Burpham

For Burpham, an area of Guildford, see Burpham, Surrey.

Burpham
Burpham  Burpham shown within West Sussex
Area	12.45 km2 (4.81 sq mi)
Population	193 (2001 Census)
- Density	15 /km2 (39 /sq mi)
OS grid reference	TQ039089
- London	47 miles (76 km) NNE
Civil parish	Burpham
District	Arun
Shire county	West Sussex
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Arundel
Postcode district	BN18
Dialling code	01903
Police	Sussex
Fire	West Sussex
Ambulance	South East Coast
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Arundel and South Downs
List of places UK England West Sussex

Burpham village

Burpham is a village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. The village is on an arm of the River Arun slightly less than 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Arundel.

The civil parish has an area of 1,245.24 hectares (3,077 acres). The 2001 Census recorded a population of 193 persons living in 95 households of whom 94 were economically active.

Wepham is a hamlet in the parish about 1.7 miles (2.7 km) northeast of Arundel on the road between Burpham and Warningcamp.

History

The surrounding area has yielded Iron Age and Neolithic remains including the bones of an elephant near Peppering Farm.^{[citation needed]}

The village is next to the site of a Saxon Burh (an Old English term for "fortification") with earthworks to protect against Viking attack up the River Arun. It is one of a series of burhs ordered by Alfred the Great or his successor, Edward the Elder in about AD 800 and listed in the Burghal Hidage. Burpham's toponym is derived from burh.

The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary is of Saxon origin. It has a lepers' window by which lepers could watch the Mass.

Folklore has it that nearby Harrow Hill was the last place in Britain where fairies lived, until disturbed by archæologists.^{[citation needed]} The deserted medieval village of Bargham or Barpham was Burpham's twin village but was depopulated by the Black Death.^{[citation needed]}

Burpham has one main street, mainly of thatched Sussex flint cottages.

Burpham has a rich literary history. Mervyn Peake and his family lived here and he walked the South Downs while devising the fantasy characters of Gormenghast. The turrets of Arundel Castle may have been its inspiration.^{[citation needed]} John Cowper Powys moved to Burpham with his wife Margaret in 1902 and wrote warmly of Burpham in his memoirs. His son Littleton Alfred Powys was born in the village later that year and subsequently grew up living with his mother whilst John Cowper Powys toured America delivering public lectures and writing. The Rev. Tickner Edwardes, who lived in what is now the Burpham Country House Hotel, when Vicar of Burpham, was a noted naturalist, and wrote many books including The Lore of the Honey-Bee, as well as authoring romantic novels and early films of the 1920s such as Tansy, the story of a love triangle between a village girl and two brothers.^{[citation needed]} A blue plaque on the building commemorates him. Both Peake and Edwardes are buried in St. Mary's churchyard.

Amenities

Burpham has notable views across the Arun and its water meadows towards Arundel Castle, Arundel Cathedral and Arundel Priory. The village has a century-old cricket pitch where W. G. Grace played.^{[citation needed]} There is one public house, the George and Dragon, that was built in 1736^{[citation needed]} and now holds an AA Rosette as a gastropub.

References

Notes

Further reading

• Nairn, Ian; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1965). Sussex. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 120–122. ISBN 0-14-071028-0. 

External links

• Burpham Parish Website