2013

TQ0608 : Upper Oldfield Copse

taken 11 years ago, near to Burpham, West Sussex, England

Upper Oldfield Copse
Upper Oldfield Copse
Sometime in the last thirty years a small field has been hacked out of the large wood that now surrounds it. However, as the name suggests the wood itself was planted on the site of an old arable field.
Barpham, West Sussex

Not to be confused with neighbouring Burpham, Barpham, sometimes known as Bargeham and pronounced as Barffham, is a former medieval downland parish that existed from about the 11th century until it was dissolved and added to the parish of Angmering in the early 16th. The original parish was bounded by Burpham to the west, Rackham to the north west, Storrington to the north east, a detached portion of Clapham containing Lee Farm and another surrounding Michelgrove to the east, and Angmering to the south.

The original village seems to have been split into two parts, the church and manor were located on Barpham Hill whilst the rest of the village was in the valley below. Excavations on the church have revealed that it dates from the Saxon period and had been extended in four different phases up to the 14th century. By that time the village had fallen in decline, taxation documents of 1296 and 1327 reveal a drop in the number of those paying taxes suggesting depopulation was already taking place most likely due to the agricultural shift away from arable to the less labour intensive sheep farming resulting in the local peasants heading south to the coastal plain to look for work. The arrival of the Black Death in 1348 finished the village off. The church subsequently fell into decay and was probably long gone when it was finally decommissioned in 1523.

Upper Barpham Farm has most likely been built on the site of the former manor and dates from the 16th century whilst the church originally lay in a field to the north called Chapel Croft and nothing remains except some very uneven ground. Lower Barpham lies next to the site of the medieval village whose earthworks are still visible in the adjacent field to the west.


Bibliography
"Angmering" in Victoria County History: A History of Sussex Vol. V part 2 (2009)
Peter Brandon - The South Downs (Phillimore, 2002)
John Vigar - The Deserted Villages of Sussex (Dovecote, 1994)
Martin B Snow - Barpham (2010) LinkExternal link
RW Standing - "barpham" from Angmering Village History (2005) LinkExternal link
A Barr Hamilton - "Bargeham Church" (SAC 1964) reprinted in LinkExternal link


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Simon Carey and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Category: Field
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Upper Oldfield Copse [3] ·
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TQ0608, 32 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Simon Carey   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Thursday, 1 August, 2013   (more nearby)
Submitted
Saturday, 3 August, 2013
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TQ 0615 0824 [10m precision]
WGS84: 50:51.8360N 0:29.5813W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TQ 0607 0810
View Direction
North-northeast (about 22 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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