Editing Sompting

{{Short description|Village and parish in West Sussex, England}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Infobox UK place
| official_name            = Sompting
| country                  = England
| region                   = South East England
| static_image_name        = Sompting Church.jpg
| static_image_width       = 200
| static_image_caption     = Tower of [[Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Sompting|St Mary's Church]], 2004
| area_footnotes           =<ref name="WSCC2001">{{cite web|url=http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/communityandliving/census2001/pop_parish_summary.pdf |title=2001 Census: West Sussex – Population by Parish |publisher=West Sussex County Council |access-date=22 March 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110608075926/http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/communityandliving/census2001/pop_parish_summary.pdf |archive-date=8 June 2011 }}</ref>
| area_total_sq_mi         = 4.00
| population               = 8,561
| population_ref           = (Civil Parish 2011)<ref name=ons>[http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density] [[2011 United Kingdom census]] ''[[Office for National Statistics]]'' Retrieved 21 November 2013</ref>
| area_total_km2           = 10.35
| os_grid_reference        = TQ170047
| coordinates              = {{coord|50.8303|-0.3395|display=inline,title}}
| post_town                = LANCING
| postcode_area            = BN
| postcode_district        = BN15
| dial_code                = 01903
| constituency_westminster = [[East Worthing and Shoreham (UK Parliament constituency)|East Worthing and Shoreham]]
| london_distance          = {{convert|47|mi}} [[Boxing the compass|N]]
| shire_district           = [[Adur (district)|Adur]]
| shire_county             = [[West Sussex]]
| website                  = http://www.sompting.org.uk/
}}

'''Sompting''' is a village and [[civil parish]] in the coastal [[Adur (district)|Adur]] District of [[West Sussex]], England between [[Lancing, West Sussex|Lancing]] and [[Worthing]].  It is half grassland slopes and half developed plain at the foot of the [[South Downs National Park]]. Twentieth-century estates dovetail into those of slightly larger Lancing.

==Etymology==
The village's name comes from the [[Old English]] ''*sumpt'' + ''-ingas'', meaning "(settlement of) the dwellers at the marsh".<ref>{{cite book |last=Mills |first=A. D. |year=1997 |orig-year=1991 |title=A Dictionary of English Place Names |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=302 |isbn=0192831313 }}</ref> Its earliest recorded form is ''Suntinga'', in a document of 956, but [[Domesday Book]] (1086) renders the name as ''Sultinges'', its Norman-speaking clerks being unfamiliar with the consonant-cluster ''-mpt''.  As the [[Toponymy|toponymist]] [[Adrian Room]] noted, there is no obviously marshy land there nowadays, but it is low-lying and near the sea.<ref>{{cite book |last=Room |first=Adrian |year=1989 |orig-year=1988 |title=Dictionary of Place-Names in the British Isles |location=London |publisher=Bloomsbury |page=329 |isbn=0747505055 }}</ref>

==Landmarks and major buildings==
The [[Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Sompting|Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin]] is a [[Listed building|Grade I-listed]] [[Anglo-Saxon architecture|Anglo-Saxon]] and [[Norman architecture|Norman]] church, separated from the centre of the village since 1939 by the busy [[A27 road]]. Its tower is topped with a "[[Rhenish helm]]"—a four-sided gabled pyramidal cap which is unique in England.<ref name="IoE297334">{{NHLE|num=1353763|desc= The Parish Church of St Mary, Church Lane, Sompting, Adur, West Sussex|year=2007|accessdate=2009-07-12}}</ref> The church was originally built by the [[Saxons]] c.960 AD, then was adapted by the [[Normans]] when [[William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber]] granted it to the [[Knights Templar]] in the 12th century.<ref name="VCH18217">{{cite web|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/Sussex/vol6/pt1/pp53-64|title=A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 1 – Bramber Rape (Southern Part).  Sompting|editor-last=Hudson|editor-first=T. P. |year=1980|work=Victoria County History of Sussex|publisher=British History Online|pages=53–64|accessdate=2009-07-12}}</ref> The church later passed to the [[Knights Hospitaller]] in the 15th century.

The '''Sompting Abbotts''' building, designed by [[Philip Charles Hardwick]] and completed in 1856, is a [[Sompting Abbotts Preparatory School|preparatory school]].<ref>{{citation | title=Sompting Abbotts Preparatory School | url=http://www.somptingabbotts.com/index.php | access-date=26 October 2012 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120410080731/http://www.somptingabbotts.com/index.php | archive-date=10 April 2012 }} (School web site)</ref> However this has been the site of one of Sompting's manor houses since Norman times, when it was owned by the [[abbot of Fécamp]] in Normandy, and later owned by the abbot of [[Syon Abbey]] in [[Middlesex]]. In 1248 the abbot of Fécamp had a prison in the village. [[Queen Caroline Amelia Augusta|Queen Caroline]], consort of King [[George IV]] stayed at Sompting Abbotts in 1814 on her way across the English Channel to the Continent.

The old Sompting [[Rectory]] building, now used as a nursing home, dates from 1791. However, the Rectory has a long history, having previously been owned by the Knights Templar from 1154 and, like Sompting Church, passed to the Knights Hospitaller in the 15th century. During the [[First World War]] a [[Prisoner of war camp|prisoner-of-war camp]] was built on the Rectory Farm estate, on the west side of Busticle Lane.

