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West Sussex

Coordinates: 50°55′N 0°30′W / 50.917°N 0.500°W / 50.917; -0.500
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For the former parliamentary constituency, see West Sussex (UK Parliament constituency). For a full list of settlements, see List of places in West Sussex.
West Sussex
Ceremonial county
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Constituent countryEngland
RegionSouth East England
Origin1974
(Local Government Act 1972)
Time zoneUTC+0 (GMT)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+1 (BST)
Ceremonial county
Area[convert: needs a number]
 • Rank of 48
 • Rank of 48
Density[convert: needs a number]
Ethnicity
96.6% White
1.7% S.Asian

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering East Sussex (with Brighton and Hove), Hampshire and Surrey. With its origins in the kingdom of Sussex, the later county of Sussex was traditionally divided into six units known as rapes. By the 16th century, the three western rapes were grouped together informally, having their own separate Quarter Sessions; they were administered by a separate county council from 1888. In 1974, West Sussex was made a single ceremonial county with the coming into force of the Local Government Act 1972. At the same time a large part of the eastern rape of Lewes (the Mid Sussex district which includes the towns of Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill and East Grinstead) was transferred into West Sussex.

West Sussex has a wide range of scenery, including Wealden, Downland and coastal. It has a number of stately homes including Goodwood, Petworth House and Uppark and also castles such as Arundel Castle and Bramber Castle. Over half the county is protected countryside, offering walking, cycling and other recreational opportunities for visitors and residents alike.[1]

Chichester is the county town and only city in West Sussex, with the largest towns being Crawley, Worthing and Horsham.The highest point of the county is Black Down, at 280 metres (919 ft, grid reference SU919296).

History

Main article: History of Sussex

The foundation of the Kingdom of Sussex is recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year AD 477, it says that Ælle arrived at a place called Cymenshore in three ships with his three sons and killed or put to flight the local inhabitants. The foundation story is regarded as somewhat of a myth by most historians, although the archaeology suggests that Saxons did start to settle in the area in the late 5th century.[2][3] The Kingdom of Sussex was absorbed into Wessex as an earldom and became the county of Sussex, and the county of Sussex was eventually split into the counties of East and West Sussex. Although the name Sussex, derived from the Old English 'Sūþsēaxe' ('South Saxons'), is from the Saxon period between AD 477 to 1066, the history of human habitation in Sussex goes back to the Old Stone Age.[4] The oldest hominin remains known in Britain were found at Eartham Pit, Boxgrove.[5] Sussex has been occupied since those times and has succumbed to various invasions and migrations throughout its long history.[4]

Settlements

Chichester Market Cross

Most settlements in West Sussex are either along the south coast or in Mid Sussex, near the M23/A23 corridor. The town of Crawley is the largest in the county with an estimated population of 107,061.[6] The coastal settlement of Worthing closely follows with a population of 100,200 . The seaside resort of Bognor Regis and market town Horsham are both large towns. Chichester, the county town, has a cathedral and city status, and is situated not far from the border with Hampshire. Other towns of a similar size are Burgess Hill, East Grinstead and Haywards Heath in the Mid Sussex district, Littlehampton in the Arun district, and Lancing, Southwick and Shoreham in the Adur district.

Rustington and Southwater are the next largest settlements in the county. There are several more towns in West Sussex, although they are of similar size to other villages. The smaller towns of the county are Arundel, Midhurst, Petworth, and Steyning. The larger villages are Billingshurst, Copthorne, Crawley Down, Cuckfield, Henfield, Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint, Lindfield, Pulborough, Selsey and Storrington.

Physical geography

See:Weald–Artois Anticline

Communications and transport

The M23 Motorway runs from London to the south of Crawley. The A23 and A24 roads run from London to Brighton and Worthing respectively with the A29 a little further west ending in Bognor Regis. Other major roads are the A272 which runs east to west through the middle of the county and the A27 which does the same but closer to the coast. The A259 is a local alternate route to the A27 in the eastern coastal strip.

Gatwick Airport, which handled over 32 million passengers in 2005, is located within the borders of Crawley, and is the second largest airport in the United Kingdom. There is also a considerably smaller local airport at Shoreham and a grass airfield handling light aircraft and helicopters at Goodwood. There are three main railway routes: the Brighton Main Line, the Arun Valley Line and the West Coastway Line. The Portsmouth Direct Line, although there are no railway stations situated inside the county, occasionally enters and serves the westernmost part of the county.

Climate

West Sussex is officially the sunniest county in the United Kingdom according to Met Office records over 29 years with an average 1902 hours per year. This compares with 1710 hours per year for Devon which is in second place.[7]


National politics

See also: List of Parliamentary constituencies in West Sussex

As of the 2010 general election, West Sussex is represented entirely by Conservative MPs, after the only Labour Party seat in the county in 2005, Crawley swung to the Conservatives.

[8]

Local government

The Coat of Arms of West Sussex County Council, used 1889 to 1975, is based on the heraldic shield of Sussex

County Council

Main article: West Sussex County Council

West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is the authority that governs the non-metropolitan county of West Sussex. The county contains 7 district and borough councils ( Adur, Arun, Chichester, Crawley, Horsham, Mid Sussex and Worthing), and 159 town, parish and neighbourhood councils.

West Sussex County Council has 71 councillors; the majority of them being Conservative. There are 49 Conservative councillors, 18 Liberal Democrats, and 2 Labour Party councillors, 1 Independent councillor and 1 Green councillor.[9] The Chief Executive and his team of Executive Directors are responsible for the day-to-day running of the council.

