Lodsworth is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Chichester Chichester () is a cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. It is the only ci ...

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

, England. It is situated between

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town, parish and civil parish in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother inland from the English Channel, and north of the county town of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first recorded in 1186 as ''Middeh ...

and

Petworth Petworth is a small town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Chichester (district), Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 road, A272 east–west road from Heathfield, East Sussex ...

, half a mile north of the A272 road. It lies within the

South Downs National Park The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hamp ...

, just to the north of the valley of the River Rother and a tributary stream the River Lod runs close to the east end of the village. The parish includes the settlements of Bexleyhill and Lickfold.

Geography

In the 2001 census the parish covered 12.46 km² and had 282 households with a total population of 690. 298 residents were economically active. The population at the 2011 Census (including

Selham Selham is a small village in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. It lies south of the A272 road 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Midhurst. It is mainly in the civil parish of Graffham, but partly in that of Lodsworth to the north. His ...

) was 672. The parish is a long thin strip running north to south, from the slopes of Blackdown in the north to Gallows Hill on the border with

Graffham Graffham is a village and civil parish in West Sussex, England, situated on the northern escarpment of the South Downs. The civil parish is made up of the village of Graffham, part of the Hamlet (place), hamlet of Selham, and South Ambersham. It ...

south of the River Rother. It includes the hamlet of Lickfold, with a pub beside the River Lod and a triangular green where the road to the top of Bexley Hill meets the Lodsworth to

Haslemere The town of Haslemere () and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south west Surrey, England, around south west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill, they comprise the civil parish of Haslemere i ...

road. South of the village there are more houses, a pub and a small factory at Halfway Bridge on the A272. It has a small

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

parish church, Saint Peter's, a pub, the ''Hollist Arms'', and a village hall. After nearly 20 years without a grocery shop, a group of villagers launched in 2007 a community-run shop, the ''Lodsworth Larder'', built with ecological material to provide local products to local people.

The Manor House

Built by the

Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

, who owned the manor during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, when first built the Manor House would have been the finest building in Lodsworth. The present house is likely to have been the home of the Bishop's steward, who would have administered the manor. Manorial courts would have been held there and there was a basement

dungeon A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...

to hold prisoners. The Manor was held as a

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

by the Bishop, making it independent of the county justice system, so even the most serious crimes would have been tried there, and executions would have been carried out at Gallows Hill on the border with

. Archaeological work during the autumn of 2002 revealed the foundations of a 7-metre extension to the east of the building, with 1 metre foundations resting on solid rock which may have supported a tower. It is likely that there was a

great hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great ...

to the south of the building.

St. Peter's Well

The spring near St Peter's church was a place of

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

in the Middle Ages, especially for people with eye problems, and a source of revenue for the village. The well is located a few yards along a footpath that joins the lower junction of Church Lane and Vicarage Lane.

History

The name Lodsworth is

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

meaning Lod or Loda's enclosure, but little is known for certain of the village until after the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

, when the area was given to Robert de Montgomerie, Earl of

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

. There is no certain reference to Lodsworth in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

, although it may have been regarded as part of Grittenham, now part of Tillington but then a much larger settlement. Lodsworth was part of the hundred of Easebourne, a Saxon administrative area. In 1119 Richard de Belmas, the

, was given the manor by the Montgomerie family; and Lodsworth was made a ''Liberty'' by Royal Charter of King

Henry I Henry I may refer to: 876–1366 * Henry I the Fowler, King of Germany (876–936) * Henry I, Duke of Bavaria (died 955) * Henry I of Austria, Margrave of Austria (died 1018) * Henry I of France (1008–1060) * Henry I the Long, Margrave of the No ...

. This unusual status made the manor independent from the county and hundred legal system so that even the most serious crimes were tried at the manorial court held at the manor house. The manor was run by the Bishop of London's representative the Sheriff who lived at the manor house. Villagers were exempt from tolls at markets and fairs in other parishes, and all income from the manor went straight to the bishop. The manor must have been a valuable source of income to the bishop with revenue from pilgrims to St. Peter's well and probably from stone quarrying, and the status of Liberty was vigorously defended and was reaffirmed by several kings, the last being Henry VI.

Transport and industry

Agriculture and Forestry use most of the land area. There is arable cropping, dairying and other grazing livestock. There are large areas of

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

coppice Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeated ...

on Bexley Hill, cut in rotation to produce fence materials, and areas of

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

and

conifers Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extan ...

. There is a large timberyard and sawmill at Lodsbridge, south of Halfway Bridge and a small factory at the old

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

site at Halfway Bridge. The first transport other than pack horses or horse carts was in 1795 when the Rother Navigation was built from

Pulborough Pulborough is a large village and civil parish in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England, with some 5,000 inhabitants. It is located almost centrally within West Sussex and is south west of London. It is at the junction of the north–south ...

, allowing canal barges to reach the

wharf A wharf, quay (, also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths (mooring locatio ...

at Lodsbridge. This was used mainly to bring

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

and

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

in and to export timber. The railway line from

was extended to

in the 1860s with stations at Selham and Midhurst.

Notable residents

Michael Baigent Michael Baigent (born Michael Barry Meehan, 27 February 1948 – 17 June 2013) was a New Zealand writer who published a number of popular works questioning traditional perceptions of history and the Historical Jesus, life of Jesus. He is best kno ...

, author, historian. *

Austin Dobson :''This article describes the English racing driver. For the English poet, see Henry Austin Dobson''. Austin Dobson (19 August 1912 in Lodsworth, Sussex – 13 March 1963 in Cuckfield, Sussex) was a racing driver from England. He was the ...

, racing driver * Sir

Ranulph Fiennes Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet (born 7 March 1944), commonly known as Sir Ranulph Fiennes () and sometimes as Ran Fiennes, is a British explorer, writer and poet, who holds several endurance records. Fiennes served in the ...

, adventurer. *

David Mearns David Louis Mearns, OAM, M.Sc. (born 10 August 1958), is an American-born United Kingdom based marine scientist and oceanographer, who specializes in deep water search and recovery operations, and the discovery of the location of historic shipwrec ...

, shipwreck oceanographer. *

Ernest H. Shepard Ernest Howard Shepard OBE Military Cross, MC (10 December 1879 – 24 March 1976) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is known especially for illustrations of the Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic animal and soft toy characters in ''Th ...

, illustrator of the ''

Winnie the Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character w ...

'' stories and ''

The Wind in the Willows ''The Wind in the Willows'' is a children's novel by the British novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. It details the story of Mole, Ratty, and Badger as they try to help Mr. Toad, after he becomes obsessed with motorcars and gets ...

'' *

Barbara Ward Barbara Mary Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, (23 May 1914 – 31 May 1981) was a British economist and writer interested in the problems of developing countries. She urged Western governments to share their prosperity with the rest of th ...

, (Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth), economist, writer.

Hamlets

Other villages and hamlets within the civil parish include: *Bexleyhill *Lickfold

References

External links

Map of Lodsworth

Historical information on GENUKI
{{authority control Chichester District Villages in West Sussex