Place:Chithurst, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Since the local administration reorganization of 1974 the parish of Chithurst has merged with the parish of Trotton under the name "Trotton with Chithurst". Wikipedia provides statistics for population and area for the new parish. In the 2001 UK census the parish covered 7.7 square kilometres (3.0 sq mi) and had 129 households with a total population of 328. At the 2011 Census the population had only increased marginally to 329.

The original parish of Chithurst was relatively small. It bordered the parish of Iping on the east and was surrounded by Trotton on the north, west, and south.

The village of Chithurst contains St. Mary's Church. The church dates to the 11th century and is one of the smallest recorded in Taylor & Taylor's Anglo-Saxon Architecture. It exhibits Saxon features in the proportions, the thinness of the walls, a splayed window in the south chancel wall, long-and-short work quoins with large shaped stones, and some herringbone work in the stone rubble masonry of the walls. It consists of nave and chancel which show these signs of construction in the Anglo-Saxon era, but the west porch and bell turret are of later construction.

Chithurst (as "Titcherste") was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as being in the ancient Hundred of Dumpford and having 14 households comprising six villagers (only adult males counted), five smallholders and three slaves; with ploughing land, woodland, meadows, a mill and a church; it had a value to the lord of the manor of £3.

In 1861, Chithurst had a population of 213 and an area of 1,047 acres (424 ha) of which, according to Kelly's 1867 Directory "about 360 are waste and wood land".

It is noted that during the period 1813-1857 Chithurst combined with Iping (not Trotton) to form an ecclesiastical parish. Ref: Source:Challen, W. H. Transcripts of Parish Registers of Iping-Cum-Chithurst, Sussex, England, 1813-1853.

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 Chithurst
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester, section on Chithurst
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the page for Chichester Rape and on that for Midhurst Rural District, and also that for Easebourne Hundred.