Walberton


Walberton is a village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England, north-west of Littlehampton, and south of the A27 road. The land rises from 10 to 35 metres above sea level, a quarter of the height of the nearest foothill, Nore Hill, of the South Downs, which is outside the parish to the north. The civil parish includes the smaller village of Binsted to the east and the larger neighbourhood of Fontwell, less than a kilometre to the north-west. Walberton has a medieval church next to its clustered centre. Binsted's medieval church retains its original setting of village houses dispersed over farm fields.

Amenities

Walberton's The Holly Tree is recorded as a public house from 1845 and received its present name in 1867. Towards the end of the village, there is a small duck pond. There are a few shops close to the modern village hall.
Binsted has a pub, the Black Horse and a Norman church built in AD 1140 by the monks of Tortington Priory to the immediate east. Roman and medieval pottery and tile kilns have been excavated there. Binsted also has a traditional summer festival, Strawberry Fair, where locally grown produce is sold for charity. Part of Binsted is within the South Downs National Park. The whole of Binsted's countryside was originally assessed by the Countryside Agency as meeting the criteria for inclusion.

Churches

in Walberton was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, which it considerably predates owing to its Saxon font and Roman-era west wall.
In 1846, a small group of parishioners left St Mary's to form a Baptist church. Its present flint building dates from 1886 and, since 1973, the church has been affiliated to the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches.
Both St Mary's and Walberton Baptist Church have services every Sunday and a range of mid-week activities.

Governance

The electoral ward named Walberton stretches north-east to Madehurst, with a total population taken at the 2011 census of 2,889.

Notable people