Selsey Sussex Family History Guide
Selsey is an Ancient Parish in the county of Sussex.
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1662
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1571
Nonconformists include: Bible Christian Methodist
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
SELSEY, a village and a parish in Westhampnett district, Sussex. The village stands on a peninsula, ½ a mile from the sea, 6½ S W of Bognor r. station, and 8 S of Chichester; is traditionally said to have been once in the centre of the peninsula; was known to the Saxons as Selsea or Seloesea; took that name from two words signifying “Seal’s Island;” was early and long a town of considerable consequence; acquired a monastery about 680, founded by King Ædelwalch; became in 711 the seat of a bishopric, which was removed in 1075 to Chichester.
It gave the title of Baron to the family of Peachey; consists now of 3 streets, one of them inhabited chiefly by fishermen; and has a post-office under Chichester. The parish consists of the peninsula; is connected with the main land only by an isthmus, between the head of Pagham harbour and the sea; and comprises 3,494 acres of land, and 820 of water. Real property, £5,424. Pop., 900. Houses, 191. About half of the peninsula is believed to have been swept away since the Saxon times. All the surface is a dead level, on the London clay formation, with a rich soil, but interspersed with deep marshes.
The coast also is all low; terminates in a headland, called Selsey Bill; and is flanked there by a dangerous circle of shoals. A sea-tract on the SE bears the name of the Park; was a park of the Bishops, stocked with deer, so late as the time of Henry VIII.; and is now an anchorage-ground, with from 1 to 3 fathoms water. The site of the ancient cathedral also is now covered by the sea. The living is a rectory and a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester. Value, £759. Patron, the Bishop of Chichester. The church stood about 2 miles NE of the village, but is now at its entrance. Nicholls, the ecclesiastical writer who died in 1712, was rector.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Historical Maps
Vision of Britain Historical Maps – includes topographic maps, boundary maps and land use maps
Administration
- County: Sussex
- Civil Registration District: Westhampnett
- Probate Court: Court of the Bishop (Episcopal Consistory) of Chichester for the Archdeaconry of Chichester
- Diocese: Chichester
- Rural Deanery: Boxgrove
- Poor Law Union: Westhampnett
- Hundred: Manhood
- Province: Canterbury