Place:Bolney, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Bolney is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. It lies 36 miles (58 km) south of London, 11 miles (18 km) north of Brighton, and 27 miles (43 km) east northeast of the county town of Chichester, near the junction of the A23 road with the A272 road. The parish has a land area of 1,479.41 hectares (3,654 acres or 5.71 sq mi). In the 2001 census there were 1,209 people living in 455 households. At the 2011 Census the population had increased to 1,366. Nearby towns include Burgess Hill to the southeast and Haywards Heath to the east.

In mediaeval times the village was noted for its cherry fair and iron smelting and, until the early 20th Century, a windmill existed on the Common.

At the heart of the village is St Mary Magdalene's Church, which partly dates from the 12th century. The tower houses the earliest ring of eight bells in Sussex, the oldest dating to 1592. At the top end of the village in Top Street there is another place of worship, the Bolney Village Chapel.

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 Bolney
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, Lewes Hundred, section on Bolney
• A map of the local area are to be found on the WeRelate page for Lewes Rape.