Place:South Malling, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

The following description of South Malling 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).

"MALLING (SOUTH), a parish in Lewes [registration] district, Sussex; on the river Ouse and on the Lewes branch of the London and Brighton railway, partly within Lewes borough, on the N side of Lewes. Post town: Lewes. Acres: 2,689. Rated property: £4,870. Pop.: 716. Houses: 125. Pop. of the part within [Lewes] borough: 499. Houses: 92.

"A collegiate establishment, for a dean, a chancellor, a precentor, a penitentiary, a sacristan, and a clerk, all prebendaries, anciently stood here; was given, at the dissolution, to Sir Thomas Palmer; and came to be represented by a mansion called the Deanery.

"The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £150. Patron: G. Courthope, Esq. The church was rebuilt in 1628; succeeded one of the 7th century, founded by Ceadwalla, king of the West Saxons; was repaired in 1837; and contains an altar-tomb to Sir W. Kemp.

"Eight persons were killed by a snow avalanche, from a hill within the parish, in Dec. 1836."

The parish church is dedicated to St Michael the Archangel. It was founded in 13th century and rebuilt in 1626. It has a graveyard. Dates of church records may be found in GENUKI.

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 Malling
• There is no specific chapter on South Malling in British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, Lewes Hundred References are made to South Malling in the chapters on Lewes itself.
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the WeRelate page for Lewes Rape and on that for Newhaven Rural District.