Excavation Weekend at Parham House
Sunday 24th– Monday 25th May

Ongoing project to investigate the history of the Parham Estate. This weekend’s work will attempt to locate the parsonage on the area of Glebe land identified by the County Archaeologist. Having revisited the geophysics results from 2008, we will be opening at least four trenches, three on a now hidden path/trackway that leads to the church, and a larger trench on the possible site of the parsonage.

Further trenches may be opened on the weekend.

The excavations will be open for public viewing on Sunday 24th and Monday 25th.

As well as the excavation, we will be undertakin tours/talks through the open days. These will include specific talks on

• desktop research/maps,
• finds (including finds from the digging of the Ha Ha in the 1970’s),
• Geophysics,
• The open trenches, and;
• Structures on the estate, including the Dovecote and the Ice House

Note to Worthing Archaeological Society members:

The society will be on site from Saturday 23rd May, although the site will NOT be open to the public until Sunday 24th May.

We will be looking for at least 6 people each day to run talks (to ensure we have sufficient cover over breaks/lunchtime), 8 excavators to cover the four trenches, and 2 people to assist with finds processing.

Even if the weather is bad, we will also need to ensure that we have sufficient people on site to continue with the talks. If you are a member of the Worthing Archaeological Society and would like to take part in this weekends work please e-mail worthing.arch@gmail.com confirming which days you are available for.

1947 photo

New photos.

New photo,s posted, link click here.

Revisiting the Geophysics

Based on the comments from John Mills, we have looked again at the geophysics done at Parham last year, and there appears to be a large area of "noise" on both sides of the footpath half way between the church and the car park.

This ties in with John's estimated position of the church land where the parsonage was located unitl the end of the 1700's when it was pulled own. The area of noise is also adjacent to a east-west feature that appears to be a path to the gate in the church yard, which may have been exposed in one of our trenches last year, when on the last day of the dig we deturfed an area on one of the mounds by the path, and located a packed iron-stone surface.

Therefore, this area could be one of the targets for the exacavtion over the late May bank holiday weekend.

New Year Research.

Our first visit to Parham will be the 7th of February, meet at 10am in car park.

We have some new information in relationship to the location of the village, more details will be posted very soon.

New project.

The Dovecote at Parham is an interesting building, dating to the early 18th century, but it is thought that there was a much early dovecote on the site. The research and recording program will it is hoped review its long history.
Photo shows inside the dovecote, which shows the nesting boxes, at present the roof is being held up , over the next year a grant will be applied for to fully restore the building.