Place:Barlavington, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Barlavington is a small village and civil parish now in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. The village is situated about four miles (6 km) south of Petworth, east of the A285 road. The parish population is now less than 100 and following the usual guidelines, at the 2011 Census the number was included with that of the neighbouring civil parish of Sutton.

The nearest railway station is five miles (8 km) northeast of the village, at Pulborough. St Mary's Church was built between 1160 and 1190. Most of the church was built in Early English style.

The parish covers an area of 397 hectares (980 acres). According to the 2001 census it had a population of 117 people living in 35 households.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

" BARLAVINGTON, or Barlton, a parish in Chichester [registration] district, Sussex; near the river Arun, 4½ miles S of Petworth [railway] station. Post Town: Petworth. Acres: 1,175. Real property: £1,136. Population: 136. Houses: 23. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £68. Patron: T. Biddulph, Esq."

Wilson's review shows that Barlavington has had a small population for at least the last century and a half.

Research Tips

• The West Sussex Record Office is located in Chichester. Because it holds the records of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester, which covers the whole of Sussex, it has church records relating to both parts of Sussex.
• An on-line catalogue for some of the collections held by the West Sussex Record Office is available under the Access to Archives (A2A) project (a nationwide facility housed at The National Archives, Kew).
• West Sussex Past - database of 2 million records from West Sussex heritage organizations.
• The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies' Sussex Collection (PDF). This is a 9-page PDF naming the files relating to Sussex in their collection-a possible first step in a course of research.
• The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.

• GENUKI on Barlavington
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex does not cover the Rotherbridge Hundred.
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the page for Arundel Rape and on that for Petworth Rural District.