Hundred of Westgate

Hundred of Westgate
Name	Westgate Hundred
Settlement type	Hundred
Country	England
County	Sussex
Region	South East England
Established	medieval
Area km2	approx 80

Hundred of Westgate.

The Hundred of Westgate was a historic administrative division in medieval and early modern England associated with Sussex and adjacent shires. It functioned as a unit for court, taxation, and militia obligations from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Tudor reforms, interacting with institutions such as the Hundred court, shire administration, and later the Court of Quarter Sessions. Its territorial identity influenced manorial, ecclesiastical, and parliamentary arrangements that connected places like Chichester, Horsham, Arundel, and Littlehampton to broader networks including Domesday Book compilation practices and feudalism-era tenurial records.

History

The origins trace to Anglo-Saxon royal land organization associated with kings like Alfred the Great and legal developments culminating in compilations such as the Domesday Book (1086). Norman consolidation under William the Conqueror reconfigured manorial holdings and overlordship patterns recorded alongside entries for de Warenne family and de Braose family estates. In the High Middle Ages the Hundred court adjudicated disputes alongside ecclesiastical jurisdictions like the Diocese of Chichester and monastic institutions such as Battle Abbey and Lewes Priory. During the Late Middle Ages and the Tudor era, influence shifted toward statutory instruments including the Statute of Marlborough and administrative reforms by monarchs like Henry VIII, while enforcement relied on local gentry tied to families documented in parliamentary returns to Westminster. The decline of Hundred institutions accelerated with the rise of Poor Law structures, the establishment of petty session venues, and 19th-century legislation culminating in the Local Government Act 1888 and Local Government Act 1894.

Geography and Boundaries

Situated within western Sussex near coastal corridors, the Hundred encompassed a mix of Downs, river valleys, and coastal plain linked to waterways such as the River Arun and the River Adur. Its boundaries abutted neighboring Hundreds and liberties including areas administered from Chichester and Arundel Castle demesnes, and it contained parishes that appeared in gazetteers alongside Petworth and Steyning. Topographical features referenced by surveyors included the South Downs escarpment and coastal features visible from approaches to Littlehampton and Shoreham-by-Sea, while roads connected to medieval routes like the Stane Street (Roman road) and later turnpikes established by Acts of Parliament in the 18th century.

Administration and Governance

Administration rested historically on the Hundred court system, where local jurors and hundredmen answered to lords and to the crown through sheriffs appointed at county level—officers associated with Sheriff of Sussex duties recorded in the Pipe Rolls. Manorial lords exercised seigniorial rights; notable landholders included families with entries in Patent Rolls and Close Rolls. Ecclesiastical oversight by parish rectors and institutions such as Chichester Cathedral intersected with secular governance when churchwardens and vestries administered poor relief before the era of the Board of Guardians. From the 17th century the role of Hundred courts waned as justices of the peace met at sessions influenced by persons returning as Members of Parliament to House of Commons from Sussex boroughs such as Arundel (UK Parliament constituency).

Economy and Land Use

The Hundred's economy combined arable farming on downland, pastoral grazing on commons, and coastal fisheries and salt production tied to ports like Littlehampton and market towns including Horsham. Wool and sheep husbandry linked local producers to merchant networks reaching London and Winchester markets; agricultural practices adapted through enclosure acts and innovations discussed in agricultural treatises circulating among gentry networks like those of The Royal Society. Timber from coppices supplied building in towns undergoing growth during industrializing phases connected to infrastructural projects such as the London–Brighton railway. Milling, malt production, and artisan trades concentrated in parish centers, while manorial demesne accounts documented rents and customary services in estate surveys.

Demographics

Population levels fluctuated with events recorded in parish registers, hearth tax returns, and muster rolls for militias and levies under the Tudors and Stuarts. Epidemics such as episodes associated with Black Death impacts and later seventeenth-century plagues reduced cohorts documented in churchwardens' records. By the 18th and 19th centuries, demographic recovery and migration to industrial centers like Brighton and Portsmouth altered age and occupational structures; census enumerations beginning in 1801 provided statisticians and historians with data tracing shifts from agrarian households to nascent craft and service occupations.

Notable Places and Heritage

Within its area lay parish churches dedicated to saints recorded in episcopal visitations to Chichester Cathedral, medieval manor houses connected to families found in Heralds' Visitations, and earthworks such as hillforts on the South Downs that attracted antiquarians like John Aubrey and later archaeologists affiliated with the Society of Antiquaries of London. Historic bridges, market crosses, and tithe barns survive in conservation registers maintained by bodies including Historic England. Heritage sites often reference associations with events like medieval fairs, coastal trade, and the residency of figures who sat for Sussex boroughs in Parliament.

Maps and Surveys

Cartographic and documentary evidence includes entries in the Domesday Book, estate maps produced by surveyors for families appearing in the Manorial Documents Register, county maps by cartographers such as John Speed and Saxton (Christopher Saxton), and tithe maps created under the Tithe Commutation Act 1836. Ordnance Survey mapping from the 19th century, along with enclosure awards and parliamentary estate plans, provides geospatial continuity used by historians and archaeologists to reconstruct boundary changes, track field-name evidence, and interpret settlement morphology in regional studies.

Category:Hundreds of Sussex