Place:Coombes, Sussex, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Coombes is a hamlet and civil parish in the Adur District of West Sussex, England. The village is in the Adur Valley 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Shoreham by Sea.

Coombes Church is an 11th-century Church of England parish church that has lost its dedication. It has some of the most important medieval wall paintings in England, which were painted c. 1100. There is a single church bell that weighs about 77 pounds (35 kg) and was probably cast in Normandy. It is one of the oldest bells in Sussex, dated to c. 1150. The church is roofed with Horsham Stone slabs.

The civil parish has an area of 525.81 hectares (1,299 acres or 2.03 sq mi). The 2001 Census recorded a population of 51 people living in 22 households. In 2011 the population of parishes of less than 100 people were added to the population of a neighbouring parish. Coombes' population in 2011 was added to that of Lancing, the parish directly to the south. Because of its size Coombes is administered by a parish meeting rather than a parish council.

Church Farm is next to the parish church and Applesham Farm is about 0.6 miles (1 km) to the south. Both were considered "settlements" in earlier centuries.

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 Coombes
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6, Part 1, Bramber Rape: Southern Part, section on Coombes