. There had also been some cast cannons made in the Weald but with separate barrels and breeches.
In Buxted the local vicar, the Reverend William Levett
William Levett (vicar)
William Levett was an English clergyman. An Oxford-educated country rector, he was a pivotal figure in the use of the blast furnace to manufacture iron...
, was also a gun-founder, he recruited a Ralf Hogge
Ralf Hogge
Ralf Hogge was an English iron-master and gun founder to the king.Working with French-born cannon-maker Pierre Baude and for his employer, parson William Levett, Hogge succeeded in casting the first iron cannon in England, in 1543...
to help him produce cannon and in 1543 his employee cast an iron muzzle-loading cannon. It was cast in one piece, using a pattern based on the latest bronze ordnance. The navy, complained that the new guns were too heavy but bronze was ten times more costly, so in fortifications and for arming merchant ships iron guns were preferred. Gradually, owing to their toughness and validiti, an important export trade in wealden guns built up and they remained dominant internationally until displaced by Swedish guns around 1620. Both men made a lot of money out of the trade, and Hogge built a house on the road to Levetts church. Hogge put a rebus, on his house, with a hog on it as a pun for his name.
The large supply of wood in the county made it a favourable centre for the industry, all smelting
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
being done with charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
till the middle of the 18th century.
Glass making
The glass making industry started on the Sussex/ Surrey border in the early 13th century and flourished till the 17th century. The industry, in Sussex, during the 16th century spread to Wisborough GreenWisborough Green
Wisborough Green is a village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England miles west of Billingshurst on the A272.Newbridge where the A272 crosses the River Arun mile east of the village was the highest point of the Arun navigation, and the southern end of the Wey and Arun...
then to Alfold, Ewhurst, Billinghurst and Lurgashall. Many of the artisans in the industry were immigrants from France and Germany. The manufacturing process used timber for fuel, sand and potash(which served as flux).
Glass production in the English midlands using coal for the smelting process, plus opposition to the use of timber in Sussex, led to the collapse of the Sussex glass making industry in 1612.
Forestry
When the Romans arrived in Sussex around AD43, they would have found remote bands of people smelting iron in the forest of Andresweald. Timber being used to produce charcoal to fuel the smelting process. There is evidence that the Roman engineers improved the road system in the area, by first metalling the old cart tracks and then putting in new roads. This was so they could produce and distribute the wrought iron more efficiently.The first real description of the forest that, at the time, covered the Sussex Weald was provided by, the annal commissioned in the 9th century by King Alfred, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which says that the forest was 120 miles wide and 30 miles deep (although probaby closer to 90 miles wide). The forest was so dense that even the Domesday Book did not record some of its settlements.
The Weald was not the only area of Sussex that was forested in Saxon times, for example at the western end of Sussex is the Manhood Peninsula, which these days is largely deforested, however the name is probably derived from the Old English maene-wudu meaning "men's wood" or "common wood" indicating that it was once woodland.
During and before the reign of Henry VIII, England imported a lot of the wood for its naval ships from the Hanseatic league
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
. Henry wanted to source the materials for his army and navy domestically. So it was largely the forests of Sussex that met this demand for wood, Sussex oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
being considered the finest shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
timber. Vast amounts of wood were consumed to build ships and produce charcoal for the foundry furnaces. Faced with diminishing stocks of wood due to the large consumption from the ship, iron and glass making industries, parliament introduced bills to manage the stocks more efficiently however the parliamentary bills were never past, with the result that the countys forests were decimated. The poet Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...
in his poem Poly-Olbion
Poly-Olbion
The Poly-Olbion is a topographical poem describing England and Wales. Written by Michael Drayton and published in 1612, it was reprinted with a second part in 1622. Drayton had been working on the project since at least 1598.-Content:...
, published in the early 17th century, made the trees denounce the iron trade:
Jove's oak, the war-like ash, veined elm, the softer beech
Short hazel, maple plain, light asp and bending wych
Tough holly and smooth birch, must altogether burn.
What should the builder serve, the forger's turn
When under publick good, base private gain takes hold.
And we, poor woeful woods, to ruin lastly sold.
From Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion
However despite parliaments efforts the forests, of Sussex, continued to be consumed until 1760, when an Abraham Darby
Abraham Darby I
Abraham Darby I was the first, and most famous, of three generations with that name in an English Quaker family that played an important role in the Industrial Revolution. He developed a method of producing pig iron in a blast furnace fuelled by coke rather than charcoal...
discovered how to replace charcoal with coke in his blast furnaces, this resulted in production being moved to the parts of the country, nearer the coal mines. By that time the forests had been completely devastated and the roads ruined by the transport of ore and pig iron.
The High Weald still has about 35905 hectares (138.6 sq mi) of woodland, including areas of ancient woodland
Ancient woodland
Ancient woodland is a term used in the United Kingdom to refer specifically to woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England and Wales . Before those dates, planting of new woodland was uncommon, so a wood present in 1600 was likely to have developed naturally...
equivalent to about 7% of the stock for all England. When the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was compiled in the 9th century there was thought to be about 2700 square miles (699,296.8 ha) of forest in the Sussex Weald.
Wool
In 1340-1341 there was about 110,000 sheep in Sussex. Edward IIIEdward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
commanded that his Chancellor should sit on the woolsack in council as a symbol of the pre-eminence of the wool trade at the time. In 1341 the greatest wool production in Sussex was in the eastern part of the county, and in the west of the county, the port of Chichester was extended along the whole coast from Southampton to Seaford for the collection of customs on wool. Also Chichester, despite its geographical disadvantages ranked as the seventh port in the kingdom and was one of the wool ports named in the Statute of the Staple
Statute of the Staple
The Statute of the Staple was a statute passed in 1353 by the Parliament of England. It aimed to regularise the status of staple ports in England, Wales, and Ireland. In particular, it designated particular ports where specific goods could be exported or imported...
of 1353.
In the early 15th century most production of wool was within 15 miles of Lewes.
In the 16th century weavers were to be found in nearly every parish as were fullers
Fulling
Fulling or tucking or walking is a step in woolen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker, or walker...
and dyers. Chichester was an early centre of the weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
of cloth and also for the spinning of linen.
In 1566 an act that prohibited the export of "unwrought or unfinished cloths" led to the demise of the industry in Sussex, and by the beginning of the 18th century it had virtually collapsed; Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
commented, in 1724, that the "..whole counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, are not employ'd in any considerable Woolen Manufacture;".
Roads
After the Romans left, roads in the country fell into disrepair and in Sussex the damage was compounded by the transport of material for the iron industry. A government report describing the condition of a road between Surrey and Sussex in the 17th century as "very ruinous and almost impassable." The major transport network at the time was that by way of sea and river, this had become increasingly unreliable. Roads had been maintained by the parishes, in a system established in 1555, a system that had proved increasingly ineffective given the relentless increase in traffic. Consequently in 1696, during the reign of William III, the first Turnpike Act was passed and was for the repair of the highway between Reigate in Surrey and Crawley in Sussex. The act made provision to erect turnpikes, and appoint toll collectors; also to appoint surveyors, who were authorized by order of the Justices to borrow money at 5 per cent, on security of the tolls.Other turnpike acts followed with the roads being built and maintained by local trusts and parishes. The majority of the roads were maintained by a toll levied on each passenger (who usually would have been transported by stage coach), a few roads were still maintained by the parishes with no toll levied. There were 152 Acts of Parliament by the mid 19th century, for the formation, renewel and amendment of the turnpikes in the county. A report on the county's turnpike trusts, published in 1857, said that there were fifty-one trusts covering 640 miles of road, with 238 toll gates or bars, giving an average of one toll gate every 2.5 miles.
The last turnpike to be constructed in the county was between Cripps Corner and Hawkhurst
Hawkhurst
Hawkhurst is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. The parish lies to the south-east of Tunbridge Wells. Hawkhurst itself is virtually two villages...
in 1841.
The system of turnpikes, coaches and coaching inns collapsed in the face of competition from the railways. By 1870 most of the county's Turnpike Trusts were wound up putting hundreds of coachmen and coachbuilders out of business. The conditions of the county's roads then deteriorated until the creation of the new county council in 1889, who assumed responsibility for the maintenance of the county's roads.
At the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all the first class roads had been turnpikes in 1850. During the course of the 20th century, the car and the lorry challenged the supremacy of the railways.
