Place:Parham, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Parham is a civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. There was a village of Parham, around the parish church, but its few houses were destroyed in the early 19th century to create the landscaped park (Parham Park) and gardens. The parish now consists of Parham Park and the farms and smaller settlements around it. The village is between Wiggonholt and Cootham in Storrington parish, about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Pulborough on the A283 road.

The parish covers 1,586 hectares (3,920 acres or 6.12sq mi). The 2001 UK Census recorded 214 people living in 95 households. At the 2011 UK Census the population was 224.

Since 1933 the civil parish has included the hamlets of Rackham, southwest of Parham Park, Greatham and Wiggonholt on the A283 to the north, which has a small parish church. All three were previously separate, though small and thinly populated, civil parishes.

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).

"PARHAM, a parish in Thakeham [registration] district, Sussex; under the Downs, 3 miles S by E of Pulborough [railway] station, and 5¼ N N E of Arundel. Post-town: Storrington, under Hurstperpoint. Acres: 1,264. Real property: £810. Population: 71. Houses: 11. The property belongs to the Hon. R. Curzon. [Parham] House was built, early in the 16th century, by Sir T. Palmer; passed, in 1597, to the family of Bishop; is now the seat of the Hon. R. Curzon; exhibits interesting Tudor architecture, with some modern additions; includes a gallery 158 feet long; contains a rich collection of portraits, pictures, armour, and articles of vertu; and stands in a rich park, wellstocked with deer. A cell to Glastonbury abbey was once in the parish. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £148. Patron: the Baroness De la Zouche. The church is later English, has a smallspire, and contains a curious leaden font.

Wikipedia has an article about Robert Curzon, 14th Baron Zouche (16 March 1810 – 2 August 1873), styled The Honourable Robert Curzon between 1829 and 1870. He was an English traveller, diplomat and author, active in the Near East. He was responsible for acquiring several important and late Biblical manuscripts from Eastern Orthodox monasteries. The family of Bishop (from which Curzon was descended) is often spelled Bishopp. Some members of the Palmer and Bishopp families are represented here in WeRelate.

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 Parham
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex does not cover the West Easwrith Hundred.
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the page for Arundel Rape and on that for Thakeham Rural District.