Place:Wiston, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Wiston is a scattered village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the A283 road 2.8 miles (4.5 km) northwest of Steyning.

The parish covers an area of 1,360 hectares (3,400 acres). In the 2001 UK census 221 people lived in 86 households. Population remained almost stationery over the following decade. The 2011 UK census registered a total population of 219.

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).

"WISTON, a parish in Thakeham [registration] district, Sussex; 2 miles WNW of Steyning [railway] station. Post town: Steyning. Acres: 2,865. Real property: £2,777. Population: 311. Houses: 57. [Wiston] Park is the seat of the Rev. J. Goring. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £430. Patron: the Rev, J. Goring. The church is chiefly decorated English. There is a free school."

Buncton

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

Buncton is a small village in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England, part of the civil parish of Wiston 0.5 miles (0.80 km) north. It lies to the east of the A24 road, 11 miles (18 km) as the crow flies, or about 18 miles (29 km) by road south of Horsham and 6 miles (9.7 km) north west of Shoreham by Sea.

Buncton existed as a settlement at the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, when it was called "Bongetune". Its origins lie in a manor whose land lay within two exclaves of the parish of Ashington within the Rape of Bramber, one of the six ancient subdivisions of Sussex. The medieval manor house has vanished, but a 17th-century replacement still stands.

The most notable building in Buncton is All Saints Church, a grade I listed building. This 11th or 12th century structure is composed mainly of flint and rubble masonry with some fragments of tile salvaged from the earlier Roman building that existed nearby. The church was built by the monks of neighbouring Sele Priory, and parts of the stonework show evidence of having been previously used at Sele. The church contained a curious carving, claimed by some to be an example of a "sheela-na-gig", which was destroyed by an act of vandalism in 2004.

Until 2007 All Saints' was a district chapel of ease, subordinate to St Mary's Church at Wiston, but in that year the status of the two buildings was reversed, with All Saints' becoming the Parish Church.

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 Wiston
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6, Part 1, Bramber Rape: Southern Part, section on ---
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the page for Bramber Rape and on that for Thakeham Rural District.