Place:Stopham, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Stopham is a hamlet and small civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, between Pulborough and Fittleworth on the A283 road.

The parish has a land area of 874 acres (354 ha or 1.37 sq mi). The 2001 Census recorded 87 people living in 39 households. In 2011 the Office of National Statistics decided to combine the population of a parish of under 100 persons with the population of a neighbouring parish. In this case, Stopham's population was added to that of Fittleworth as can be seen by the map on this page.

The parish is bounded to the east by the River Arun, spanned by Stopham Bridge. There has been a bridge here since the 14th century, apparently built in 1347 and possibly of timber. The present stone bridge has seven arches and was probably built in 1422–23. The River Rother forms the southern boundary of the parish from its confluence with the Arun below Stopham Bridge.

In the 1790s work began to make the Rother navigable to Midhurst, beginning with a canal cut from the Arun between the Rother and what is now the A283 road. The first lock was built in the grounds of Stopham House. In 1821–22 the central arch of Stopham Bridge was rebuilt much higher than the others to give enough airdraught for navigation.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records a manor of Stopham or Stopeham. The same family, the Bartletts or Barttelots, has held the manor since the Norman Conquest of England. Since 1875 they have been baronets.

Part of the present manor house is dated 1485, but there was a house on the site before that. The house was given a new east front in the 16th century but was partly demolished in 1638. Its plan is E-shaped, a layout popular for Jacobean manor houses. The house is a Grade II* listed building.

The earliest parts of the Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin are 11th-century Saxon or Saxo-Norman, and the remainder of the building is 12th-century Norman. New windows were inserted in the chancel in the 13th century and in the nave in the 14th century. The west tower was rebuilt about 1600. The east window of the chancel was inserted in 1638 but is significantly older, having been transferred to its present position from the manor house. The church contains a series of monumental brasses to members of the Barttelot family: three pairs from the 15th century and one set from the early 17th century. The church is a Grade I listed building. St Mary's parish is now part of a combined benefice with the parish of St Mary the Virgin, Fittleworth.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Stopham. Further discussion of Stopham bridge.

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 Stopham
• 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.