South Stoke is a rural 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 authorit ...

in the Arun District 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 centred two miles (3 km) north of Arundel also on the west bank of the

River Arun The River Arun () is a river in the English county of West Sussex. At long, it is the longest river entirely in Sussex and one of the longest starting in Sussex after the River Medway, River Wey and River Mole. From the series of small strea ...

and on the edge of ''Arundel Park''. It is reached by road, footpath or river from Arundel. A footpath also leads to North Stoke on the east bank. The civil parish, which includes the hamlet of Offham, covers an area of . At the 2011 Census the population of the village was included in the

Houghton Houghton may refer to: Places Australia * Houghton, South Australia, a town near Adelaide * Houghton Highway, the longest bridge in Australia, between Redcliffe and Brisbane in Queensland * Houghton Island (Queensland) Canada *Houghton Township, ...

. The parish church, Saxon in origin, is dedicated to St Leonard. Offham has a large pub.

History

Offham 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 ...

of 1086 as having 18 households, comprising 8 villagers, 5 cottagers and 5 slaves, with plough land, woodland, a fishery and two mills, all valued at 8 pounds 10 shillings. South Stoke itself had 14 households and a church valued at 4 pounds. Human population reverted to medieval levels after 1806 when common land was

enclosed Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

to make Arundel Park, depriving unlanded villagers of sheep-grazing land. Some of this was returned to woodland after a few centuries of being used as pasture.

Amenities

Offham has a pub with outdoor seated area, the ''Black Rabbit''. The

Monarch's Way The Monarch's Way is a long-distance footpath in England that approximates the escape route taken by King Charles II in 1651 after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester. It runs from Worcester via Bristol and Yeovil to Shoreham, West Su ...

long-distance footpath crosses the western edge of the parish between

and Arundel.

In film, the media and fiction

Offham is the setting for

Michael de Larrabeiti Michael de Larrabeiti (18 August 1934 – 18 April 2008) was an English novelist and travel writer. He is best known for writing ''The Borrible Trilogy'', which has been cited as an influence by writers in the '' New Weird'' movement. Early ...

's 2003 novel '' Foxes' Oven'', set in 1940.

The parish church

The 11th-century building is recorded in the

, when the village was named as "Stoches". Built of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

it has a thin western tower which carries a 19th-century broach spire with four slatted dormer windows. There is one bell dated 1657. The porch is 13th century.

References

{{authority control Villages in West Sussex Arun District