Place:Alfriston, 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

Alfriston lies in the valley of the River Cuckmere, about four miles (6 km) northeast of Seaford and south of the major A27 road and part of the large area of Polegate. The parish had a population of 769 at the 2001 UK census, increasing to 829 at the 2011 UK census.

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).

"ALFRISTON, a village and a parish in Eastbourne [registration] district, Sussex. The village stands on the Cuckmere river, 2½ miles S of Berwick [railway] station, and 8 SE of Lewes. Its name is a corruption of Alfred's Town; and points to ancient entrenchments in the neighbourhood, formed by King Alfred. It has a post office under Lewes; and it formerly had two fairs. The Star Inn here, a building about 360 years old, contains some curious sculptures.

"The parish comprises 2,425 acres. Real property: £2,617. Population: 522. Houses: 113. The manor belonged anciently to Michelham priory. The property is subdivided. Two fine varieties of apples, one of them called the Alfriston apple, are grown. Roman coins and Anglo-Saxon sceattas have been found. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £135. Patron: the Lord Chancellor. The church is chiefly decorated English, and has stone stalls and an ancient tomb. There is an Independent chapel."

Within the Wealden District Council Alfriston is part of the Alfriston Ward which combines the parishes of Alciston, Alfriston, Berwick, Chalvington and Ripe and Selmeston. All these parishes have very small populations.

Research Tips

• The East Sussex Record Office, The Keep, Woollards Way, Brighton, BN1 9BP, United Kingdom (email thekeep@eastsussex.gov.uk) holds material for the Archdeaconry of Lewes, present-day East Sussex, and therefore generally holds historical material for East Sussex parishes only. An on-line catalogue for some of the collections held by the East Sussex Record Office (ESRO) is available under the Access to Archives (A2A) project (a nationwide facility housed at The National Archives, Kew).
• 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.
• Further resources may be found on GENUKI's main page on Sussex.
• 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 Alfriston
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the WeRelate page for Pevensey Rape and on that for Hailsham Rural District or Eastbourne Rural District.
• A History of the County of Sussex provided by British History Online does not include articles on parishes that were part of Pevensey Rape.