FOUR thousand years before the birth of Christ, Neolithic or New Stone Age people were living in the Worthing area. Confirmation came with the discovery of polished Stone Age axe heads during 20th century excavations at the west end of The Strand, in Ardingly Drive, Thakeham Drive and on Highdown Hill. Around 3700BC some of the earliest flint mines in Britain were being worked at Church Hill (Findon), Black Patch, Harrow Hill and Cissbury, the latter believed to have been the second largest in this country.   By 2500BC in the Old Bronze Age, Highdown had become the fortified hub of local settlement and 1600 years later was still the centre of the local community.Many late Bronze Age household objects circa 900BC have been uncovered on and around the hill and all the evidence indicates that by then people were living in circular wattle-and-daub huts.    In 350BC an Iron Age hill fort was established on the summit of Cissbury, enclosing part of the former area of the mines.   Roman occupation dominated this part of the world in the early part of the new millennium and they built a villa and bathhouse on the western flank of Highdown Hill around 43AD.   There is evidence that a Roman road or coastal footpath went right through the centre of Goring and another Roman villa was built close to what is today the centre of Worthing. Further evidence of local Roman influence has included the discovery of a bust of a Roman boy’s head, a hoard of Roman coins unearthed in Mill Road and a milestone found in Grand Avenue, just south of junction with Mill Road and marked in the period of Constantine the Great (Circa AD 337).   The name of Worthing or anything resembling it was still centuries away but by 450AD, Ferring was already a Saxon settlement, owing its name to their chieftan named Fere. From that moment, the development of this part of the world gathered apace. 3500BC• Cissbury Neolithic hillfort established. 3000BC• New Stone Age people were living where Goring is today. Confirmed when polished Stone Age axe heads were found during 20th century excavations at the west end of The Strand, in Ardingly Drive, Thakeham Drive and on Highdown Hill. 2500BC• Highdown Hill became a fortfied Bronze Age settlement and remained the hub of local life for 1,600 years. 900BC• People were living at Highdown in circular wattle-and-daub huts. 400BC-250BC• Iron Age hill fort established on summit of Highdown. Probably occupied until circa 50BC. Later used by Saxons as a burial ground. 43AD • Beginning of Roman occupation of South East Britain. 70-80AD• Romans built villas at Bignor and Angmering. 100-200AD • Romano-British village between the junction of Merton Road and Navarino Road. 210AD• Roman villa and bath built on western slope of Highdown Hill 450AD• First Saxons arrive in Worthing area. 460AD• Probable final departure of Romans from Worthing area. Circa 500AD• Probably a Saxon settlement in area of Upper High Street. 680AD • Bishop Wilfred of Selsey established a mission among the pagan Saxons. • Charter issued under the authority of Psmund, King of the South Saxons – the name Sussex derives from Sudsexe or Suose(a)xe; South Saxons – shows that a grant of land was made for the building of a monastery.  Circa 700AD• The people of Garra (Gara-ingas) settled in the plain between Highdown and the sea (inga – or homestead – of Gara’s people). Hence Goring. The people of Fere lived at Ferring and those of Teorra at Tarring. Circa 765AD• Grant of land made by Osmund, King of the South Saxons, to his thane Walhere, for the building of a monastery in Ferring. 791AD• Charter recording existence of a church dedicated to St Andrew at Ferring. 934AD• King Athelstan gave his thane Aelfwald a small parcel of land • in a place which local peasants named Durrington. 936AD• Aelfwald bequeathed land at Braden watere to his brother. Later it became Broadwater. 960AD• Forfeited lands in what today is the Worthing area were restored to the thane Wulfric in a charter signed by King Edgar. 1020• Foundation of Saxon mint at Steyning, then accessible by water and lying at head of the Adur tidal estuary. This mint probably made coinage up to the end of the reign of William 11. 1066• The Manor of Broadwater was now owned by the Saxon Wigot of Wallingford. • About 2,500 acres in area. It is believed that the sea `Broad Water’ came in to where east Broadwater is today. 1070• Bramber Rape granted to William de Braose 1086• The Domesday Survey showed that 104 people lived in the Parish of Broadwater, which then included Offington and Worthing and had a church. What today is Goring was then Garinges and contained four manors. Only 22 people, mainly poor fishermen, lived in the few cottages that constituted Worthing. • In the Domesday Book, Ferring was valued at £7 and had 30 dwellings occupied by 15 villagers, 14 smallholders and one slave. 1090• Building of Bramber Castle 1100• Marlipins, High St, Shoreham built. Norman. Reconstructed C1300. Now museum. 1228• Offington now larger and more important than Roadwater. 1245• Unlicensed market being regularly held at Broadwater by Sir John-de-Gatesden. 1253• Sir Richard Le Wycke died in April this year. To him was attributed a `miracle’ said to have occurred at Ferring `when he caused bread sufficient for only 90 people to appease the appetites of 3,000.’ 1276• Galfridus de Aspall, took the art of `pluralising’ to a finer point than most. In addition to being Rector of Findon he had a benefice in London, two in the diocese of Lincoln, one in Rochester, one in Hereford, another in Coventry, one in Salisbury and no less than seven in Norwich! 1278• Foundation of a hospital at Cokeham by William de Bernehouse. 1282• Offington was the principal `township’ of Broadwater parish. 1296• Brook Barn, Goring, was the home of William atte Brouk. C.1300Worthing was separated from Broadwater by the tidal estuary of the Teville Stream to the north. This was probably the site of Worthing harbour recorded at this time (and in 1493). 1312• Sir Ralph-de-Camoys was granted a weekly Monday market at Broadwater. 1313• John de Camoys obtained first charter for a fayre at Broadwater on the eve, day and day after St Barnabas (June 11). 