A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



In the Domesday Survey of many counties we find a large number 

 of cases in which manors possessed outlying estates called berewicks, 

 and in some counties also soc-land ; these members were usually at no 

 great distance from the manor to which they belonged. But in Sussex, 

 although the term berewick only occurs on three occasions/ and soc- 

 land not at all, we have between sixty ani seventy cases in which a 

 manor had in King Edward's time one or more outlying estates inti- 

 mately connected with it, though often as much as twenty or thirty 

 miles distant from it. 



The case of Aldrington to the west of Brighton throws light in 

 various ways on the manorial problem. Before the Conquest we find 

 it divided into two portions, of which one contained seven plough- 

 lands and was assessed at j\ hides, while the other, though only con- 

 taining four ploughlands,^ was assessed at 9 hides. The former was an 

 outlyer of the Crown manor of Beeding, and the latter of Wigod (of 

 Wallingford)'s manor of Broadwater, both of which were in Bramber 

 rape and therefore fell, at the Conquest, to the share of William de 

 Braose. As Aldrington lay in Lewes rape, its two portions were severed 

 from the manors to which they had belonged, and were both given by 

 William de Warenne to Godfrey, one of his knights." Domesday, 

 however, surveys them separately, but adds the note : ' In his duabus 

 terris nisi una aula,' implying that their joint tenure by Godfrey was 

 making of them one manor. The details of the survey show that in 

 1086 only the (former) Broadwater portion had a demesne, while the 

 Beeding portion, which had been held by villeins (' villani tenuerunt'), 

 was still worked by villeins and bordars alone, having no demesne land.* 

 At Brighton itself, on the same page, we have an interesting case for 

 comparison in Widard's manor (5 ploughlands), which was 'in uno 

 manerio ' at the time of the survey, but which had been held by three 

 ' aloarii,' of whom ' unus habuit aulam et villani tenuerunt partes 

 aliorum duorum,' which implies that these two latter had no demesne. 



Another interesting illustration is afforded by the case of Edburton, 

 between Steyning and Poynings, on the border of the two rapes. Of 

 its 1,250 acres about 700 are in its eastern half, the hamlet of Fulking, 

 which is in the rape of Lewes, while the western half, in the rape of 

 Bramber, contains Edburton village itself, the manor of Truleigh in the 

 west of the parish, and the hamlet of Perching in the centre. Domes- 

 day, surveying the parish under Truleigh, Perching, and Fulking, assigns 

 the first only to William of Braose and his rape of Bramber, and shows 

 us Perching as divided, before the Conquest, into four portions. Two 

 of these had been held by separate tenants of Azor, but were surveyed 

 in one entry as a single manor, held of William de Warenne by William 

 de Wateville,^ A third was still held by its English owner, Osward, 



' It is still found in the county as a place-name. 



2 It is noteworthy that in 1835 ' the whole of the parish ' was described as ' divided into two farms, 

 of very unequal size.' ^ Probably Godfrey de Pierpoint. 



* Similarly at Westmeston, an estate of Countess Gueda, we read ' sub ea tenebant villani ; non 

 fuit ibi halla.' ^ ' Tunc fuerunt duae hallae ; mode in uno manerio.' 



