Selsey
Selsey is a seaside town and civil parish, about south of Chichester, West Sussex, England.
Selsey lies at the southernmost point of the Manhood Peninsula, almost cut off from mainland Sussex by the sea. It is in the Chichester district and is bounded to the west by Bracklesham Bay, to the north by Broad Rife, to the east by Pagham Harbour and terminates in the south at Selsey Bill. There are significant rock formations beneath the sea off both of its coasts, named the Owers rocks and Mixon rocks. Coastal erosion has been an ever-present problem for Selsey. In 2011 the parish had a population of 10,737.
The B2145 is the only road in and out of the town crossing a bridge over the water inlet at Pagham Harbour at a point known as "the ferry". At one time Selsey was inaccessible at flood tide, and a boat was stationed at the ferry to take horses and passengers to and from Sidlesham.
Place name
There are suggestions that the name "Selsey" originally meant "Holy Island" because of its connection with Saint Wilfrid. The Venerable Bede in his writings described the name "Selsey" as "the Isle of Sea Calves" hence "Seal Island".Edward Heron-Allen identified at least twenty different spellings of the place that we now know today as "Selsey".
A selection of versions as identified by Heron-Allen are:
- Seoles – Old English
- Seleisi – Domesday Book 1086
- Celesye – Assize Roll 1279
History
Palaeolithic
The earliest evidence of human habitation in the Selsey area goes back to the Stone Age. Various stone implements have been found which date to the Palaeolithic period. People have been living in the area ever since.Classical Antiquity
Towards the end of the first century B.C. the Atrebates possessed three large urban centres that served as the tribal mints and possibly the king's court. These were located near modern Silchester, Winchester and the Chichester-Selsey area. So far, in the Chichester-Selsey area, there is no archaeological evidence to confirm this, although various coins from the Atrebates rulers named Commius, Tincommius, Verica, Eppillus, and Cunobelin were found on Selsey beach in 1877, and it is thought that these coins would have been minted locally. The 17th century antiquarian William Camden, and others have posited that the Atrebates settlement was located at the Mixon rocks, now south of Selsey Bill. More recent hypotheses have suggested that the Chichester-Selsey oppidum was distributed across the region.There is evidence of possible Roman activity in Selsey. The archaeologist Barry Cunliffe wrote that in the middle of the first century, the area provided a good base for the transfer of sea-borne goods and the storing and distributing of supplies to support their conquest of south west Britain. When this objective had been achieved the Romans moved their base to Chichester. The Mixon would have been part of the mainland, at the time of the Roman occupation and it is evident that they used its stone for building material.
Early Middle Ages
Some Anglo-Saxon gold fragments were found on the beach between Selsey and Bognor, these were dated as late 6th/ 8th century and what made them particularly interesting is that they had a runic inscription on them. The fragments were handed over to the British Museum.The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records the legendary foundation of Sussex by Ælle and his sons when they landed near Selsey.
Stephen of Ripon and the Venerable Bede say that Wilfrid arrived in Selsey and converted the Kingdom of the South Saxons to Christianity. Selsey Abbey stood at Selsey, and was the cathedra for the Sussex Diocese until the Council of London ordered the removal of the See to Chichester in 1075, during the reign of William the Conqueror. In all there had been twenty-two Bishops of Selsey over a period of 370 years.
High and Late Middle Ages
In the Domesday Book Selesie is mentioned under the hundred of Somerley:Early modern
The manor of Selsey remained in the Bishop of Chichester's hands until 1561, when it was taken over by the crown.In July 1588 the Spanish Armada arrived off the Isle of Wight with the intention of attacking Portsmouth. The wind changed direction to the south-west. Men from the Manhood Peninsula serving under Francis Drake conceived a plan to lure the Spanish fleet onto the Owers rocks. However the Spanish Admiral, recognising the danger, decided to head for Calais.
File:Blue plaque, Gibbet Field Selsey.jpg|thumb|left|Blue plaque commemorating the hanging of two smugglers in Gibbet Field Selsey in 1749
In 1647, a fatality was recorded following a cricket match at Selsey when a fielder called Henry Brand was hit on the head by the batsman Thomas Latter, who was trying to hit the ball a second time. The incident repeated one at Horsted Keynes in 1624.