Sompting's Parish Hall was originally built as a reading room in 1889 by HP Crofts of Sompting Abbotts manor: his Crofts/Tristram family have owned farmland and built property in the parish, known as the Sompting Estate, since 1748.  As well as the church mentioned alternative Christian worship at the [[Methodist]] mission chapel, registered in 1887 formerly took place. Sompting Community Centre was originally built in 1872 as a junior and infants school. It was known as a place of innovative education due to the work of the headmistress [[Harriet Finlay-Johnson]] who used drama as the focus of the village children's education.<ref name=spect1911>[http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/23rd-september-1911/20/the-dramatic-method-of-teaching The Dramatic Method of Teaching], |The Spectator, 1911, Retrieved 30 January 2016</ref>

A house which belonged to [[Edward John Trelawny|Edward Trelawny]], [[adventurer]], author and friend of [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]], is also in the village.

The parish of Sompting includes the [[Hamlet (place)|hamlet]] of Beggars Bush on the Downs as well as the former hamlets of [[Upper Cokeham]] and Lower Cokeham, which are now part of the Sompting-Lancing [[conurbation]]. Cokeham means Cocca's homestead (ham). Sompting also historically extended west to the ancient droveway today known as Charmandean Lane, but in 1933 this land was given to the neighbouring [[borough]] of Worthing. Sompting's eastern border with Lancing has historically been defined by the Boundstone Lane, so called because of the [[boundary stone]] or boundstone that lay on the boundary. The stone is now kept in Boundstone Nursery.

On the northern edge a settlement existed at Park Brow on the Downs' crest in the [[Bronze Age]] through the [[Iron Age]] until [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] times. It lasted until its buildings were burned down c.270 AD, possibly by [[Saxons|Saxon]] or [[Franks|Frankish]] pirates. It is supposed that the inhabitants moved from here to the relative safety of the [[hillfort]] at [[Cissbury Ring]].

==Geography==
The highest point in the civil parish is Steep Down at {{Convert|149|m}} above [[Ordnance Datum]] (sea level).

In the western part of the parish of Sompting lies the Sompting Gap, a protected area that lies between Sompting and Worthing. This area was formerly an inlet of the sea and it is here that the Broadwater Brook (also known as Sompting Brook) flows into Brooklands Park and on into the sea. Some of the reedbeds in the Sompting Gap at Lower Cokeham have been designated a [[Site of Nature Conservation Importance]].<ref name="reeds">{{cite web|url=http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/ccm/content/environment/heritage-wildlife-and-landscape/west-sussex-character-project/land-management-guidelines-and-related-publications/sheet-sc11-littlehampton-and-worthing-fringes---sc13-worthing-and-adur-fringes---land-management-guidelines.en?page=4|archive-url=https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100602034659mp_/http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/ccm/content/environment/heritage%2Dwildlife%2Dand%2Dlandscape/west%2Dsussex%2Dcharacter%2Dproject/land%2Dmanagement%2Dguidelines%2Dand%2Drelated%2Dpublications/sheet%2Dsc11%2Dlittlehampton%2Dand%2Dworthing%2Dfringes%2D%2D%2Dsc13%2Dworthing%2Dand%2Dadur%2Dfringes%2D%2D%2Dland%2Dmanagement%2Dguidelines.en|archive-date=2 June 2010|url-status=dead|title=Biodiversity|date=17 February 2009|work=Sheet SC11: Littlehampton and Worthing Fringes / SC13 Worthing and Adur Fringes|publisher=West Sussex County Council|accessdate=17 April 2009}}</ref>

Sompting is about {{convert|2|miles|0}} north-east of the centre of Worthing. The nearest railway station is [[Lancing railway station|Lancing]].

==In literature==
The writer [[Alfred Longley]] lived in Sompting, creator of the character 'Jimmy Smuggles' and his Sompting Treacle Mines,<ref>[http://treacleminer.com/Mines/Sompting.html Notes on Alfred Longley]</ref> where "incredibly lazy people worked".

==Annual events==
Sompting is also known for its [[mummers play]], performed by the Sompting Village [[Morris dance|Morris]] dancers.

In 2005, a small group got together and started the [[Sompting Festival]], which was held for the first time over the weekend 2–4 June 2006, as one of the launch events for the [[Adur festival]]. Since then this has developed into the annual Sompting Beer & Music Festival held on Sompting Recreation Ground, West Street, Sompting. It incorporates the Sompting Village Hall Open Weekend, and the Somptin' Old exhibition – a fascinating history of Sompting in pictures set up by former Sompting Parish Councillor Mike Prince, which attracts interest from all over the world.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikivoyage}}
{{Commons category-inline|Sompting}}
* [http://www.sompting.org.uk/ Sompting Parish Council]
* [http://www.somptingestate.com/ Sompting Estate]
* [http://www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/ Adur & Worthing Council]

{{Adur}}

{{authority control}}

[[Category:Civil parishes in West Sussex]]
[[Category:Villages in West Sussex]]
[[Category:Adur District]]
[[Category:Populated coastal places in West Sussex]]