Up Marden is a small village and former
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 authorit ...
, now in the parish of
Compton
Compton may refer to:
Places
Canada
* Compton (electoral district), a former Quebec federal electoral district
* Compton (provincial electoral district), a former Quebec provincial electoral district now part of Mégantic-Compton
* Compton, Que ...
, in the
Chichester
Chichester () is a City status in the United Kingdom, 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. Publi ...
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 county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...
of
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 ...
, England. It is on the
South Downs
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...
north-west of
Chichester
Chichester () is a City status in the United Kingdom, 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. Publi ...
, close to
East Marden and
North Marden. In 1931 the parish had a population of 266.
There are neolithic and Roman sites in the area.
Recorded history
Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world his ...
of the settlement starts in the 10th century and a church was in existence by 1121. The present church building is of
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
style construction and the church has remained almost unchanged. It has been described as having one of the loveliest interiors in England. The landscape, which is protected 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 ...
, is based on
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. Ch ...
rock strata formed in the
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...
.
History
![Bevis's Thumb - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Bevis%27s_Thumb_-_geograph.org.uk_-_228092.jpg)
A neolithic
long barrow
Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material repre ...
on Fernbeds Down at the north of Up Marden is named Baverse's Thumb or alternatively Solomon's Thumb, probably as a mediaeval means of Christianising a pagan
neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
monument. Remains of
Roman villa
A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions.
Typology and distribution
Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...
s at Pitlands Farm in Up Marden and at Watergate Hanger in nearby West Marden indicate that there were Roman estates in the area.
Prior to the Norman Conquest a
thegn
In Anglo-Saxon England, thegns were aristocratic landowners of the second rank, below the ealdormen who governed large areas of England. The term was also used in early medieval Scandinavia for a class of retainers. In medieval Scotland, there ...
called Goda is recorded as giving four ''cassati'' of land to his son-in-law Wiohstan. Wiohstan bought a further ''manentern'' near "the pool called Blackmere" from Ealfred and his wife Ealsware, then sold five
hides to
Bishop Wulfhun of Selsey for 2,000 silver pennies and a horse in around 935. Wiohstan, with his wife and son, was going to Rome.
During the reign of
Edward the Confessor the Mardens, then known as Meredone, were owned by
Countess Gytha, wife of
Earl Godwin
Godwin of Wessex ( ang, Godwine; – 15 April 1053) was an English nobleman who became one of the most powerful earls in Kingdom of England, England under the Denmark, Danish king Cnut the Great (King of England from 1016 to 1035) and his succ ...
, and held by Lefsi. By 1086 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 manus ...
shows four undifferentiated entries for the Mardens which were held by Engeler de Bohun from
Roger de Montgomery
Roger de Montgomery (died 1094), also known as Roger the Great, was the first Earl of Shrewsbury, and Earl of Arundel, in Sussex. His father was Roger de Montgomery, seigneur of Montgomery, a member of the House of Montgomerie, and was probably ...
.
The prefix ''Up'' in Up Marden does not occur before 1227 except in a 14th-century copy of a Saxon charter where it may have been added retrospectively. In that year
Reginald Aguillon was given the manor by his mother Mary who had inherited it from her father Eustace de Valle Pironis. By 1240 this land had been divided between Aguillon's four daughters, Mary, Cicely, Godehuda and Alice. It seems that Cicely gave her part to the
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...
; the Prior of St John of Jerusalem held a quarter share in the manor in 1428 and continuing until the
Dissolution of the monasteries. The rest of the land eventually came to Alice who remarried to Robert Hacket and in 1357 the Hacket family sold their land to
Richard, Earl of Arundel. This three-quarter share of Up Marden remained with the Earldom of Arundel until 1581 when it was sold to William Paye, with a windmill included. The windmill was sold to Thomas Marten and the rest became divided up. That part belonging to the Hospitallers became known as Up Marden Saint John. it was granted in 1544 to Henry Audeley and John Cordall who at once passed it on to John Sone. It was later bought by Anne Peckham in 1713, was connected with
Thomas Peckham Phipps in 1793 and held by Vice Admiral Sir G. T. Phipps Hornby in 1879.
Governance
In the 19th century Up Marden was recorded as a parish in the
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
of West Bourne and Singleton, in the
Rape of Chichester
The Rape of Chichester (also known as Chichester Rape) is one of the rapes, the traditional sub-divisions unique to the historic county of Sussex in England. The most westerly of the Sussex rapes, the rape of Chichester is a former barony, origin ...
.
From 1894 to 1933 it was part of
Westbourne Rural District and was then incorporated into Compton by the West Sussex Review Order of 1933.
On 1 April 1933 the parish was abolished and merged with Compton.
Geography and landscape
Up Marden lies on the
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. Ch ...
escarpment of the
South Downs
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...
at an elevation from about to . The hills are part of the
Southern England Chalk Formation
Downland, chalkland, chalk downs or just downs are areas of open chalk hills, such as the North Downs. This term is used to describe the characteristic landscape in southern England where chalk is exposed at the surface. The name "downs" is deriv ...
of rocks laid down during the
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...
period around 66 to 90 million years ago. Soils are of the Andover 1 association consisting of shallow silty calcareous well drained soils which overlie chalk on the slopes and ridges of the hills. Deeper calcareous or non-calcareous fine silty soils occur in the dry valleys. These soils which dry out quickly after rain are suited to cereal production, grassland and
beech woodland. Plants are able to root deeply and extract water from the underlying chalk during dry summers.
The area is protected as part of 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 ...
. Notable protected species of birds include Peregrine, Merlin, Fieldfare, Redwing, Woodlark and Brambling.
Area and population
The parish, with an area of 3,170 acres, had sixty houses in 1851.
The population was recorded as 46 families in 1724 and 255 people in 1801.
It had grown to 364 by 1831.
Church
![Up Marden Church interior - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Up_Marden_Church_interior_-_geograph.org.uk_-_428255.jpg)
No church was mentioned at Marden in the Domesday Survey, only those at Compton and Stoughton. Before 1121 however Up Marden church had been given, along with Stoughton church, to
Lewes Priory
Lewes Priory is a part-demolished medieval Cluniac priory in Lewes, East Sussex in the United Kingdom. The ruins have been designated a Grade I listed building.
History
The Priory of St Pancras was the first Cluniac house in England and h ...
by Savaric fitz-Cane.
St Michael's Church stands above sea level on a ridge where it is approached along a farm track. Described by Ian Nairn as having one of the loveliest interiors in England the church is all of 13th century construction. The triangular chancel arch between chancel and unaisled nave is a 16th-century repair to the original 13th-century arch. The walls and wagon roofs are plastered and the floors of brick. The windows are large simple
lancets, with the east window consisting of three together under a rere-arch. The tower has a weatherboarded bell chamber. The chancel contains a trefoil headed
piscina
A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman Ca ...
. A more recent feature for such an ancient church is the Victorian stone pulpit with ogee-panelled sides which, in
Nairn's opinion, fits in perfectly.
In 1628 a bell was cast for the church by bell founders Thomas Wakefield and Bryan Eldridge.
There were also two other bells, one dated 1620 and one unmarked, but all three have been taken down because of weakness in the bell tower.
Captain
Herbert Westmacott, MC (1952–1980), a British Army officer who became the first person to be awarded a posthumous Military Cross, is buried in the churchyard.
In a topographical dictionary of 1833 the living at Up Marden church is shown as a
curacy
A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy w ...
subordinate to the vicarage of Compton.
Education
Reverend Dr. Cox, a rector of Compton and Up Marden who died in 1741, left £100 for the education of poor children in the parishes. This was vested in George Farrell and yielded £3 10s annually for the purpose. In 1769 an endowed school with six children of poor families was in being.
References
External links
{{authority control
Villages in West Sussex
Former civil parishes in West Sussex
Chichester District