Parish records.

Parish records, notes.

Registers seldom start as early as 1538.in Sussex Parham shares this earliest date with Birdham, Easebourne, Rudgwick, Stedham and Yapton.What the records show are that Parham was not such a poor village at the time of these early registers.

Sir Robert Palmer obtained the estate from Henry V111 in 1540 at the dissolution of the monasteries (Westminster in this case)

Though Robert lost his head through supporting Lady Jane Gray, his son Thomas consolidated the holding and built the great Elizabethan mansion there in 1577.

The village was at this point a thriving community, there being several gentlemen living there, some may have been friends of the family others were, prosperous tradesmen.

Some of the trades listed in these early records of the village, a miller, saddler, a tailor a smith, baker.

Between 1558 and 1599 it was recorded that there were some 318 baptisms, this being an average of about five per year over the 65 years, giving a population of around 150.

There were Epidemics and illness, and it affected all families, in 1557 not only George Shelley the rector died, but within a space of around fifty days Richard Shory lost his three daughters, Katherin, Annis and Jone.In 1583 a Jane Chancroft died of the plague.

This next extract from the records is interesting as it comes part way in explaining the true location of the village.

In 1575, a poor woman coming into the streets gave birth to a son who was christened Rychard. Did someone give her shelter?.

The village street was then close to the church but was later cleared away in the second half of the 18^th century, as being to close to the big house.

Another child was born in Mr Palmers barn, in 1583 Thomas Hall, a beggar child was buried in the churchyard.

There are many other interesting facts from the records, one being that a Richard Tupper was aged 105 years of age when he died in 1597, and the very strange remark at “Thos Weeks burial” in 1594 that he was a “natural child”( bourn out of wedlock) but “died a Christian with great sorrow for his sin”. It was not his fault!

How long people lived in Parham is impossible to know with any accuracy. By looking at the baptisms and corresponding burials, it is clear that six out of ten children survived, some to die later before reaching the age of 21 years. Childbirth was a great risk at this time, and it does not appear from the records that families were large.

What is interesting is that in the present churchyard there are no early graves visible, so was the grave yard at some point made smaller, thus what you now see are only the later family members of the great house buried there, just as the village was removed , thus the graves also of its inhabitants were removed.!

Given that the population of the village was at some points up to around 150 inhabitants, then there would have been a substantial number of burials in the church yard.

What is coming clear from the research is that the lost village of Parham, is not really lost, but survives in and round the present church, the village street being close to the church.

With resistivity it should be possible to locate the street, if this work does indeed find the village street, and then it should be possible to locate the dwellings of the inhabitants.

At the time of the Domesday survey (1086) the manor contained 600 acres of arable and sixteen families-probably less than 100 souls. What remained of the village, scattered about the church, was pulled down in 1778-9.Now there are 279 acres of woodland,320 acres of park,360 of downland, 295 acres of arable.

The Abbot of Westminster’s premises are described in a document of 1356/7 as consisting of a thatched hall with a chamber and kitchen, and a grange. There is some evidence that the stone walls of this or a subsequent building are incorporated in the east side of the one built in 1577.

The Abbots usually leased their houses to tenants, retaining certain manorial dues, and it this to which there are references to the Palmers possessing between 1540 and 1577.