Sompting

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Sompting
Statistics
Population:	8,514 (2001 census)
Ordnance Survey
OS grid reference:	{{{GridReference}}}
Administration
District:	Adur
Shire county:	West Sussex
Region:	South East England
Constituent country:	England
Sovereign state:	United Kingdom
Other
Ceremonial county:	West Sussex
Historic county:	Sussex
Services
Police force:	Sussex Police
Fire and rescue:	{{{Fire}}}
Ambulance:	South East Coast
Post office and telephone
Post town:	LANCING
Postal district:	BN15
Dialling code:	01903
Politics
UK Parliament:	East Worthing and Shoreham
European Parliament:	South East England

Sompting is a village and civil parish in the Adur District of West Sussex, England, located between Lancing and Worthing, at the foot of the southern slope of the South Downs. Twentieth-century development has linked it to Lancing. The civil parish covers an area of 1034.98ha and has a population of 8,514 persons (2001 census). The name Sompting (known as Sultinges in the Domesday Book) is said to come from the Old English for dwellers by the marsh (Sompt + ingas).

It notably contains an exceptional Anglo-Saxon church (St Mary's) with an unusual "Rhenish Helm" tower (believed to be the only one in the country), separated from the centre of the village since 1939 by the busy A27 road. The church was originally built by the Saxons around 960, then was adapted by the Normans when William de Braose granted it to the Knights Templar in the 12th century. The church later passed to the Knights Hospitaller in the 15th century. The current Sompting Abbotts building, completed in 1856, is now used as a school, but has been the site of one of Sompting's manor houses since Norman times, when it was owned by the abbott of Fecamp in Normandy, and later owned by the abbott of Syon Abbey in Middlesex. In 1248 the abbott of Fecamp had a prison in the village. Queen Caroline, consort of King George IV stayed at Sompting Abbotts in 1814 on her way across the English Channel to the Continent.

The current Sompting Rectory building, now used as a nursing home, dates from 1791, however the Rectory has a long history, having previously been owned by the Knights Templar from 1154 and like Sompting Church, passed to the Knights Hospitaller in the 15th century. During the Second World War a prisoner-of-war camp was built on the Rectory Farm estate, on the west side of Busticle Lane.

Sompting's Parish Hall was originally built as a reading room in 1889 by HP Crofts of Sompting Abbotts manor. As well as the main Sompting Church, there was formerly a Methodist mission chapel, registered in 1887 it still stands today. Sompting Community Centre was originally built in 1872 as a Junior and Infants School.

The parish of Sompting includes the hamlet of Beggars Bush on the Downs as well as the former hamlets of Upper Cokeham and Lower Cokeham, which are now part of the Sompting-Lancing conurbation. Cokeham means Cocca's homestead (ham). Sompting also historically extended west to the ancient droveway today known as Charmandean Lane, but in 1933 this land was given to the neighbouring borough of Worthing. Sompting's eastern border with Lancing has historically been defined by the Boundstone Lane, so called because of the boundary stone or boundstone that lay on the boundary. The stone is now kept in Boundstone Community College, which lies on the Sompting side of Boundstone Lane.

To the north of the parish, a settlement existed at Park Brow on the Downs in the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age and Roman times. It lasted until its buildings were burned down around AD 270, possibly by Saxon or Frankish pirates. It is supposed that the inhabitants moved from here to the relative safety of the hillfort at Cissbury Ring.

The highest point in the parish of Sompting is Steep Down (149 metres high).

The writer Alred Longley lived in Sompting, creator of the character 'Jimmy Snuggles' and the Sompting Treacle Mines, where incredibly lazy people worked.

Sompting is also known for its mummers play, performed by the Sompting Village Morris dancers.

From: 'Sompting', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 1: Bramber Rape (Southern Part) (1980), pp. 53-64. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=18217. Date accessed: 12 October 2006.