Over the centuries Selsey has derived an income from the sea, not all of it strictly legal. In the eighteenth century Selsey Bill was very much more isolated than it is today, and the sand spit extended farther out to sea. There was only the causeway connected to the mainland and that was covered at high tide. The approach of the local riding officer would have been conspicuous in the extreme. One of the enterprises was smuggling with many local people being involved in the lucrative trade. The Rectors of Selsey reputedly claimed a tithe on all kegs landed there, and stories also tell of a passageway leading from the Old Rectory to the remains of a Mound, thought to have been built by the Normans. The course of the tunnel was marked by a depression on the surface of the ground as late as 1911.
The legal export of wool trade had been established for centuries with Chichester being granted staple port status. However, the Selsey area was notorious for the illegal export of wool, in a custom known as owling. During the 1720s one Selsey man ran a regular ferry service to France, travelling back and forth every five weeks, and other prominent Selsey figures made considerable fortunes just from part-time work in the free-trade.
In 1749 fourteen smugglers, members of the notorious Hawkhurst Gang, were accused of the murder of William Galley, a custom-house officer, and Daniel Chater, a shoemaker. A contemporary book written under the pseudonym "A. Gentleman" provides a narrative on the offence, capture, trial and execution of the smugglers involved. Seven were tried and condemned to death at Chichester assizes; one died in gaol before sentence could be carried out and the other six were hanged at the Broyle north of Chichester. Subsequently, the bodies of two of the smugglers, John Cobby and John Hammond, were hung in gibbets at Selsey Bill so that they could be seen at great distance from east and west.
Modern
At the beginning of the 19th century, Selsey opened its first school. In 1818 premises were granted to the Rector and churchwardens of Selsey which were "on trust to permit the premises to be used for a schoolhouse or free school, for the gratuitous education of such poor children belonging to the Parish of Selsey as the said trustees or successors may think proper."The school was eventually taken over by the local authority in 1937.Selsey was connected to Chichester from 1897 to 1935 by a rail link initially called the Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway and later the West Sussex Railway. The light railway rolling stock was all second hand and not very reliable and the journey times lengthy. Various nicknames such as the "Selsey Snail" were attributed to the tram and comic postcards were issued reflecting its poor service.
In the late 1930s the Broadreeds Holiday camp, that was later to be run by Pontins, was used as a transit camp for girls coming on the Kindertransport. The woman appointed as second in command, Sophie Friedlaender describes in her memoir how she first arrived at the camp:
By the time of World War II the Kindertransport had stopped; Broadreeds camp then continued to accept evacuees mainly from London. This was until August 1940 when during a bombing raid, three evacuees and one soldier were killed. All the evacuees were re-evacuated shortly after. Also, during World War II, large areas of the village were closed to the public, particularly as off shore at East Beach, there was secret work on the Mulberry harbours. These were eventually towed to Normandy for D-Day.
A private aerodrome, situated at Church Norton, was requisitioned by the RAF in 1942, then in 1943 after some construction work, became an advanced landing ground known as RAF Selsey. The airfield from Normandy, was built to support D-Day. It was decommissioned as an ALG shortly after D-Day, it then became a satellite of RAF Tangmere for a while and finally a reserve airfield for the remainder of the war.
Erosion by the sea and flooding has been a constant problem for Selsey. In the 1950s there was major work, to improve the sea walls and groynes, to protect against the winter storms. By the end of the 1980s, with the constant battering from the sea, a lot of the defences needed remedial work. In 2011 the Environment Agency started to build new sea defences between Selsey and Bracklesham, the scheme was described as managed realignment in that it involved the building of new defences inland from the coast and allowing a new "intertidal area" to form seaward of the new defences. "Intertidal" means the land that is exposed at low tide and covered by the sea at high tide. Then in 2013 the scheme was completed. The Environment Agency says that "it will improve the standard of flood protection for over 300 homes, the water treatment works and the main road into Selsey. It will also create important new intertidal wildlife habitat and open up new footpaths, cycleways and bridleways."