the difficult question of changes of parish boundaries, and in what follows the parishes referred to are those laid down on the 1895 edition of the one-inch map. Most of the parishes are now entire, but a few have detached portions lying considerable distances apart. The boundaries of the parishes have remained substantially unchanged, in spite of minor alterations, from a very early period, and normally each parish contains a single village grouped round the parish church. The parishes appear to have grown naturally until they filled up the county; it cannot be said that the county has been divided into parishes, as the relation of the boundaries to natural features shows. The parishes are grouped into thirteen larger divisions-hundreds-and these in turn form parts of larger divisions peculiar to Sussex, and called rapes. The rapes run from south to north, and are approximately equal in area. Those represented on the sheet are the Rapes of Chichester, Arundel, and Bramber. The Rape of Chichester includes seven hundreds, named respectively Aldwick, Bosham, Box and Stockbridge, Dumpford, Easebourne, Manhood, and Westbourne and Singleton. The Rape of Arundel includes five hundreds, viz. Avisford, Bury, Poling, Rotherbridge, and West Easwrith, and all of these are represented on the sheets; but of the twelve hundreds which compose the Rape of Bramber, there are parts of only three, Brightford, East Easwrith, and Patching. The divisions are not marked upon the Ordnance Survey maps. The more important, but also unmarked, grouping of parishes into registration districts and subdistricts is used for statistical purposes.

On the coastal plain the parishes have remarkably irregular boundaries as marked on the map. For a considerable part they are bounded by rivers or streams, hence the borders are winding. In the case of South Bersted and Felpham the parish boundary leaves the river at two points, describes a curve, and returns to the stream. These probably perpetuate former river windings which have been deserted by the water since the boundaries were fixed. East of the Arun the eastern and western parish boundaries are, as a rule, nearly straight lines drawn at right angles to the coast. In the flat gorge of the Arun where it cuts through the Downs, the curious alternate allocation of the valley flats to parishes on the east and west is the result of using as a boundary a river which in its windings runs close against the steep banks of the valley alternately on the right and left (Fig. 14). This may also be one of the reasons that prevented a north and south road from running through the Arun valley; it would have had to pass through seven parishes in 5 miles, and there are signs in many of the parishes these sheets that the roads were originally constructed for the purposes of the parish alone, and seem reluctant to cross from one to another. In the south of the Chalk area the parish boundaries frequently ran down the crest-lines of ridges, leaving a whole valley valleys to form the parish. Occasionally, however, the boundary is a

or group

on

of

Mile

valley-line, as in the case of that between Patching and Clapham, two villages which stand nearly at the same level, facing each other on opposite sides of a narrow valley, up the centre of which, below the level of the villages, runs one of the minor roads over the Downs.

The most interesting relation of parishes to geological structure is that pointed out by Mr. Topley for the Wealden area as a whole, but nowhere better shown than on the northern slope of the Downs in Sheet 317. The central village of each parish from Elsted to Bury stands on the terrace of Upper Greensand at the base of the Chalk escarpment, a site convenient for obtaining water by means of wells. As the villages were planted closely, the parishes are all narrow. They run straight up the escarpment to the crest-line of the Downs, giving to each a portion of pasture ground; but they also run each as a narrow strip across the belt of Gault and the Lower Greensands down to the valley-line of the river, giving to each parish a share of the arable and grazing lands. In the Bignor embayment, the parishes radiate like the ribs of a fan, gradually shifting their length from a north-and-south to an east-and-west direction, so as to cross the strike of the strata at right angles (see Fig. 13). North of the Rother the sheet only shows portions of parishes alternately broad and narrow, but all having their greatest length from north to south. Indeed, in the whole district under review, the predominance of north-and-south lines as parish boundaries, and the relatively great length from north to south as compared with the breadth from east to west, are noticeable characteristics.

The list of parishes completely included in the sheets is given in Table IX., with the number of inhabited houses and population at the census of 1891, and the population at the census of 1881. The parishes which are only partially included are given in Table X.

The whole district is in the ancient county of Sussex, though formerly a detached area in the north-west-the parish of South Ambersham-was part of Hampshire. The whole now forms part of the administrative county of West Sussex and of the diocese of Chichester, while it corresponds closely in area and population with the parliamentary division of Chichester or South-west Sussex.

Of the complete parishes, the least populous is Middleton with 7 inhabited houses and 40 inhabitants; it is situated on the coast between Felpham and Climping, and has lost much of its original area by coast erosion. The most populous was South Bersted, with 995 inhabited houses and 4953 inhabitants; it included the town of Bognor, which now forms a parish by itself.

TABLE X.-PARISHES PARTS OF WHICH ARE INCLUDED IN SHEETS 317 AND 332, WITH

There are also very small parts of the following parishes, but with no population: Finden, North Marden, Harting, Rogate, and Chithurst.

Place-Names.-The names on the sheets under notice are typically and almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon. The two commonest terminations are -ton, which occurs in forty-seven cases, and -ham, which occurs in fifty. Both these suffixes signify an enclosure or dwelling-place, and other terminations of nearly identical meaning, such as-worth and -borough or -bury, are not uncommon. The termination which comes third in the list is -ing, of which there are twenty-four examples. This is the AngloSaxon equivalent to the Keltic Mac or O', and indicates the settlement of a family or clan, equivalent nearly to the possessive case so common in the farm-names of the district at the present day. Personal names for places prevail; terminations descriptive of natural features are much less common. There are fourteen -dens or -deans, eleven -hursts, and a few holts; referring to the woods, ten -wicks or -wykes; eight -fords and five -bournes, referring to the waters. The names indicate the early and complete settlement of the district by the Saxons, the old Roman names, which must have been numerous at one time, and the earlier Keltic names having almost entirely disappeared.

Distribution of Population. The sheets under consideration represent an area of 270 square miles of land, and the population at the census of 1891 is estimated as follows: