Place:Ardingly, 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

Ardingly is an English village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The village is about 33 miles (53 km) south of London and 33 miles (53 km) east-northeast of the county town of Chichester. The parish covers an area of 3,974 acres (1,608 ha). The 2001 UK Census recorded 1,833 people in 627 households. By the next census in 2011 the population had increased to 1,936.

St Peter's parish church, towards the western end of the village, dates from the 14th century.

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).

"ARDINGLY, a parish in Cuckfield [registration] district, Sussex; near the Brighton railway, 2 miles SE of Balcombe [railway] station, and 3 NE of Cuckfield. It includes the hamlet of Hapsted; and its Post Town is Cuckfield. Acres: 3,817. Real property: £3,564. Population: 626. Houses: 114. Wakehurst Place, a short distance NE of the church, was formerly the seat of the Wakehursts and the Culpeppers; and is now the seat of Sir Alex. Cockburn. The mansion was built in 1590, by one of the Culpeppers; and is a picturesque structure, stained with lichens. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £498. Patron: J. F. W. Peyton, Esq. The church is ancient. There are an Independent chapel, a national school, and a great lower middle school, called Ardingly College. The buildings of the college were completed in 1869; are in the first pointed style; and comprise two quadrangles, with accommodation for 1,000 resident boy pupils."

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 Ardingly
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, Lewes Hundred, section on Ardingly
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the WeRelate page for Lewes Rape and on that for Chailey Rural District.