Place:Fernhurst, Sussex, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Fernhurst is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located on the A286 Guildford to Chichester road, three miles (5 km) south of Haslemere. The parish includes the settlements of Kingsley Green and Bell Vale and is situated within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park.

The area of the parish is 2337 hectares (5772 acres). In the 2011 census there were 1,251 households with a total population of 2,492.

The village, on the Weald, originally developed around crossroads (The Cross) and the village green, and ancient remains (Stone Age and Roman) have been found here. Iron working took place in the 17th/18th centuries; and a turnpike ran through the village. The church, dedicated to St. Margaret, (c. 1100) and Red Lion pub are located here and several old houses still remain. With the coming of the railway to Haslemere the village developed around and beyond The Cross, and since the 1960s the village has expanded further westwards. The village houses a commuter population, attracted by the proximity of Haslemere railway station.

In November 2006 the Fernhurst Society published a book, "Voices of Fernhurst", comprising edited extracts of oral history interviews with local villagers.

North and South Ambersham was a long narrow strip, 8 miles from north to south with an average width of ½ mile or less, constituting which was a detached portion of the parish of Steep in Hampshire and formed part of that county until the 19th century, when the Ambershams were united to Fernhurst (North) and Selham (South). (Source: British History Online)

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Fernhurst.

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 Fernhurst
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester, section on Fernhurst
• 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.
• WeRelate Sources for Fernhurst originally named the parish "Farnhurst". These have been redirected here.