1321• Sea Place Manor, in Sea Place, Goring, was the home of a wool merchant. 1349• Durrington was noted for its splendid apple trees. Following the seige of Calais, many parishes sent locally produced cider to Shoreham for shipment to Calais; Durrington sent four times the amount provided by Goring or Worthing. 1357Offington House built around this time. 1390• Thomas de Camoys obtained a charter for a fayre at Broadwater 1419• Broadwater-Littllehampton road existed at this time. 1444• Market Charter granted to West Tarring Circa 1500• Brook Street (later to become South Farm Road, Worthing) existed. 1521• Sea Place Farm, Goring, containing 122 acres, was acquired by Robert Sherburn, Bishop of Chichester. 1541• Lord Dacre of Hurstmonceaux was executed at Tyburn for killing a keeper in a mad frolic at Laughton, 29 June. 1545• A small French military force `invaded’ Brighton on July 18. 1575• The earliest known map of Sussex, by Christopher Saxon, did not show Worthing at all but Broadwater and Terringe are in larger letters than Sountinge, Launcynge and Fyndon (later to become Sompting, Lancing and Findon). 1580• There was a school at Offington. 1583• At Patching, on Sept 16, a treasonable meeting was held between William Shelley, an ancestor of the poet, and Charles Paget. The two Roman Catholics `conferred on the possibility of invading England, deposing Queen Elizabeth and setting Mary Queen of Scots on the throne’. Nothing came of the plot but Shelley was imprisoned and condemned to death, though the sentence was commuted. 1584• John Selden, jurist and historian, was born at Lacies Farm, Salvington. 1591• Queen Elizabeth 1 killed deer with a crossbow at Cowdray, near Midhurst in August and also visited Buncton, near Ashington. 1595/1616• The Chichester to Brighton road existed by this time and was the basis for what today is the A27. 1621• Manorial map of West Ferring shows that the seashore was one and a half fields (about 250 metres) south of the present shoreline. 1623• John Taylor, known as The Water Poet, visited Worthing. 1641• Population of Parish of Broadwater (including Worthing and Offington) was 370. 1643• Old church at Durrington (Durrington Chapel) destroyed during the Civil War by Cromwell’s men on their way to bombard Arundel Castle. The church was not rebuilt until 1915. 1644• Large 24-gun Spanish ship, the St James (from Dunkirk) ran ashore at Heene after being chased by Dutch warships. On the same day Sir William Waller was receiving the surrender of Arundel Castle for the Parliamentarians. Hearing of the wreck, Waller hastened to Broadwater and took possession of the ship and cargo, valued at £50,000, hoping to claim them as prize and pay his troops out of the proceeds. But he was ordered by Parliament to store the cargo in Arundel Castle. After several months delay the ship and cargo were returned complete to its owners while the disappointed Waller received just £4,000 to divide among his men and the thanks of the owners for saving their property `from the plundering propensities of the local inhabitants.’ 1655-58• During the Civil War the Vicar of Ferring was replaced by `three Puritan preachers of the Gospel’ but a vicar was reinstated after the Restoration. 1676• Population of Goring was 140. Population of all Sussex now estimated at 40,000. 1682• Sir William Goring was lord of the manor 1690• A sea battle was fought off Beachy Head on June 30. 1700• Ferring had a population of 700. 1709• John Olliver, `The Miller of Highdown’ born at Ferring (or Lancing?) 1720• Fight between Customs officers and smugglers at Ferring. • At this time the only access to Worthing for wheeled traffic was by way of Brooksteed Lane (later to become South Farm Road) and for those on foot a footpath known as the Sqashetts or Quashetts provided the only link between Broadwater and the centre of Worthing. 1724• A mill was built 120 yds west of Grand Ave on south side of Mill Road. The last mill built on this site was demolished in 1903. 1733• John Wilkes visited Worthing to watch return of the mackerel fishing fleet 1747• Last marriage ceremony performed in the Old Heene Chapel on June 2. 1750• Publication of Dr Richard Russell’s book `A Dissertation concerning the use of seawater in diseases of the glands’, which encouraged sea bathing as medicinally beneficial. It led to the beginning of Worthing’s seaside popularity and soon men were bathing naked from a boat off Worthing beach, while women disrobed in a small hut and plunged into the sea wrapped in `voluminous and nondescript garments.’ 1759• First recorded visitor to Worthing, the son of Mr Peter Wych of Great Ormond Street, London, came to enjoy `sea air and bathing.’ He stayed in a farmhouse. Some felt that young Wych, as Worthing’s `first authentic visitor’, should have received some sort of local recognition, if only in a Wych Road.  • Warwick House, built by John Luther, became Worthing’s most important residence. 1760• John Nixon was born. He became an artist and painted some of the earliest still existing water-colours of the Worthing area, including the Old Sea House Inn in 1785 and the Cross Street Mill from the Teville Toll Gate. This is in the Worthing Museum and was reproduced in Ellery’s book Worthing, a Pictorial History. Nixon died in 1818. • Chanctonbury Ring of beech trees was planted by Charles Goring of Wiston. Charles Goring was born in 1743 and his son John, who became Rev John Goring, in 1823 when his father was 80! 1771• Foundation of Broadwater Cricket Club and they played on Broadwater Green. 1773• Politician John Wilkes visited Worthing from Littlehampton to watch the return of the mackeral boats but was disappointed because owing to rough weather the fishermen had been unable to put out. 1776• Medieval church at Heene was demolished. 1783• Opening of the Worthing College for Young Gentlemen. Early in the 19th century it moved to a larger building later known as Beachfield, in Brighton Road, Worthing, where the Where the Worthing indoor swimming pool stands today. 1787• Bathing machines on Worthing beach, a `room on wheels’ dragged to the beach by a horse. No lady would have considered bathing without its … Continue reading Worthing History Timeline