CAN HAMPSHIRE BE IN SUSSEX?

BY KIM LESLIE

There’s nothing more strange than finding a detached strip of Hampshire within Sussex, an island of territory quite isolated from its mother county. The map of 1724 shows this very narrow finger of land (highlighted in green) some eight miles from north to south and half-amile or less in width between Midhurst and Petworth, within its bounds just a few farms and the hamlet of Ambersham (known as South Ambersham today). As there was no church, its scattered people were forced to travel to Steep church in Hampshire (some twelve miles away, just west of Petersfield) for their baptisms, marriages and burials within the Diocese of Winchester. The reason for this anomaly goes back a long way: the original Saxon settlers came from Steep and kept their new lands as an outlier of their parent parish. When this little bit of Hampshire was finally absorbed into Sussex in 1844 it was only for civil matters. The church of Steep and the Diocese of Winchester continued to exercise authority here until as late as 1890. It was an extraordinary medieval survival into the late Victorian period.

As with Steep, many medieval parishes were fragmented with portions of land detached as satellites from the main body. In Sussex, the early Saxon colonists created their main settlements – the mother parishes – then went on to develop outlying settlements several miles away into the Weald for seasonal pig pastures in the autumn and winter. Medieval farmers from the Bognor/Felpham area drove their pigs over the Downs to their swine pastures at ‘Boganora’ (today’s Little Bognor), near Fittleworth. Others went from Clymping to Clymesfold (now Clemsfold) on the A29 near Slinfold, whilst others from Upper Beeding, near Steyning, went on to settle at Lower Beeding, near Horsham – Upper and Lower used in the sense of main and subsidiary, rather than in physical height, for Upper is lower than Lower!

Another exempt jurisdiction is shown on the map immediately to the east of Sussex’s Hampshire. The Liberty of Lodsworth refers to the freedoms enjoyed by the bishops of London who once owned the manor here since the early twelfth century. These bishops enjoyed considerable power within their Liberty, free from any authority of the Sheriff of Sussex, the Chamberlain of the King’s Household, the Earl Marshal of England and the bishops of Chichester. They held their own courts at the Manor House, with its own court room and dungeon (the stone building just south of the church), with power to imprison and even execute. Capital offenders were hanged at Gallows Hill (pinpointed on the OS Explorer map of the area), an isolated spot on the edge of Graffham Common.