Place:South Heighton, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

South Heighton is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is seven miles (12 km) south of Lewes itself. In the 1890s the village's population grew from less than 100 to over 500 after a cement manufacturing plant opened nearby. The village is now associated with the urbanised area of Newhaven (much closer than Lewes).

There is no place called "North Heighton" although part of the South Downs above the village is called Heighton Hill.

South Heighton is famous for its secret tunnels, built and used for defence during the Second World War, which lie underneath most of the village, with the main entrance at Denton House. In 1998, when work finished on the conversion of Denton House into flats and of the surrounding area into houses, the road was called Forward Close, after the ship associated with Newhaven and the secret tunnels, HMS Forward.

The parish of South Heighton lies within the Ouse Valley and Ringmer Ward of Lewes District Council. It has an area of 8.5 km2 (3.3 sq mi) and in the 2011 UK census it had a population of 990.

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

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).

"SOUTH HEIGHTEN or HEIGHTON, a parish in Lewes [registration] district, Sussex; adjacent to the river Ouse and to the Newhaven railway, 1½ mile N by E of Newhaven. Posttown: Newhaven, under Lewes. Acres: 923. Real property: £615. Population: 104. Houses: 18. The property is divided among a few. The manor belongs to the Rev. J. Harman. The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Tarring-Neville, in the diocese of Chichester. Value, £412. Patron, the Rev. P. A. Fothergill. The church of [Heighton] was destroyed by lightning in 1769; and that of [Tarring Neville] now serves for both parishes."

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 South Heighton
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the WeRelate page for Lewes Rape and on that for Newhaven Rural District.
• A History of the County of Sussex provided by British History Online does not include articles on parishes that were part of Pevensey Rape.