Duncton
| Duncton | |
| Sussex | |
|---|---|
 Holy Trinity parish church | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU960172 |
| Location: | 50°56’48"N, 0°38’5"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 345 ((2011 Census)) |
| Post town: | Petworth |
| Postcode: | GU28 |
| Dialling code: | 01798 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Chichester |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Arundel and South Downs |
| Website: | Duncton |
Duncton is a village in Sussex, in the South Downs three miles south of Petworth on the A285 road. The southern part of the parish includes part of Duncton Down, which is climbs to a summit at 682 feet.
The 2011 census recorded a population of 345
The village has two churches. a pub, a village hall and two croquet pitches. The wider parish includes Burton Park, whose stately home and parish church are about half a mile east of Duncton village.
Duncton Mill at the foot of the South Downs escarpment was powered by a large spring flowing from the chalk strata. A stable flow of water at a constant temperature throughout the year is ideal for its present use as a trout hatchery.
Churches
The Church of England parish church is Holy Trinity Church. It is a Gothic Revival building, designed by James Castle of Oxford and completed in 1866.[1]
Duncton's original parish church, St Mary's, was a Mediæval building at the foot of Duncton Down, some distance south of the village. In 1864 George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield, of Petworth House, commissioned a new parish church to be built on a more convenient site in the village.
A bell from St Mary's, thought to have been cast in Normandy in 1369, was transferred from St Mary's to Holy Trinity. St Mary's was demolished in 1876.[1]
The parish is now part of the Benefice of Stopham and Fittleworth
The Roman Catholic church of Saints Anthony and George is another Gothic Revival building. It was designed by Gilbert Blount and completed in 1868.[2]
History
Prehistoric remains in the parish include a Bronze Age round barrow on Duncton Common in the north of the parish.[3] The remains of a Romano-British villa, including a hypocaust, were found 140 yards north-east of St Mary's church[4] and excavated between 1812 and 1816.[5]
The Domesday Book of 1086 records the name of the village as Donechitone, and a pipe roll from 1181 records it as Duneketon. The name comes from the Old English Dunnucan tun', meaning 'Dunnuca's farmstead', after an otherwise unknown local landowner.[6]
Woollen cloth making was an important local industry in the Middle Ages. Two Duncton clothiers, R Harding and J Goble, left inventories in 1621 and 1622 respectively, with Goble having owned three pairs of finishing shears.[7]
The village has a pub that was built in the 18th century.[8] In 1867 John Wisden (1826 – 1884), the famous Kent, Middlesex, Sussex and England cricketer, who founded Wisden Cricketer's Almanac, bought the pub and leased it to the Sussex cricketer Jemmy Dean (1816 – 1881). The pub is called "The Cricketers"[9] in honour of Dean and another Sussex cricketer, Jem Broadbridge (1795–1843), both of whom lived in Duncton.
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Duncton) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 National Heritage List 1449791: Church of Holy Trinity, Duncton (Grade II listing)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1425313: Church of St Anthony and St George (Grade II listing)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1009329: Duncton Common round barrow cemetery (Scheduled ancient monument entry)
- ↑ Jerrome 2002, p. 14.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1005813: Romano-British settlement at Church Farm (Scheduled ancient monument entry)
- ↑ Ekwall 1960, Duncton
- ↑ Jerrome 2002, p. 92.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1026545: The Cricketers Inn (Grade II listing)
- ↑ The Cricketers
- Crawford, Elizabeth (2004). "Fonblanque, Florence Gertrude de (1864–1949)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. London: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/56229. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
- Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 1960. ISBN 0198691033
- Jerrome, Peter (2002). Petworth From the Beginnings to 1660. Petworth: Window Press.
