North Stoke, Sussex

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North Stoke
Sussex
North Stoke Farmhouse.JPG
North Stoke Farmhouse
Location
Grid reference: TQ019107
Location: 50°53’15"N, 0°33’4"W
Data
Post town: Arundel
Postcode: BN18
Dialling code: 01798
Local Government
Council: Horsham
Parliamentary
constituency:
Arundel and South Downs

North Stoke is a village in Sussex. It is just over two miles north of Arundel and half a mile south of Amberley railway station, and is at the end of a no through road from the station.

St. Mary the Virgin

The village is on a spur of slightly higher ground on the east bank of a loop of the River Arun, surrounded by water meadows. It is in the middle of the gap eroded through the South Downs by the River Arun. Another small settlement on the west bank, South Stoke is about half a mile to the south east and can be reached by a footpath and a footbridge over the river. A suspension bridge on the path was rebuilt by British Army Gurkhas in 2009 after being damaged by a falling tree.

Manor

North Stoke is a mediæval village, recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. It has lost most of its population, possibly due to Black Death in the Middle Ages or because the landowner preferred to enclose the land for sheep pasture. This has left a notable example of a Norman and Early English Gothic church, which is a Grade I listed building.[1]

Parish church

The Church of England parish church, St Mary's is now redundant and maintained by the Churches Conservation Trust.[2] The church's dedication had been long forgotten but in 2007 it was rediscovered from a scrap of a vellum letter dated 1275 from Stephen Bersted, Bishop of Chichester to Edward I. The church was accordingly rededicated to the Virgin Mary in December 2007.[3]

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("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about North Stoke, Sussex)

References

  1. North Stoke Church: Heritage Gateway
  2. Watney, Simon (2007). 20 Sussex Churches. Alfriston: Snake River Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-906022-00-6. 
  3. Caroline Lewis (11 December 2007). "Mystery of Sussex church solved by archaeology students". Culture24. http://www.culture24.org.uk/history+%2526+heritage/archaeology/art52481. Retrieved 27 November 2009.