The two counties of East and West Sussex only have a total of 12 kilometre of motorway and relatively small amounts of dual carriageway. Two of the "A" roads that traverse Sussex from east to west are the A27
A27 road
The A27 is a major road in England. It runs from its junction with the A36 at Whiteparish in the county of Wiltshire. It closely parallels the south coast, where it passes through West Sussex and terminates at Pevensey in East Sussex.Between Portsmouth and Lewes, it is one of the busiest trunk...
and the A259
A259 road
The A259 is a busy road on the south coast of England passing through Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex and part of Kent. Part of the road was named "the most dangerous road in South East England" in 2008.-Description:...
, a combination of the these two roads provide the major route across Sussex, the route is only dual-carriageway for part of its length; both roads run parallel to the Sussex coast. The main north south road, that connects the coast to the London orbital M25
M25 motorway
The M25 motorway, or London Orbital, is a orbital motorway that almost encircles Greater London, England, in the United Kingdom. The motorway was first mooted early in the 20th century. A few sections, based on the now abandoned London Ringways plan, were constructed in the early 1970s and it ...
, is the M23
M23 motorway
The M23 motorway is a motorway in England. The motorway runs from south of Hooley in Surrey, where it splits from the A23, to Pease Pottage, south of Crawley in West Sussex where it rejoins the A23. The northern end of the motorway starts at junction 7 on what is effectively a spur north from...
/ A23
A23 road
The A23 road is a major road in the United Kingdom between London and Brighton, East Sussex. It became an arterial route following the construction of Westminster Bridge in 1750 and the consequent improvement of roads leading to the bridge south of the river by the Turnpike Trusts...
. According to the Highways Agency
Highways Agency
The Highways Agency is an executive agency, part of the Department for Transport in England. It has responsibility for managing the core road network in England...
the removal of most of the east/ west bottlenecks, for example improvements to the Chichester by-pass, will not occur for some time to come.
Canals and navigations
The first canalCanal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
s that were constructed in Sussex, can be described as navigations, in that their purpose was to make the lower reaches of the county's rivers navigable. The rivers had suffered from centuries of neglect, which had made navigation, even for small craft, difficult.
Examples of navigations in Sussex are:
- Arun Navigation
- Rother Valley NavigationRiver Rother (Western)The River Rother is a river which flows for thirty miles from Empshott in Hampshire to Stopham in West Sussex, where it joins the River Arun. It should not be confused with the River Rother, in East Sussex....
Eventually, true canals were also built, examples being:
- Wey and Arun CanalWey and Arun CanalThe Wey and Arun Canal is a 23-mile-long canal in the south of England, between the River Wey at Shalford, Surrey and the River Arun at Pallingham, in West Sussex...
- Portsmouth and Arundel CanalPortsmouth and Arundel CanalThe Portsmouth and Arundel Canal was a canal in the south of England that ran between Portsmouth and Arundel, it was built in 1823 but was never a financial success and was abandoned in 1855, the company was wound up in 1888...
- Hythe Military CanalRoyal Military CanalThe Royal Military Canal is a canal running for 28 miles between Seabrook near Folkestone and Cliff End near Hastings, following the old cliff line bordering Romney Marsh.-Construction:...
When the railways arrived, in Sussex, they provided an alternative to the canals and waterways, the canal companies revenue quickly dropped resulting in most of them closing for business by the beginning of World War I.
Railways
In 1804 Richard TrevithickRichard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick was a British inventor and mining engineer from Cornwall. His most significant success was the high pressure steam engine and he also built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive...
, a Cornish engineer, built the first steam locomotive for a railway. His seven-tonne locomotive hauled 10 tonnes of iron and 70 passengers on a 9 miles (14.5 km) journey from the Penydarren Ironworks near Merthyr Tydfil to the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon, reaching a top speed of almost 5 miles per hour (8 km/h).
George Stephenson
George Stephenson
George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives...
built the engine Locomotion
Locomotion No 1
Locomotion No. 1 is an early British steam locomotive. Built by George and Robert Stephenson's company Robert Stephenson and Company in 1825, it hauled the first train on the Stockton and Darlington Railway on 27 September 1825....
for the Stockton and Darlington railway
Stockton and Darlington Railway
The Stockton and Darlington Railway , which opened in 1825, was the world's first publicly subscribed passenger railway. It was 26 miles long, and was built in north-eastern England between Witton Park and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, and connected to several collieries near Shildon...
