Walberton

Walberton is a village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England, 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Littlehampton, and south of the A27 road. The land rises from 10 to 35 metres above sea level, a quarter of the height of the nearest foothill, Nore Hill, of the South Downs, which is outside the parish to the north. The civil parish includes the smaller village of Binsted to the east and the larger neighbourhood of Fontwell, less than a kilometre to the north-west. Walberton has a medieval church next to its clustered centre. Binsted's medieval church retains its original setting of village houses dispersed over farm fields.

Walberton

St Mary's Church, Walberton
Walberton
Location within West Sussex
Area10.44 km2 (4.03 sq mi)
Population2,174 (Civil Parish.2011)[1]
• Density208/km2 (540/sq mi)
OS grid referenceSU972059
• London50 miles (80 km) NNE
Civil parish
  • Walberton
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townARUNDEL
Postcode districtBN18
Dialling code01243
PoliceSussex
FireWest Sussex
AmbulanceSouth East Coast
UK Parliament
  • Arundel and South Downs

Amenities
Walberton Village Hall

Walberton's The Holly Tree is recorded as a public house from 1845 and received its present name in 1867.[2] Towards the end of the village, there is a small duck pond. There are a few shops close to the modern village hall.

Binsted has a pub, the Black Horse and a Norman church built in AD 1140 by the monks of Tortington Priory to the immediate east.[3] Roman and medieval pottery and tile kilns have been excavated there.[4] Binsted also has a traditional summer festival, Strawberry Fair, where locally grown produce is sold for charity. Part of Binsted is within the South Downs National Park. The whole of Binsted's countryside was originally assessed by the Countryside Agency as meeting the criteria for inclusion.

Churches

St Mary's Church in Walberton was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, which it considerably predates owing to its Saxon font and Roman-era west wall.

In 1846, a small group of parishioners left St Mary's to form a Baptist church. Its present flint building dates from 1886 and, since 1973, the church has been affiliated to the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches.[2]

Both St Mary's and Walberton Baptist Church have services every Sunday and a range of mid-week activities.[5][6]

Governance

The electoral ward named Walberton stretches north-east to Madehurst, with a total population taken at the 2011 census of 2,889.[7]

Notable people
  • Sir William Anson (1843–1914), jurist, academic and politician, was born in Walberton.[8]
  • Frederick Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton (1883–1964), businessman and government minister, is buried in Walberton churchyard.[9]
  • Rosemary Sutcliff (1920–1992), children's writer, spent the latter part of her life in Walberton.[10]
  • The Hilton Avisford Park Hotel,[11] with its golf course between Walberton and Binsted, was formerly Avisford Roman Catholic Preparatory School for Boys (1928–73),[4] where BBC journalist Edward Stourton (born 1957) was head boy and Robert Nairac (1948–1977), an army officer abducted and murdered in Northern Ireland, spent a year teaching before university in the late 1960s.

References
  1. Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density United Kingdom Census 2011 Office for National Statistics Retrieved 10 May 2014
  2. British History Online: Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  3. Remains of Tortington Priory and its fish pond Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1021459)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 11 May 2014.
  4. T P Hudson (Editor), A P Baggs, H M Warne (1997). "Binsted". A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 5 Part 1: Arundel Rape: south-western part, including Arundel. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 11 May 2014.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) This includes a detailed architectural description of the church.
  5. St Mary's Walberton Website "Church Website".
  6. Walberton Baptist "Find-a-Church Website".
  7. "Ward population 2011". Retrieved 14 October 2015.
  8. ODNB: H. C. G. Matthew: "Anson, Sir William Reynell, third baronet (1843–1914)" Retrieved 10 May 2014. Pay-walled.
  9. Delorme, Mary (1987). Curious Sussex (London: Robert Hale). ISBN 0-7090-2970-5
  10. Rosemary Sutcliff's ODNB entry: Retrieved 12 September 2011. Subscription required.
  11. Avisford Park Hotel Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1222534)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 11 May 2014.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.