•  Amberley, Sussex

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In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Amberley like this:

AMBERLEY, a village in Worthing district, and a parish partly also in Thakeham district, Sussex. The village stands on the river Arun, and on the Arundel railway, under the South Downs, 4¼ miles N by E of Arundel; and has a station on the railway. It is a quaint, old-fashioned, picturesque place; and has a post office under Arundel. ...

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A palace at it, now used as a farmhouse, was a residence of the Bishops of Chichester, originating soon after the Conquest, castellated in 1379, forming a parallelogram, with square towers at the corners, and round towers at the gateway, and seized and dismantled by Waller in 1643. The parish church is variously Norman and early English; and has a fine Norman chancel arch, and a very rich early English south door. The Wild Brook marsh adjacent is flooded in winter, but yields profusion of turf and cranberries in summer; and the river Arun runs through it, and contains here choice salmon peel, which have long been noted as Amberley trout. The parish includes also the hamlet of Rackham. Acres, 2,900. Real property, £4,576. Pop., 650. Houses, 135. The property is much subdivided. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Houghton, in the diocese of Chichester. Value, £166.* Patron, the Bishop of Chichester. A school has an endowed income of £105, and other charities £12.

Amberley through time

Amberley is now part of Horsham district. Click here for graphs and data of how Horsham has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Amberley itself, go to Units and Statistics.

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