East Lavant, Sussex

EAST LAVANT is a pleasant village, 2½: miles northwest from Chichester station, and 81 from London, in the Western division of the county. Aldwick hundred, Chichester rape, county court district, diocese and archdeaconry, West Hampnett union, and rural deanery of Pagham. At the date of the "Domesday Survey" this manor, therein styled Loventone, was held by Osberne, Bishop of Exeter: in the reign of the Confessor it was held by Godwin, a priest: it once belonged to the see of Canterbury, and subsequently passed to the Crown, for in 1560 Queen Elizabeth granted it to Sir Richard Baker: it was sold in 1775 to the third Duke of Richmond, in whose family it yet remains. The church of St. Mary is a stone building in the Norman style, and consists of a nave and chancel. The register commences in 1653. The living is a rectory, yearly value £410, with residence, in the gift of Lord Willoughby de Broke, and held by the Rev. Henry Legge, M.A. of Christ Church, Oxford. This parish has the privilege of sending four children to the Free school, and four women to the almshouses at Boxgrove founded by the Countess of Derby. There is a National School for boys, girls and infants. The principal landed proprietor is the Duke of Richmond. The area is 2,884 acres, and the population, with West Lavant, in 1861 was 421.
WEST LAVANT is a tithing belonging to this parish, though separated from it by the intervention of Mid Lavant.

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