Place:Ford, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Ford is a village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England.. It is centred 2 miles (3 km) south by southwest of Arundel and west of Worthing. The civil parish very gently slopes to the east, where there is a public track alongside the River Arun. The land is low but well-drained at 2 to 7 metres above Ordnance Datum (sea level).

The parish has an area of 4.08 km2 (1.58 sq mi) which is smaller than its neighbours. The population in the UK census of 2011 was 1,690.

The parish includes HM Prison Ford, otherwise known as Ford Open Prison centred on the site of two former government installations: the RAF Ford Battle of Britain airfield and the wikipedia:Royal Naval Air Station HMS Peregrine. In honour of these two establishments connected with World War 2, there is a small commemorative garden, Rollaston Park, along the road of the same name.

Ford railway station is on the West Coastway Line. The public house next door has listed building status.

The Church of England parish church of Saint Andrew-by-the-Ford is near the River Arun, surrounded by a walled churchyard entered through a wrought iron gate. The Saxon church was built in about 1040, and substantially rebuilt by the Normans with a surviving early 12th-century Norman chancel arch with carved decoration. There are Saxon and Norman lancet windows in the north wall of the nave, which survives from the original building. The wooden bell-turret, painted white as a navigational landmark for ships, has two bells. (There is more detail of the church in Wikipedia).

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