Place:Loxwood, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Loxwood is a small village and civil parish with several outlying settlements, in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, within the Low Weald. The Wey and Arun Canal passes to the east and south of the village. The parish is at the centre of an excellent network of bridleways and footpaths crossing the Low Weald and joining with those in adjacent counties.

The 2001 census recorded a population of 1341 people living in 660 households. Between that census and 2011 approximately 55 more dwellings have been built, probably adding not more than 100 people. At 1 March 2011 the electoral register showed 1200 electors. The 2011 Census gave a population of 1,480.

Most people who commute regularly to a principal place of work do so to the "Gatwick Diamond area" (loosely an area between Redhill in the north and Crawley to the south), to Horsham, to Guildford or Woking, or to London.

The village was once one of the settlements greatly influenced by a small Christian sect, the Society of Dependants, also known as Cokelers who left London in the mid-1800s. They built their first chapel in the village.

Until 1938 Loxwood was a village with a chapel of ease within the large parish of Wisborough Green. In that year Wisborough Green's civil parish was split in two and Loxwood was formed in the northern section.

Hamlets and settlements in the parish include Alfold Bars, Gunshot Common, Flitchfold, Roundstreet Common, Drungewick Lane and Manor, and Wephurst Park.

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 Loxwood
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex does not cover the Rotherbridge Hundred.
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the page for Arundel Rape and on that for Petworth Rural District. The boundary between Wisborough Green and Loxwood is only an estimation because a map source was not available. A Vision of Britain through Time has a map of Sussex in 1965 which shows all the new boundaries.