Plaistow ( ) is a 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the north of the

Chichester District Chichester is a local government district in West Sussex, England. It is named after the city of Chichester, which is its largest settlement and where the council is based. The district includes the towns of Midhurst, Petworth and Selsey and s ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

, England. There is a village green, a recreation ground, a children's playground, a village pond, a shop, a pub (''The Sun Inn'') and the

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

Church. There are over thirty

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

buildings in the village. The Sun Inn was purchased by the Pullen family in 1807. Holy Trinity Church (a Chapel of Ease) was once a wooden structure which was destroyed by fire. The church was rebuilt in 1859. Plaistow and Kirdford Primary School was built in 1869. A plaque on the front of the school's original Victorian building acknowledges the significant funding from John Napper, Esquire of Ifold House, who then owned much of the land in the civil parish. The Parish lies on the northern boundary of West Sussex, and is made up of four settlements: Plaistow village and the hamlets of

Ifold Ifold () is a hamlet (place), hamlet in West Sussex and part of the civil parish of Plaistow, West Sussex, Plaistow, of which it is the largest settlement. Ifold has a settlement boundary and for decades has had new housing development. Ifold, ...

, Durfold Wood and Shillinglee. Ifold is the largest of the settlements and has the largest population in the Parish. It has a land area of 2102 hectares (5192 acres). In the 2001 census 1856 people lived in 701 households, of whom 910 were economically active. Plaistow village has its own

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club, Plaistow FC, which formed in 1931 and was admitted to the

Horsham Horsham () is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

and District League. They now play in the

West Sussex Football League The West Sussex Football League is a football competition in England, formed in 1896. It comprises 78 teams across eight divisions, of which the highest - the Premier Division - sits at level 12 of the English football league system. It is a fee ...

. The home ground is 'Foxfields'.

Landmarks

Chiddingfold Forest is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

partly within the parish. This is an important

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

egg-laying area. There are also rare

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

s in this locality including: the argent and sable, common fan-foot, white-line snout, waved carpet and drab looper. Chiddingfold Forest is home to the Bechstein's bat. Three maternity colonies have been identified which have at least eighty breeding females.

Governance

The

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

was Plaistow, encompassing the Parishes of Plaistow, Loxwood, Lurgashall and Northchapel but in 2019, following a district boundary review, it was split between the Fernhurst and Loxwood wards. At the 2011 Census Plaistow Ward had a total ward population of 4,784.

References

External links

Plaistow and Ifold Parish Website
{{authority control Villages in West Sussex Civil parishes in West Sussex Chichester District