Place:


Bramber  Sussex

 

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

BRAMBER, a village, a parish, and a rape in Sussex. The village stands on the river Adur, and on the Roman road from Dover to Winchester, adjacent to the Horsham and Shoreham railway, ½ a mile SE of Steyning; and has a station on the railway. It consists now of only a few cottages; but it was long. ...


a place of importance, and a market-town. It was known to the Saxons as Brymmburgh, signifying "a fortified hill;" and it was a borough by prescription, and sent two members to parliament till disfranchised by the act of 1832. One of its representatives, for a time, was the famous Wilberforce.—The parish includes the village; and is in the district of Steyning; and its Post Town is Steyning, under Hurstperpoint. Acres, 854. Real property, £1,129. Pop., 119. Houses, 26. The manor belonged, before the Conquest, to the Saxon kings; was given, by the Conqueror, to William de Braose; passed to the Howards; and belongs now to the Duke of Norfolk. A Roman castellum seems to have been here; and remains of a Roman bridge have been observed. A Saxon royal fort succeeded the castellum; a Norman keep was added to the fort, and a great baronial castle arose out of these, a moated, irregular parallelogram, 560 feet by 280; and was held by the parliamentarian troops during the civil war, and went soon afterwards into decay. Little of it now remains except a fragment of a lofty barbican tower, and a mound representing the keep. The tower has a Norman window; and the mound commands an extensive and very striking view. The living is a rectory, united with the vicarage of Botolph, in the diocese of Chichester. Value, £160. Patron, Magdalene College, Oxford. The church stands close to the castle; shows some Norman features; and seems once to have been cruciform, with a central tower.-The rape extends quite across the county, from Surrey to the channel; is biosected, in the southern part, by the Adur; measures 21 miles by 9; and contains the hundreds of Brightford, Burbeach, East Easwirth, Fishergate, Patching, Singlecross, Steyning, Tarring., Tipnoak, West Grinstead, and Windham and Ewhurst. Acres, 117,443. Pop. in 1851, 35,998; in 1861, 35,497. Houses, 6,586.

Bramber through time

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

How to reference this page:

GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Bramber, in Horsham and Sussex | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.

URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/8285

Date accessed: 29th March 2024


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