Place:Eastergate, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Eastergate is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Barnham and Eastergate, in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It is located five miles (8 km) east of Chichester. The civil parish covered an area of 370 hectares and had a population of 3,107 persons according to the 2001 census. At the 2011 Census the population had risen to 3,417. On 1 April 2019 the parish was merged with the neighbouring parish to the east, Barnham, to form "Barnham and Eastergate".

Until the 20th century the village remained a small one. The area, being on alluvium, was principally used for market gardens. Subsequent house building has resulted in a large increase in population. Roman remains have been found near St George's Church.

The musical composer John Ireland (1879–1962) often stayed in the parish, and named a hymn tune after it.

Barnham railway station (which was actually within Eastergate parish) was opened in 1864 and lies on the West Coastway Line. The station was called Barnham Junction until 1929 because the branch line to Bognor Regis leaves the main line here. East and West Coastway (to Brighton in the east and Portsmouth or Southampton in the west) and London services are operated by Southern Rail, with occasional First Great Western services travelling as far afield as Great Malvern and Cardiff.

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).

"EASTERGATE, a parish in Westhampnett [registration] district, Sussex; 1 mile NNE of Woodgate [railway] station, and 5 E of Chichester. 1t has a post-office under Chichester. Acres: 912. Real property: £1,855. Population: 162. Houses: 28. The property is divided among a few. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £370. Patrons: the Dean and Chapter of Chichester. The church is good."

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 Eastergate
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 5, Part 1, Arundel Rape: South-Western Part, Including Arundel, section on Eastergate
• Maps of the local area are to be found on pages for Avisford Hundred and Arundel Rape.