The History of Chidham and Hambrook
The Oxford book of place names gives the name Chidham as being derived from the Old English word CEOD, meaning a bag or pouch and HAM meaning a settlement. Chidham being therefore, the pouch-like bag settlement. It is thought the shape of the Chidham peninsula gives rise to the ‘pouch-like bag’ description. Unlike Chidham, HAM at the beginning of the name means a rock and therefore Hambrook refers to a place where the spring gushes from the rock.
Chidham is not mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086, being then included in the Bishop of Exeter’s estate of the Chapelry of Bosham. In 1121 Bishop Warlewaste of Exeter founded the College of Bosham with six prebends which were Bosham parochial, Appledram, Chidham, Funtington, Walton and Westbrook. It is doubtful whether the prebend of Chidham worked in the parish, as there was a separate vicarage of Chidham, Andrew Prous being the first recorded vicar in 1261.
The first mention of the Lord of the Manor of Chidham is in a document entitled “The Confirmatory Grant of the Chapelry”, dated 1243, naming the Bishop of Exeter as Lord of the Manor of Chidham and having small tenants, who were his servants, in the Hamlet of Westerton. By this time there were already three tithings, the other two being Middleton and Easton .
After the dissolution of the College of Bosham , the Bishop conveyed the Manor of Chidham to Thomas Fisher in 1548. Thomas then transferred it to Henry Bickley, in whose family it remained passing to his son Thomas and grandson Thomas, who died in 1640. It was subsequently bequeathed to Brewen Bickley, grandson of Henry and Cicely Ryman, and to their son Richard. Richard died before his father, whose estates passed to a younger son Henry, who died in 1707, leaving the Manor of Chidham to his son, another Henry, who sold it in 1714. It was apparently bought by Richard Lumley, Earl of Scarborough and descended with Westbourne until the death of Richard Barwell in 1805, after which is was sold to Edmund Woods. William Padwick owned the Manor in 1822 but sold it to Charles Cheesman some time before 1835, after which it passed to Alfred Cheesman, Andrew Hutton, John Henry Hortin and Viscount Gifford. Sophie, Lady Gifford, (widow of the 3 rd Baron), was named as Lady of the Manor between 1915 and 1922, but it was in the hands of Albert Eadie in 1919. It was subsequently acquired by Lord Iveagh.
There is very little known about the parish in the 14 th and 15 th centuries, though encroachment of the sea is recorded in the Nonce Rolls of 1340, where it was noted that since 1291, the parishes of Chidham and Thorney had each lost twenty acres of arable and 20 acres of meadowland to the sea.
The surviving records of the Sussex Subsidy of 1327 gives the names of the following contributors, living in Chidham:-
Ralph Hambrok |
Richard Grigg |
Richard Herbelot |
Robert Muleward |
William Neuman |
John Godefray |
John Alyng |
Simon Godefray |
Henry at Putte |
John Pruet |
The widow at Stone |
The widow Mafford |
Thomas de Watergate |
The widow Cepsston |
Godfrey de Ledes |
Thomas Roberd |
William Russel |
John Maudut |
Richard Falzes |
|
At the beginning of the sixteenth century there was increasing criticism of the Church in England and of the usefulness of the monasteries. The Priory of Pynham was suppressed by Cardinal Wolsey, who seized the property, which included Priors Lease. When Wolsey fell from power it was confiscated by Henry VIII, who gave it to Lucy Neville, daughter of John, Marquis Montague. It changed hands several times, passing to William Barnard and became known as Barnard’s Manor. It now only survives as a farm and the name has reverted back to Priors Lease.
Chidham Church suffered badly following Henry VIII’s break with Rome , when he stopped pilgrims from visiting St. Cuthman’s shrine. This resulted in a loss of revenue from offerings made to the image of St. Cuthman. The parish records indicate that the Church continued to be neglected in the first half of the seventeenth century as mention is made of the Chancel paving being broken up and the stone wall gable end of the Chancel needing to be taken up and replaced. In 1626 it was recorded that the vicarage house and barn had fallen into decay and in 1636 a worrying note states “the steeple is like to fall down”. The first half of the eighteenth century saw no improvement and for a long time there was no vicar, services being taken by Curates. 1770 seems to have been a turning point, with the appointment of a new vicar, Anthony Fosbrooke as by 1776, Sir William Burrell noted that “the Church is in good repair and has a small wooden turret”.
