Northiam, Sussex

Historical Description

Northiam, a village and a parish in Sussex. The village stands 1¼ mile S of the river Rother, at the boundary with Kent, 8 miles from Robertsbridge station on the S.E.R., and also 8 from Hawkhurst station on the same railway, and 7½ NW by W of Rye. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Rye. Acreage of parish, 3584; population, 1128. There is a parish council consisting of nine members. Brickwall House is the seat of the Frewen family; was purchased in 1566 by Stephen Frewen, alderman of London, from a family of the name of White, who had long possessed it; is an edifice partly of the time of Elizabeth, partly with additions and decorations of the time of Charles II.; contains some interesting portraits and relics, and was approached in the time of Elizabeth by an avenue of its own breadth. The father of Stephen Frewen, who purchased the seat, was for about half a century rector of the parish, and two brothers of Stephen became respectively archbishop of York and secretary to Lord-Keeper Coventry. Tnfton Place, in the neighbourhood, is a large old farmhouse, and was the seat of the Tuftons, afterwards Earls of Thanet. A barge of Hastings the Dane, who sailed up the Rother in 893, was found inhumed in the sand and mud of a field in 1822. She was strongly built, measured 65 feet by 14, and had a forecastle and remains of a cabin, and she contained two jugs, glazed tiles, bricks, broad-toed sandals, a dirk, a board for marking days, and other relics. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chichester; value, £446 with residence. The church is Decorated English, with a Norman tower. The lower part of the tower is Saxon rubble. The spire has been raised 100 feet. The church has attached to its N side the mausoleum of the Frewens, erected in 1846, and contains two brasses of 1518 and 1538. There are Wesleyan and Unitarian chapels and an endowed school.

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 Northiam from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Northiam 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