Sussex Archaeological Collections 122

The coastline in Chichester Harbour from West Wittering to the west side of Thorney Island near Emsworth was systematically fieldwalked for evidence of saltmarsh utilization. A total of 72 sites were located along the tidal margins of the foreshore. Most yielded occupation / industrial debris in the form of much flintwork, largely Neolithic in character, with high proportions of scrapers. Other tools, waste material, cores, and hearth-like areas of fire-cracked flint were also much in evidence. Pottery sherds, mostly dating from the Iron Age and Roman periods, were also found. An important concentration of Iron Age and Romano-British material from an industrial and occupation site was located on Thorney Island near Prinsted. Erosion by the sea has resulted in the general spread of archaeological material along the foreshore of the Chichester Harbour area.

The settlement history of two contrasting areas of West Sussex is considered. The first area is Kirdford parish and the immediately surrounding district, and the second consists of the hundreds of Dumpford and Easebourne. The positions of detached parts of manors are identified. Documentary evidence, place names and the morphology of parishes are used to interpret the positions of these outliers within a general framework of Saxon settlement and land division.

In 1635 Joan Acton was a domestic servant at Heathfield vicarage. She had already attracted the unwelcome attention of John Butcher, who was employed at the time by her stepfather at his tannery in Hamsey, and he planned to abduct her with the help of some accomplices. Towards the end of June she was taken from the vicarage by a trick. By stages she was taken to Newdigate church in Surrey, where the couple went through a form of marriage. The affair ended at Cuckfield, where the party was resting on the return journey. This article is based on the full account of the affair given in the records of the archdeacon's court at Lewes.

The decline of the living-in servant has been taken as a symbolic and necessary part of the overall decline of that special relationship between master and man which had characterized English agriculture before the advent of capitalism. The household links which derived their origin from the close bonding between the provisioners of capital and labour living under the same roof and forming a small unit of production, were seen by Marx to be very characteristic of the feudal mode of production. By separating master and man, by depriving the living-in servant of customary entitlements to board and lodging, and by the progressive proletarianization of agricultural labour, the cash nexus was established and a landless, and mostly casualized, labourer was created. It is this concept of a social and spatial polarization of classes in the English countryside which will be examined here in some detail, with reference to material drawn from Sussex. It will be argued that the concept of class polarization, at least when seen in the perspective of Sussex, has been too simplistic. When one considers, for example, the actual experiences of farm workers, as well as the abstractions of political economy, the situation becomes very much more complex. A re-evaluation is now long overdue.

The development of music hall in Brighton parallels that in other towns of comparable size, though until late in the 19th century it was unable to establish itself as an acceptable form of popular entertainment. Beginning during the 1840s with public-house singing rooms of varying respectability, music hall diversified and became professional during the ensuing decade. Enterprising publicans enlarged their concert rooms (e.g. at the Apollo in Church Street) or adapted other entertainment premises (such as the Mighell Street circus) with elaborate decorations, tiered seating and fitted sages. Eventually in the 1860s purpose-built music halls, notably the Oxford, almost next to the Theatre Royal in New Street, emerged, coexisting for a time with the saloons. But the rise of the concert party, changes in social attitudes, and sheer economics, had by 1870 almost eliminated tavern music halls and set the pattern for the rest of the century.

Field Boundary Ditch, Cuckoo Bottom, Lewes (TQ 393105); the Prehistoric Occupation of a Former Part of Ashdown Forest; Further Fieldwork at Stud Farm, Newhaven, Sussex; Fieldwalking at Glynde near Lewes, East Sussex, 1979-82; Carved chalk Object Found at Combe Hill, Jevington, East sussex; An Iron Age Coin from 'Beedings', Pulborough; Two Gall-Belgic gold coins from the Foreshore at Eastbourne, East Sussex; A Hoard of roman Coins from Combe Hill, East Sussex; Plumpton Roman villa (TQ 360147), a Cursory Note; Romano-British Quern Fragment from Alfoldean, Slinfold; A Late Roman gold coin from High Hurstwood, East sussex; Recent Discoveries in Bosham Church; A trial Excavation in Castle Ditch Lane, Lewes, East Sussex; A Medieval Jetton form Rodmell, East sussex; the White Horse near Litlington, East Sussex; Rye: a 9th-Century Foundation?; Ships' timbers; the Selection of High Constables at Lewes, 1733-40; Ashburnham Blast Gurnace: a Definitive Date for its Closure.