Place:Lancing, 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

Lancing is a village and civil parish in the Adur District of West Sussex, England, on the western edge of the Adur Valley. It occupies part of the narrow central section of the Sussex coastal plain between smaller Sompting to the west, the larger Shoreham by Sea to the east, and the parish of Coombes to the north. Excluding definitive suburbs, it may have the largest undivided village cluster in Britain. However, its economy is commonly analysed as integral to the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. Its settled area south of the South Downs National Park covers 3.65 square miles (9.5 square kilometres; 2,340 acres), the majority of its land.

It is a mix of no more than mid-rise coastal urban homes and farms and wildlife reserves on northern chalk downs. The oldest non-religious buildings date to around the beginning of the 16th century. The 2002 population was around 19,000, being measured at 18,810 in the 2011 UK Census which included the population of Coombes.

The village was a popular seaside resort in the mid-19th century, gaining favour from the gentry of the time for its secluded atmosphere. Summer tourist hallmarks are the traditional guesthouses on the A259 coast road, as well as a caravan/campsite and traditional seaside small businesses.

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