, which was opened in 1825 for both passenger and goods traffic; Locomotion pulled thirty-six wagons containing coal, grain and 500 paassengers a distance of 9 miles at a top speed of 15 miles per hour (24.1 km/h).
Stephenson's Rocket
Stephenson's Rocket was an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement, built in Newcastle Upon Tyne at the Forth Street Works of Robert Stephenson and Company in 1829.- Design innovations :...
, which won the famous Rainhill trials in 1829, was the first steam locomotive designed to pull passenger traffic quickly.
Brightons proximity to London made it an ideal place to provide short holidays for Londoners. In the 1830s, during the summer, the London Brighton road would see around 40 coaches a day plus a number of private carriages taking visitors to the coast. The road was in a poor condition so proposals to build a railway was suggested as early as 1806. However, it was not till 1823 that a serious scheme was mooted. There followed years of discussion and argument with various groups proposing different routes, then finally in 1837 the London and Brighton Railway Bill with branches to Shoreham and Newhaven received Royal assent. In 1838 the directors of the London and Brighton Railway Company (L&BR) stated that the railroad would be different to the rest of the country in that it would be a passenger only railway.
In the 18th century Brighton had been a town in terminal decline until two things happened:
- In 1750 a Dr Richard RussellRichard Russell (doctor)Richard Russell was an 18th century British Physician who encouraged his patients to use a form of water therapy that involved the submersion or bathing in, and drinking of, seawater...
recommended Brighton for a seawater cure. - From 1783 the Prince of WalesGeorge IV of the United KingdomGeorge IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
started visiting Brighton on a regular basis making it a fashionable destination.
These two events increased the amount of visitors to the town, however in 1841 when the L&BR opened for business, of Brighton's 8,137 stock of houses, 1,095 stood empty. But within 40 years of the railways arrival Brighton's resident population had doubled.
London and Croydon Railway
The London and Croydon Railway was an early railway which operated between London and Croydon in England. It was opened in 1839 and in July 1846 it merged with other railways to form a part of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway ....
(L&CR), the Brighton and Chichester Railway
Brighton and Chichester Railway
The Brighton and Chichester Railway was an early railway in southern England running between the towns of Shoreham and Chichester in Sussex, which operated between 1845 and 1846.-History:...
and the Brighton, Lewes and Hastings Railway to form the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its apex, practically the whole coastline of Sussex as its base, and a large part of Surrey...
(LB&SCR). The LB&SCR continued as an independent entity until the Railways Act 1921
Railways Act 1921
The Railways Act 1921, also known as the Grouping Act, was an enactment by the British government of David Lloyd George intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, move the railways away from internal competition, and to retain some of the benefits which...
, which saw the merger of various rail companies, in the south and south east, into the Southern Railway Company
Southern Railway (Great Britain)
The Southern Railway was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent...
(SR); formed on 1 January 1923. Two railway companies in the county, that were not absorbed by the SR, was Volk's Electric Railway
Volk's Electric Railway
Volk's Electric Railway is the oldest operating electric railway in the world. It is a narrow gauge railway that runs along a length of the seafront of the English seaside resort of Brighton...
the world's first electric railway, that runs along the front at Brighton and opened in 1883, and the West Sussex Railway
West Sussex Railway
The West Sussex Railway opened in 1897 as the Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway, so named to save having to build the railway to regulations that normally covered railways, later changing its name to the WSR. It closed on 19th January 1935 in the face of intensive road bus competition...
, a light railway between Chichester and Selsey, opened in 1897.
SR was the smallest of four groups that were brought together by the Railways Act 1921. The LB&SCR had partly electrified their network before World War I, however that had been an overhead system
Overhead lines
Overhead lines or overhead wires are used to transmit electrical energy to trams, trolleybuses or trains at a distance from the energy supply point...
, SR decided to electrify their network using the third rail
Third rail
A third rail is a method of providing electric power to a railway train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track. It is used typically in a mass transit or rapid transit system, which has alignments in its own corridors, fully or almost...
