Billingshurst, Sussex
Historical Description
Billingshurst, a village and a parish in Sussex. The village stands on the Roman Stane Street, near the Mid-Sussex railway and the Arun and Wye Canal, 7 miles SW of Hor-sham, and has a station on the L.B. & S.C.B., 45 miles from London, and a head post office. It probably got its name from being a settlement of the great Saxon tribe of Billing. The parish is divided into East and West Billingshurst. Acreage, 6862; population, 1658. Gratwicke House is a seat in the neighbourhood, and Somers Place is a fine mansion in the Tudor style. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester; net value, £100 with residence. The south side of the church is very Early Norman, the rest chiefly Perpendicular English. There are two dissenting chapels, and some small charities. Adversane and Five Oaks are adjacent hamlets.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Sussex | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Billingshurst St. Mary | |
| Hundred | West Easwrith | |
| Poor Law union | Petworth |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Billingshurst from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Billingshurst (St. Mary))
Maps
Online maps of Billingshurst are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Sussex newspapers online: