Singleton is a village, Anglican parish 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 authorit ...

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 ...

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 lies in the Lavant valley, miles north of

on the A286 road to

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 ...

. The village name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'sengel', which means "burnt clearing". The civil parish has a land area of . In the 2001 census there were 199 households containing 476 people, of whom 199 were economically active. The population marginally increased to 480 at the 2011 Census.

History

The village name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'sengel', which means "burnt clearing". Singleton (''Silletone'') was listed 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 manus ...

(1086) as 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 des ...

of the same name with 237 households including the settlements of East Lavant, Mid Lavant, Binderton and Preston. In Singleton parish itself there were 167 households: 89 villagers, 58 smallholders and 20 slaves; with ploughing land, woodland, meadows, three mills and a church, it had a value to the lords of the manor of £121. In 1861, the population of the Anglican parish (Singleton with Charlton), was 556 and the area was . Between 1880 and 1953 a railway served the village at Singleton station. The station complex is now a private dwelling.

Landmarks

Parish church

The Anglican parish church has Anglo-Saxon nave walls and massive square tower. The aisles were added later. This was a ''hundredal'' church, the central church of the Hundred of Singleton, a Saxon administrative grouping of parishes. The tower has three Saxon windows and a Saxon doorway leading into thin air high up in the nave, showing that there was once an upper room above the nave. It is likely that the priests for the churches in the hundred would have lived in this room. The Saxon tower arch was rebuilt in the twelfth or thirteenth century with a pointed arch. The pews are from the

Tudor period The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I until 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England that began wit ...

. The church is a Grade I

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 ...

Goodwood

Goodwood Country Park lies in the south of the parish, part of the Goodwood House estate.

Weald and Downland Museum

The

Weald and Downland Living Museum The Weald and Downland Living Museum (formerly known as the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum until January 2017) is an open-air museum in Singleton, West Sussex. The museum is a registered charity. The museum covers , with over 50 historic bu ...

of Historic Buildings is situated on the edge of the village. Over 40 historic buildings from south-east England have been rescued from destruction, dismantled and reconstructed on the site. Since 2017 it has been the location of the BBC television series ''

The Repair Shop ''The Repair Shop'' is a British daytime television show made by production company Ricochet that aired on BBC Two for series 1 to 3 and on BBC One for series 4 onwards, in which family heirlooms are restored for their owners by numerous expert ...

''.

Singleton forest oil well

There is an oil well in Singleton forest in the north of the parish. This is one of 84 wells on DECC’s list for East and West Sussex, some dating back over 100 years. There have been two

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...

incidents at the Singleton Oil Field (now operated by IGas but operated by a different company when the incidents occurred). These occurred in the early 1990s, and were caused by failure of cement behind the conductor and the 9 5/8-inch casing. This was identified as a result of five

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated ...

monitoring boreholes installed at the Singleton Oil Field in 1993. The leak was from the well cellar (cement-lined cavity in which the well-head sits) via the preinstalled conductor and the 9 5/8-inch casing, both of which appear not to have been adequately cemented in-situ in at least one well. A thorough investigation commenced in 1997, including the drilling of a number (>11) of additional boreholes, and the carrying out of tracer tests and CCTV examination under the auspices of, and in consultation with, the UK Environment Agency. The leak paths, once identified and verified, were remediated. Monitoring has continued since that time and the observed pollution levels have remained below those set by the Environment Agency as requiring further action.

References

External links

Further historical information and sources on GENUKIBritish History Online: Singleton
{{authority control Villages in West Sussex Chichester District