Tarring, West Sussex

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Tarring used to be a village in Sussex, England. It is now a northern suburb of Worthing, West Sussex. It is officially called West Tarring, to differentiate it from Tarring Neville near Lewes, but is usually called just "Tarring" (pronounced "Ta-ring", not "Tar-ring").

[edit] History

Tarring was given by King Athelstan of England to the archbishops of Canterbury in the 10th century and there is a tradition that the village was visited by Thomas à Becket, the martyred archbishop, in the 12th century and also St Richard of Chichester in the 13th century.

West Tarring is noted for its 13th century parish church of St Andrew, 13th century Archbishop's Palace, numerous old houses including the 15th century timber-framed Parsonage Row, and two good pubs: the Vine and the George and Dragon.

Despite Tarring High Street being a relatively short and very narrow road, it was once home to five pubs and was also the route for double decker buses. This is the reason for the "George and Dragon"'s unusually high pub sign. A lamp case bearing the legend "Castle Inn" is still present outside one of the former public houses.

[edit] Modern Tarring

West Tarring had an ancient fig garden, dating from 1745 or earlier. This garden survived for nearly 250 years but most of it was destroyed in the late 20th century to make way for property development.

West Tarring's sub-Post Office was closed down in 2004 during what seemed to be a purge of small post offices in the area. The closure of rural Post Offices is a controversial issue in the United Kingdom. Despite this the shop that used to be the Post Office is still in use as a general cornershop. There are three other shops in Tarring; Tarring Food & Wine, Threshers and Duke's, a small bakery. There remains an unspoken gentleman's agreement between the four establishments that none of them will encroach on the other's trade. However they are now threatened by the construction of a Tesco Express on the nearby Rectory Road. It retains a village atmosphere despite its being now a suburb of Worthing.

The nearest railway station is West Worthing, 0.8 Km (0.5 miles) away.

Tarring is home to ale and specialist beer pub "The Vine", noted for several years in CAMRA's "Good Beer Guide". Though once extremely popular with local families, "The Vine" has lost popularity to the benefit of Tarring's other pub "The George and Dragon", which is often packed.