DC system.
During World War II the SR was heavily involved with transporting armed services traffic and was bombed on many occasions. After the war SR was nationalised in 1948, and became the Southern Region of British Railways.
Following John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
's victory in the 1992 General Election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
, the conservative government
Conservative Government 1990–1997
-Formation:The resignation of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister came on 22 November 1990, more than 11 years after she had first been elected. She had won three consecutive general elections, been voted into power by more than 12,000,000 people, but had to step down because she couldn't count on...
published a white paper
White paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
, indicating their intention to privatise the railways.
The government went ahead with their plans and franchises were awarded to train operating companies
Train operating company
The term train operating company is used in the United Kingdom to describe the various businesses operating passenger trains on the railway system of Great Britain under the collective National Rail brand...
(TOC).
Currently the main TOCs in Sussex are Southern Railway
Southern (train operating company)
Southern is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. Officially named Southern Railway Ltd., it is a subsidiary of Govia, a joint venture between transport groups Go-Ahead Group and Keolis, and has operated the South Central rail franchise since October 2000 and the Gatwick Express service...
, for the southcoast and services to Victoria and London Bridge
London Bridge station
London Bridge railway station is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex in the London Borough of Southwark, occupying a large area on two levels immediately south-east of London Bridge and 1.6 miles east of Charing Cross. It is one of the oldest railway stations in the...
; First Capital Connect
First Capital Connect
First Capital Connect is a passenger train operating company in England that began operations on the National Rail network on 1 April 2006...
for services from Brighton to Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
via London and the London and South Eastern Railway
Southeastern (train operating company)
London & South Eastern Railway Limited, trading as Southeastern is a train operating company in south-east England. On 1 April 2006 it became the franchisee for the new Integrated Kent Franchise , replacing the publicly owned South Eastern Trains on the former South East Franchise...
for services between eastern Sussex and London.
Ports
The two major ports in Sussex are at NewhavenNewhaven, East Sussex
Newhaven is a town in the Lewes District of East Sussex in England. It lies at the mouth of the River Ouse, on the English Channel coast, and is a ferry port for services to France.-Origins:...
, opened in 1579, and at Shoreham
Shoreham-by-Sea
Shoreham-by-Sea is a small town, port and seaside resort in West Sussex, England. Shoreham-by-Sea railway station is located less than a mile from the town centre and London Gatwick Airport is away...
opened in 1760. Other ports such as Pevensey, Winchelsea, and Rye now lie stranded from the current coastline. Other harbours that existed such as Fishbourne
Fishbourne, West Sussex
Fishbourne is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England and is situated two miles west of Chichester. The name derives from fissaburna/fiseborne/fysshburn, all meaning "stream with fish"...
, Steyning, Old Shoreham, Meeching and Bulverhythe are long since silted up and have been built over.
See also
- History of EnglandHistory of EnglandThe history of England concerns the study of the human past in one of Europe's oldest and most influential national territories. What is now England, a country within the United Kingdom, was inhabited by Neanderthals 230,000 years ago. Continuous human habitation dates to around 12,000 years ago,...
- History of BrightonHistory of BrightonThe overall history of Brighton is that of an ancient fishing village which emerged as a health resort in the 18th century and grew into one of the largest towns in England by the 20th century.-Etymology:...
- History of WorthingHistory of WorthingWorthing is a large seaside town in Sussex, England in the United Kingdom. The history of the area begins in Prehistoric times and the present importance of the town dates from the 19th century.-Stone age:...
- Weald and Downland Open Air MuseumWeald and Downland Open Air MuseumThe Weald and Downland Open Air Museum is an open air museum at in Singleton, Sussex, England. The museum covers , with nearly 50 historic buildings dating from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries, along with gardens, farm animals, walks and a lake....
- containing about 50 historic buildings dating from the 13th to 19th century.
External links
- Sussex Archaeological Society: much work on the prehistoric and Roman past of Sussex
- The Victoria County History for Sussex: The full text of 8 volumes of the local history of the county; part of British History Online.
- Further detailed history from 1911 Encyclopaedia
- Key dates in Sussex history
- Sussex Tourist information service - including information on how to visit various historic sites in Sussex.