Fletching, Sussex

Historical Description

Fletching, a village and a parish in Sussex. The village stands on the river Ouse, 2¼ miles from Sheffield Park station on the L.B. & S.C.R. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Uckfield. Acreage of the civil parish, 8522; population, 2245; of ecclesiastical, 1171. The manor belonged to Earl Godwin; passed to the Delawarres, the Nevilles, the Sackvilles, and others, and belongs now to the Earl of Sheffield. Sheffield Park, the seat of the Earl, includes some ancient portions, and has been at various times enlarged and altered. It stands in a beautiful park embellished with noble trees. It presents Gothic features, but scarcely in good taste; on its exterior are the shields of the several owners of the manor since the Conquest. It was the place where the historian Gibbon spent much of the latter part of his life, and it contains a portrait of Gibbon by Sir Joshua Reynolds. There is a number of mineral springs, almost all chalybeate. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chi-chester; value, £180 with residence. Patron, the Earl of Sheffield. The church has Norman features, but is chiefly Early English, is cruciform, has a Norman tower with a spire; contains in the S transept an altar-tomb with very fine brass of a Dalyngrngge of 1395, and another altar-tomb with effigies of a Leche of 1596, and has, in connection with the N transept, the mausoleum of the Sheffield family, containing the grave of Gibbon, with a Latin inscription by Dr Parr. The church was beautifully restored in 1880. The vicarage of Dane Hill is a separate benefice. Reading and recreation rooms were erected in 1889.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

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 Fletching from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Fletching (St. Andrew and St. Mary))

Maps

Online maps of Fletching 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:

• Mid Sussex Times
• Chichester Express and West Sussex Journal
• Sussex Agricultural Express
• Hastings and St Leonards Observer
• Sussex Advertiser
• Brighton Gazette
• Bexhill-on-Sea Observer