Selsey, Sussex

Historical Description

Selsey, a village and a parish in Sussex. The village stands on a peninsula, half a mile from the sea, and 8 miles from Chichester station on the L.B. & S.C.R. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Chichester. It is traditionally said to have been once in the centre of the peninsula, was known to the Saxons as Selsea, Scolesige, or Selesige; took that name from two words signifying " Seal's Island," was early and long a town of considerable consequence, acquired a monastery about 680 founded by King Ædelwalch, became in 711 the seat of a bishopric which was removed in 1075 to Chichester, gave in recent times the title of Baron to the family of Peachey-a title now extinct- and consists of three streets, one of them inhabited chiefly by fishermen. The parish consists of the peninsula, which is connected with the mainland only by an isthmus between the head of Pagham Harbour and the sea. Acreage, 2600; population, 1039. There is a parish council consisting of eleven members. About half of the peninsula is believed to have been swept away since the Saxon times. The surface is for the most part level, on the London clay formation, with a rich soil, but fringed with marshes. The coast also is low, terminates in a headland called Selsey Bill, and is flanked there by a dangerous circle of shoals. A sea-tract on the SE hears the name of the Park, was a park of the bishops stocked with deer so late as the time of Henry VIII., and is now an anchorage ground with from 1 to 3 fathoms water. There is a lifeboat station. The site of the ancient cathedral has long been covered by the sea. The living is a rectory and a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester; value, £510 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Chichester. The parish church was re-erected in 1865 close to the village, all its features being preserved. It is a building in the Early English style with Perpendicular additions. There is a Bible Christian chapel, and a lecture hall was erected in 1885.

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.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Selsey from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Selsey 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