Place:Elsted, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Elsted is a village and former parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It lies within the civil parish of "Elsted and Treyford" which was formed since the nationwide local government reorganization in 1974. The village is on the Midhurst to South Harting road 4.5 miles (7.2 km) west of Midhurst.

The population of the whole parish in 2001 was 253 in 114 households. At the 2011 Census the population was 246. The area of the parish is 15.90 km2 (6.14 sq mi). The parish contains the settlements of Elsted, Treyford, Didling, Elsted Marsh (the location of the former railway station) and Hooksway. The last two have been redirected here.

Elsted (as "Halestede") was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 in the ancient hundred of Dumpford as having 32 households: seven villagers, 23 smallholders and two slaves; with ploughing land, pasture and woodland for pigs, a mill and a church; it had a value to the lord of the manor of £15.

In 1861, the area was 1,789 acres (724 ha) and the population was 174.

The small parish church north of the crossroads, St Paul's, has a nave which had become derelict, leaving the chancel as the village church, until it was rebuilt in the 1950s. The surviving north wall is of Norman style herringbone stonework, with two round arched doorways filled in to make lancet windows.

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 Elsted
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester, section on "Elsing". (BHO appears to have made an error in naming Elsted in the title. The article discusses Elsted.)
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the page for Chichester Rape and on that for Midhurst Rural District.