236 MAP OF THE COAST OF WEST SUSSEX. 
+ 
CHICHESTER 
ON 
IVER ARUN 
@ MOUTH OF CHICHESTER HARBOUR 
R 
CITTLEHAMpy 
The dark parts are portions of land of very recent marine and freshwater alluvial formation. 
In the line of coast from west to east, the following places are of interest to geological inquirers. 
The references are to the pages of the text in which descriptions of the different localities are to be found, and the 
letters to particular fossil beds. 
Bracklesham Bay, pp. 10, 21, 25-27. 
This bay has been formed by the encroachments of the seaon the land. Between 1292 and 1341 arable lands in the 
parish of West Wittering, of which the tithe was valued at 3/. 6s. 8d., were drowned by the sea or destroyed by sea- 
sand. [See Sussex Archzeological Collections, i. 60.] In neighbouring parishes, the tithe of arable land was rated at 
dd. an acre, we may therefore assume that the loss during the above limited period was 200 acres ;—a small portion, 
however, of the probable loss during the last ten or twelve centuries. 
A. Barn beds, p. 27; B. Cerithium beds, p. 26; C. Cypreea, p. 26; D. Belosepia and Beloptera, p. 26; E. Clibs, 
Mixen rocks and pole, p. 25; F. Park beds, p. 24; Houngate rocks, p. 26. 
Thorney Marshes are evidently of marine origin, and with Pagham Harbour must have been a shallow estuary separating 
Selsey from the mainland, and making it, what its name expresses, an island. The presence of sea shells, of existing 
species, proves this. But if geological evidence were wanting, we have full historical proof in the evidence of the Venerable 
Bede, who tells us, that “ King Ethelwalch gave the most reverend prelate, Wilfrid, land of eighty-seven families, to main- 
** tain his company who were in banishment, which place is called Selsey, that is, the island of the Sea-Calf. That place 
“is encompassed by the sea on all sides, except the west, where is an entrance about the cast of a sling in width; 
“which sort of place is by the Latins called a peninsula, by the Greeks, a chersonesus.’’ [Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, 
b. iv. ce. 13.] Thus we are led to believe that when Selsey first became known to the English nation, it was an island ; 
that in Bede’s time the process of silting up the estuary must have commenced. The completion of this process would 
seem to have been before the Conquest, judging from the notices of the district in Doomsday. [See Horstield’s History 
of Sussex, 1. 35. It should be observed that this work is cited in the text as Baxter’s History of Sussex. Mr. Baxter 
was the publisher only.] As the action of the tides on this coast seems uniformly to carry sand and shingle from west 
to east, we may infer that the gradual wasting, which has taken place on the shore of Bracklesham Bay, served to 
supply a large portion of the material of which these marshes are formed; the remainder would be brought by the 
little rivulets which empty themselves into them. 
Selsey, pp. 7-10; F. Park bed, p. 24; Pagham Harbour, pp. 8, 27-28. 
By a typographical error in the text, the loss of land, at the time this creek is supposed to have had its origin, is 
made to be 1700 instead of 2700 acres. [See Sussex Archzeological Collections, i. 59.] As the extent of the harbour 
appears never to have exceeded 1000 acres, it is probable that the greater portion of this loss was of land lying outside 
its present mouth. 
Barn rocks and Bognor rocks, pp. 30-31; Felpham—submerged forest-trees, p. 31; Middleton Ledge, p. 33; 
Little Hampton and Valley of the Arun, p. 34 ; Worthing, p. 37. 