A map dated 1812 shows all the landowners, both freeholders and copyholders, south of the Turnpike Road , (A259), with a small area to the north. John Newland owned Chidmere Farm and what is now Cobnor Farm, but was then wasteland. The map also shows the Malt House and the new public road, 30 feet in width, linking the Turnpike Road with Steels Lane . This was later called Malthouse Lane and now Chidham Lane . In 1836, by Act of Parliament, the Tithes, (payment in kind by landowners to the Church), were commuted for a rent charge on the land. The Tithe map for Chidham is dated 1846 and gives the name of each field, with its acreage and the name of the owner and the occupier of all the properties and land. From this it can be established that the area of the parish was just over 1534 acres, of which 1236 were arable, 159 meadow and pasture, a little over 8 acres of woodland and houses, buildings, water, rough ground, roads, glebe lands and waste making up the remainder. The tithe award to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Chichester was 478 pounds 6 shillings annually and to the Vicar, (Henry Smith), 130 pounds annually.
The 1882 copy of Kellys Directory for Sussex gives the population of Chidham as 266 and records the following list of commercial residents:-
John Carroll - Market Gardener
John Collis - Beer Retailer
Thomas Cox - Farmer at Hambrook
John Habin - Farmer at Church & Manor Farms
George Hackett - Market Gardener
James Hackett - Miller
James Hackett - Market Gardener
John Hackett - Market Gardener
Stephen Hackett - Market Gardener
Abraham Pennicott - Shoemaker
Sutton Brothers - Maltsters
William Terry - Farmer & Market Gardener
Henry Wakeford - Market Gardener
John Wakeford - Market Gardener
William West - Farmer
The population rose to 503 in 1911. This was principally due to the development of Hambrook and building along Main Road , probably stimulated by the opening of the Nutbourne Halt station in 1906. Development since the Second World War has been concentrated near the A259. Hamstead Meadow, in Chidham Lane , was a Chichester Rural District Council estate, which was completed in 1949. Later, Maybush Drive private estate and the Flatt Road Council estate were built. In 1971, the population was given as 980, comprising 494 males and 486 females.
Salt
Salt working was also an important industry in the area, dating from at least the Iron Age. The harbour was an ideal area for salt production, being relatively sheltered with low-level marsh that could easily be enclosed. In the Iron Age and Roman periods, salt water was collected in pits at high tide and transferred to crude ceramic vessels where the water dried and the salt could be collected. Later, south coast salt production was by the boiling of seawater, concentrated by sun and wind, in lead or iron pans over coal fires. South coast saltmaking seems to have declined in the 19th century due to increased competition from Cheshire and salt imported from the Continent
Shipbuilding
Shipyards concentrated around the harbour at Itchenor, Bosham and Emsworth for the purpose of building and maintaining little ships for coastal trade and the fishing industry all around the coast. The earliest references to ship building date to the late 17th century, when an inventory of the belongings of John Chatfield from Itchenor in 1694 included a reference to ‘shipwright work.’ Although the harbour had been rejected as not suitable for a naval establishment by the Navy Board in 1698, a number of small to medium-sized warships were built at Itchenor in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
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Fishing
The exploitation of fish is likely to be one of the oldest industries in the area, and may date to the Palaeolithic and certainly to the Mesolithic. A specialised flint assemblage from the Neolithic period was found at Chidham in 1980. The flints may have been used to prepare wooden arrow shafts, spear shafts and possibly osiers for plaited fish traps. Fishing is also likely to have been an important part of the local Iron Age, Roman and medieval economy.
The normal pattern of fishing in the harbour in the post-medieval period seems to have been to fish wet fish in the summer, and shellfish in the winter. Plaice, flounder, sole, whiting and whiting-pout, mackerel and herring were all fished in the harbour in the 19th century. The Terror, currently being restored by Chichester Harbour Conservancy as part of the ‘Rhythms of the Tide’ project, carried oysters between lays at Hayling Island . By the early 19th century, the local oyster beds had been fished out
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Chidham Wheat
Chidham's makes its claim to fame on the discovery of a new variety of wheat, which became known as 'Chidham Wheat'. The Rev. Arthur Young in his General View of the Agriculture of the County of Sussex, written in 1813, described it.
'As Mr Woods was occasionally walking over his fields, he met with a single plant of wheat growing in a hedge. This plant contained thirty fair ears, in
which were found fourteen hundred corns. These, Mr. Woods planted the ensuing year, with the greatest attention, in a wheat field: the crop from these fourteen hundred corns produced eight pounds and a half of seed, which he planted the same year; and the produce amounted to forty-eight gallons: this he drilled, and it yielded fifteen quarters and a half, nine gallon measure. Having now raised a large quantity of seed, he partly drilled, and in part sowed, the last produce broad-cast, over rather more than fifty acres of land, and he gained 38'/2 loads.
Twenty loads of this quantity was sold for seed, at £15.15s. per load. The wheat, upon trial, was discovered to be so fine, that Mr. Woods had an immediate demand for a far greater quantity than he could spare for sale.
It was said of the sample of Chidham wheat, 'it is white, of a very fine berry and remarkably long in the straw so as to stand full six feet in height'.