Compton, Sussex

COMPTON is a parish and small pleasant village, 10 miles north-west from Chichester, and 5 south from Petersfield, in the Western division of the county, Westbourne hundred and union, Chichester rape, county court district, diocese and archdeaconry, and rural deanery of Boxgrove. In "Domesday Survey" it is thus referred to:- "Gorsfrid holds Contone of the Earl Harold; Ibern held it of Earl Godwin." In 1399, John, Duke of Exeter, held the manor; it afterwards passed to the Brownes, and then to the Peckhams, from whom by marriage it passed to the Phippses. The church of St. Mary is a neat structure in the Early and Decorated English styles, and consists of chancel, nave and south aisle: it has been repaired and beautified, and contains some neat monuments to the families of Peckham and Phipps. The register commences in 1558. The living is a vicarage, united with that of Upmarden, joint annual value £507, in the gift of, and held by, the Rev. George Augustus Langdale, M.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge. Here is a National school for boys and girls. Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby, G.C.B., is lord of the manor and chief owner of the soil. The area is 1,661 acres, and the population in 1861 was 266.

[Kelly's Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, 1867.]