Place:Harting, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Harting is a civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is situated on the northern flank of the South Downs, around 3.5 miles (5.6 km) southeast of Petersfield, Hampshire. It comprises the village of South Harting and the hamlets of East Harting, West Harting and Nyewood.

The villages are overlooked by Harting Down, a 550-acre (2.2 km2) common owned by the National Trust which is part of the Sussex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Rising to 229 metres (751 ft), it offers panoramic views over the Weald to the north, to the English Channel and the Isle of Wight to the south.

The area of the parish is 3,216 hectares (7,950 acres or 12.42 sq mi). At the 2011 UK Census, the population was 1,451, an increase from 1,407 at the 2001 UK Census.

Harting was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 under the ancient hundred of Dumpford as the large Manor of "Hertinges", which included 196 households encompassing South, West and East Harting. They were 134 villagers, 42 smallholders and 20 slaves. With resources including ploughing lands, meadows, woodland and nine mills, it had a value to the lords of the manor of £100. The joint lords were the church of St. Nicholas in Arundel, and Roger de Montgomery, also known as Earl Roger of Shrewsbury (died 1094).

Apart from three generations of the Earls Montgomery the manor was in the possession of the Crown until 1610 when it was granted to the Caryll family (John Caryll and his descendants). In 1746 the manor was purchased by the Featherstonhaugh (Fanshawe) family who built the house Uppark in South Harting soon after they acquired the property. The mansion is a Grade I listed building and a National Trust property.

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