Westhampnett (or West Hampnett) is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

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 district of Chichester in

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, located northeast of

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 ...

on the former A27 road, now by-passed. The village is pre-Norman and is home to many

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s, including the Saxon church of St Peter, where three bishops of Chichester are buried. The parish of Westhampnett includes most of Goodwood estate, its golf course, motor-racing circuit and airfield.

Etymology

The name ''Westhampnett'' is first attested 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 ...

of 1086 as ''Hentone''. This name derives from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

words ''hēah'' ('high') and ''tūn'' ('estate, farmstead'), and thus meant 'high farmstead'. The name is first attested with the addition of the Old English word ''west'' and

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 * Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature * Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

''-et'' in 1279, as ''Westhamptonette''.

History

Westhampnett was a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

settlement which like most passed into the hands of new overlords the Normans on the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

. The present village is a scattering of houses around an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

parish church of Saxon origin, dedicated to St Peter. Westhampnett was listed in the

(1086) in the ancient

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 de ...

of Boxgrove as having 16 cottager households, woodland, land for pigs and a mill, and a value to the lord of the manor of £3. Westhampnett Poor Law Union was established in 1835, encompassing many surrounding parishes. Westhampnett's own workhouse was in existence until a fire destroyed it in 1899. The building had existed since the 16th century, and was leased to the Guardians of the Union by the Duke of Richmond. The house had been rebuilt by Sir Hutchins Williams in about 1720. Two public houses existed in the parish: ''The Swan'' in the southwest, and the ''Coach and Horses'' at Maudlin. These, and a disused brickworks, are shown on an 1898 map.

Civil parish

The civil parish includes the hamlets of Maudlin (on the

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

Stane Street, now the A285) and Waterbeech to the northeast, and Westerton and Woodcote to the north. Maudlin derives its name from the former small hospital of St Mary Magdalen. To the north the parish extends just to

Goodwood Racecourse Goodwood Racecourse is a horse-racing track five miles north of Chichester, West Sussex, in England controlled by the family of the Duke of Richmond, whose seat is nearby Goodwood House. It hosts the annual Glorious Goodwood meeting in la ...

high 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 ...

, including Goodwood House and most of Goodwood Airfield and motor racing circuit. The parish has a land area of . In the 2001 census 460 people lived in 161 households, of whom 234 were economically active.

Church

The parish church of St Peter, a Grade II* listed building, was a Saxon construction dating from before the Norman Conquest, and incorporates Roman bricks in the structure. The church is mentioned in the

. It was enlarged in the 13th century and added to in later centuries, the Roman brick chancel arch being replaced. The church has three bells: one undated, the others dated 1581 and 1632. The churchyard contains an unusually large number of elaborate headstones, including plain and

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

crosses, indicating a wealthy congregation in past centuries.

School

The March Church of England Primary School, in Claypit Lane, is next to the parish church.

RAF Westhampnett

The airfield began as a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

fighter base, opened in 1940 during the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...

when it was home to two

Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Griff ...

squadrons. It was later used by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

fighter squadrons, flying British Spitfires and

Typhoons A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

Goodwood

The Goodwood estate is the family seat of the Dukes of Richmond and occupies much of the parish of Westhampnett. A motor racing circuit was developed from the perimeter road of the former RAF airfield which is now, as

Chichester/Goodwood Airport Chichester/Goodwood Airport , normally referred to as Goodwood Airfield or Goodwood Aerodrome is located north northeast of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Chichester (Goodwood) Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence (Number P781) that allow ...

, used for recreational flying and pilot training; the track hosts the annual

Goodwood Revival The Goodwood Revival is a three-day festival held each September at Goodwood Circuit since 1998 for the types of racing cars and motorcycles that would have competed during the circuit's original period—1948–1966. History The first Revival t ...

race meeting. The

Goodwood Festival of Speed The Goodwood Festival of Speed is an annual motorsports festival featuring modern and historic motor racing vehicles taking part in a hillclimbing, hill climb and other events, held in the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, England, in l ...

was developed around a hill climb in the grounds of Goodwood House.

is in the north of the estate.

Notable places and people

Between Westhampnett church and Maudlin is the

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited is a British luxury automobile maker which has operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of BMW AG since 2003 – as the exclusive manufacturer of ''Rolls-Royce''-branded motor cars. The company's administrative ...

assembly plant A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

, producing and testing the finished cars. Just to the south of the church is Chichester District's main waste recycling centre. Towards

is the former Westhampnett Mill, a

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 ...

on the River Lavant, and a Grade-II listed building; it is constructed with red brick and is dated 1772. There are 46 other listed buildings in the parish, including three Grade I at Goodwood House. Three consecutive

Bishops of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East and West Sussex. The see is based in the City of Chichester where the bishop's sea ...

are buried at Westhampnett:

Ashurst Gilbert Ashurst Turner Gilbert (14 May 1786 – 21 February 1870) was an English churchman and academic, Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford, from 1822 and bishop of Chichester. Life The son of Thomas Gilbert of Ratcliffe, Buckinghamshire, a capta ...

(in office 1842–1870), Richard Durnford (1870-1895) and

Ernest Wilberforce Ernest Roland Wilberforce (22 January 1840 – 9 September 1907) was an Anglican clergyman and bishop. From 1882 to 1896 he was the first Anglican Bishop of Newcastle upon the diocese's creation, and from 1896 to 1907 he was Bishop of Chichest ...

(1896-1907). In the church there is a monument to 16th century MP Richard Sackville.

England cricketer The England cricket team represents England and Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC) since 1903. Engla ...

James Lillywhite James Lillywhite (23 February 1842 – 25 October 1929) was an English Test cricketer and an umpire. He was the first ever captain of the English cricket team in a Test match, captaining two Tests against Australia in 1876–77, losing the fir ...

(1842-1929) was born in the village and is buried at St Peter's. Lillywhite was a member of England's first

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

team in the first ever Test match in 1877 against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and was the first

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

of the England team.

References

External links

Parish Council websiteFurther historical information and sources on GENUKIHistory and further sources at British History Online
{{authority control Villages in West Sussex