Southease is one of the springline settlements that line the western side of the lower Ouse valley between Lewes and the sea. The parish is bounded by Rodmell to the north, the old course of the River Ouse to the east, Piddinghoe to the south and Telscombe to the south west. The village was given to Hyde Abbey in Winchester in 956 and remained church owned until the dissolution in 1538 after which it passed through the hands of a number of absentee owners.
The village itself is small with a population that is now in double figures only, a large drop from its heyday in the medieval period when the population were part of the old herring fishing industry. When river levels dropped the parish became dependent on agriculture and when that too became less reliant on manual labouring the village's population dropped further, from about 150 in the early part of the 19th century to 35 in 1981.
The parish is bisected by the old Lewes to Newhaven road now known locally as the C7 but at one point was the A275. The only other highways are the long winding lane to Telscombe and another across the former marshes to Southease station, whilst the only footpaths in the parish are those that line either side of the River Ouse. The lack of public highways seem to suggest an estate village that enclosed its fields quite late, possibly sometime in the 19th century as the tithe map from the 1840s gives no names for fields.
Until the end of the 18th century the River Ouse formed the eastern parish boundary, however a wide eastern loop was straightened as part of the canalisation of the river and a new crossing built to replace Stocks Ferry which originally lay a mile or so to the south of the new bridge. The original bridge was replaced by the current swing bridge in 1880. The parish acquired a station in 1906 when a halt was built on Lewes to Seaford branch line. A consequence of this was the extension of the lane to Southease Bridge beyond to the new station as well as Itford Farm.
The parish's first church was built around 950 and was replaced by the current one in the 12th century which still retains its round tower, one of three in Sussex, all in close proximity to each other in the lower Ouse valley.
See other images of Southease