West Sussex County Council is based at County Hall, Chichester and provides a large range of services including education, social services, fire and rescue, libraries, town and country planning, refuse disposal and consumer services.

West Sussex Youth Cabinet

The West Sussex Youth Cabinet is a group of local representatives and four UK Youth Parliament representatives, who are elected by young people in West Sussex.[10] The Youth Cabinet represents the views of the young people West Sussex at county level. Elections for the Youth Cabinet and UKYP in West Sussex run every year in March. Elections in 2012 ran from the 1st March to the 30th March.[11]

Places of interest

Castles, houses and other buildings

Museums

Wakehurst Place Gardens, Ardingly.

Nature and zoos

See also Sussex Wildlife Trust

Ancient history

Prehistoric monuments include the Devil's Jumps, a group of Bronze Age burial mounds, and the Iron Age Cissbury Ring and Chanctonbury Ring hill forts on the South Downs. The Roman period saw the building of Fishbourne Roman Palace and rural villas such as Bignor Roman Villa together with a network of roads including Stane Street and the Sussex Greensand Way.

Religious buildings

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It was founded as a cathedral in 1075, when the seat of the bishop was moved from Selsey Abbey.[14] The cathedral has architecture in both the Norman and the Gothic styles, and has been called by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner "the most typical English Cathedral".[15] The Cathedral Church of Our Lady and St Philip Howard in Arundel is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. Built in French Gothic style and dedicated in 1873 as the Catholic parish church of Arundel, it was not designated a cathedral until the foundation of the diocese in 1965.[16]

Bosham Church is partly of Saxon construction and is shown on the Bayeaux Tapestry as the local church of late Saxon and Danish kings of England.[17] Many other Saxon and early Norman have survived in the county with little alteration including the Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Sompting, an 11th century Anglo-Saxon church with a Rhenish helm unique in England and St. Nicholas' Church, Worth, a 10th century church in Worth, Crawley. Some Anglican churches and many of the numerous nonconformist chapels in the county have been converted to residential use. Cittaviveka is a Buddhist monastery in Chithurst.

See also Category:Churches in West Sussex

The arts

Pallant House Gallery in Chichester houses one of the most significant collections of 20th century British art outside London. It includes a substantial body of early and mid-20th century work bequeathed by Walter Hussey and many later works donated by Sir Colin St John 'Sandy' Wilson. Worthing Museum and Art Gallery houses the biggest collection of Georgian and Victorian costume in south east England. The Cass Sculpture Foundation has an outdoor sculpture park at Goodwood.

Economy

This is a table of trend of regional gross value added of West Sussex at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.[18]

Year Regional gross
value added[19]		 Agriculture[20] Industry[21] Services[22]
1995 8,564 208 2,239 6,116
2000 10,576 162 2,545 7,869
2003 12,619 185 2,520 9,915

The following are some of the companies based in West Sussex:

Education

See also: List of schools in West Sussex

West Sussex has a comprehensive education system, with a mix of county-maintained secondary schools and academies and over twenty independent senior schools. In addition primary education is provided through a mix of around 240 infant, junior, primary, first and middle schools.

Colleges include The College of Richard Collyer, Central Sussex College, Northbrook College and The Weald School.

Independent schools in the county include Christ's Hospital, whose students wear Tudor style uniform, Seaford College, Lancing College and Hurstpierpoint College.

Tertiary education is provided by the University of Chichester and Chichester College.

See also

References

  1. ^ West Sussex County Council: Leisure & Tourism
  2. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Parker MS. 477AD.
  3. ^ Welch, M.G. (1992). Anglo-Saxon England. English Heritage. ISBN 0-7134-6566-2. pg 9
  4. ^ a b Armstrong. History of Sussex. Chapter 2. The first Inhabitants
  5. ^ "SSSI Citation — Eartham Pit" (PDF). Natural England. Retrieved 4 November 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. ^ http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_51.113_-0.183.html
  7. ^ "Bognor Regis the sunniest spot in Britain". Telegraph. 28 December 2011. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
  8. ^ "BBC NEWS – Election 2010 – South East". BBC News.
  9. ^ West Sussex County Council: Councillors
  10. ^ http://www.worthingherald.co.uk/news/local/could-you-be-a-west-sussex-youth-mp-1-4375922
  11. ^ http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/2012/news/record-number-votes-sussex-youth-parliament-youth/
  12. ^ Steyning Museum
  13. ^ : Tangmere Military Aviation Museum | Tangmere Sussex :
  14. ^ Tim Tatton-Brown and John Crook, The English Cathedral, New Holland (2002), ISBN 1-84330-120-2
  15. ^ Nikolaus Pevsner and Ian Nairn, Buildings of England: Sussex, Penguin Books (1965) (now published by Yale University Press) ISBN 0-300-09677-1
  16. ^ Hudson, T. P. (ed) (1997). "A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 5 Part 1 – Arundel Rape (South-Western Part) including Arundel. Arundel Rape: South-Western part". Victoria County History of Sussex. British History Online. pp. 7–9. Retrieved 28 April 2011. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  17. ^ Salzman, L. F. (ed) (1953). "A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4 – The Rape of Chichester. Bosham". Victoria County History of Sussex. British History Online. pp. 182–188. Retrieved 30 August 2012. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  18. ^ http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/RegionalGVA.pdf
  19. ^ Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
  20. ^ includes hunting and forestry
  21. ^ includes energy and construction
  22. ^ includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

External links

50°55′N 0°30′W / 50.917°N 0.500°W / 50.917; -0.500

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