Amberley, West Sussex
Encyclopedia
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
in the Horsham
Horsham (district)
Horsham is a local government district in West Sussex, England. Its council is based in Horsham. The district borders those of Crawley, Mid Sussex, Mole Valley, Chichester, Arun and Adur....
District of West Sussex, England.
Amberley is situated at the foot of the South Downs
South Downs
The South Downs is a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen Valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east. It is bounded on its northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose...
. Its neighbours are Storrington
Storrington
Storrington is a village in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England, and one of two in the civil parish of Storrington and Sullington. Storrington lies at the foot of the north side of the South Downs. As of 2006 the village has a population of around 4,600. It has one main shopping street...
, West Chiltington
West Chiltington
West Chiltington is a village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the Storrington to Broadford Bridge road, 2.6 miles north of Storrington.The parish covers an area of 1733 hectares...
and Arundel
Arundel
Arundel is a market town and civil parish in the South Downs of West Sussex in the south of England. It lies south southwest of London, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester. Other nearby towns include Worthing east southeast, Littlehampton to the south and Bognor Regis to...
. The village is noted for its many thatched cottages. The house named "The Thatched House" is one of the village's few non-thatched houses.
One of the attractions in Amberley is Amberley Working Museum
Amberley Working Museum
Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre is a museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex, England.The museum was founded in 1979 by the Southern Industrial History Centre Trust and has previously been known as the Amberley Working Museum, Amberley Chalk Pits Museum or plain Amberley Museum.The museum...
.
Amberley has its own railway station
Amberley railway station
Amberley railway station is a railway station in West Sussex, England. It serves the village of Amberley, about half a mile away, and was opened by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway...
on the Arun Valley Line
Arun Valley Line
The Arun Valley Line, also known as the Mid Sussex Line, is part of the Southern-operated railway services. For the initial part of the route trains follow the Brighton Main Line, and at a junction south of Three Bridges the route turns westwards...
, with regular services to Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis is a seaside resort town and civil parish in the Arun district of West Sussex, on the south coast of England. It is south-south-west of London, west of Brighton, and south-east of the city of Chichester. Other nearby towns include Littlehampton east-north-east and Selsey to the...
, Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
To the north of the village is the tidal plain of the River Arun
River Arun
The Arun is a river in the English county of West Sussex. Its source is a series of small streams in the St Leonard's Forest area, to the east of Horsham...
, known as Amberley Wild Brooks
Amberley Wild Brooks
Amberley Wild Brooks is a wetland Site of Special Scientific Interest in the flood plain of the River Arun, just north of the village of Amberley, West Sussex, England...
. This wetland area is a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
which floods in winter and is known for its wildfowl. Good views can be had from the Sportsman Pub at the east end of the village, known as crossgates. The Black Horse in the centre of the village often has Morris Dancing
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
in Summer. Amberley also has a castle
Amberley Castle
Amberley Castle is in the village of Amberley, West Sussex . It is a Grade I listed building.It was erected as a 12th century manor house and fortified in 1377...
, which is now a Hotel. The 'castle' is in fact a fortified manor House
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
next to which is a Norman
Norman architecture
About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...
Church, the Parish Church of St Michael.
Cultural links
Arnold BennettArnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
stayed in the village for eight weeks in 1926 and this stay is documented in his journals. During May–June 1926, he wrote the last two thirds of The Vanguard in 44 days, noting I have never worked more easily than in the last six weeks. He also met John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys
-Biography:Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys , who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also...
who walked over the Downs from Burpham to visit him.
Frank Swinnerton lived in Cranleigh
Cranleigh
Cranleigh is a large village, self-proclaimed the largest in England, and is situated 8 miles south east of Godalming in Surrey. It lies to the east of the A281 which links Guildford with Horsham; neighbouring villages include: Ewhurst, Alfold and Hascombe....
and had links with Bennett, subsequently selecting and editing his Journals. Swinnerton's 1914 novel On the Staircase has a character named Amberley. Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham was an English book illustrator.-Biography:Rackham was born in London as one of 12 children. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art.In 1892 he left his job and started working for The...
is commemorated in a wall plaque in the churchyard. The lettercutting is by John Skelton
John Skelton
John Skelton, also known as John Shelton , possibly born in Diss, Norfolk, was an English poet.-Education:...
. Rackham and his artist wife Edyth lived at Houghton House on the other side of the valley throughout the 1920s. In 1932, the film The Man from Toronto
The Man from Toronto
The Man from Toronto is a 1933 British romance film directed by Sinclair Hill and starring Jessie Matthews, Ian Hunter, Kathleen Harrison and Herbert Lomas. After an inheiritance is left to them if they marry an Englishwoman and a Canadian must meet for the first time to investigate the other -...
starring Jessie Matthews
Jessie Matthews
Jessie Matthews, OBE was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period.-Early life:...
and Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter (actor)
Ian Hunter was a British character actor.Among dozens of film roles, his best-remembered appearances include That Certain Woman with Bette Davis, The Adventures of Robin Hood , The Little Princess and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...
was filmed here.
The largest memorial in the churchyard is to Edward Stott RA who lived in Amberley from 1889 until he died in 1918. He is still famous for his rural scenes, many sketched close to Amberley. His monument has a bust on top carved by the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood
Francis Derwent Wood
Francis Derwent Wood RA was a sculptor, born in Keswick, Cumberland, in England's Lake District.-Early life:Wood studied in Germany and returned to London in 1887 to work under Edouard Lanteri and Sir Thomas Brock; he taught at the Glasgow School of Art from 1897 through 1905 and was professor of...
. Wood's nearby grave is marked with one of his own works, a pieta in bronze. Inside the church is a semi-circular stained glass window to Stott, designed by Robert Anning Bell
Robert Anning Bell
Robert Anning Bell was an English artist and designer.He was born in London in 1863, the son of Robert George Bell, a cheesemonger, and Mary Charlotte Knight. He studied at University College School, the Westminster College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, followed by a time in Paris. On...
. Other windows have inscriptions by Eric Gill
Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...
and his assistant Joseph Cribb
Joseph Cribb
Joseph Cribb was born in Hammersmith, London, in 1892, and became Eric Gill's assistant at the age of 14. The following year he started an official five year apprenticeship with Gill. He became a well-known sculptor in his own right, after Gill left Ditchling for Wales in 1924...
.
In the church, south of the chancel arch are 12th or 13th century wall-paintings, depicting scenes from the Passion Cycle.
Amberley has a working pottery and is also home to a ceramics designer. Amberley Working Museum
Amberley Working Museum
Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre is a museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex, England.The museum was founded in 1979 by the Southern Industrial History Centre Trust and has previously been known as the Amberley Working Museum, Amberley Chalk Pits Museum or plain Amberley Museum.The museum...
was used as a set location for the James Bond film A View to a Kill
A View to a Kill
A View to a Kill is the fourteenth spy film of the James Bond series, and the seventh and last to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted from Ian Fleming's short story "From a View to a Kill", the film is the fourth Bond film after The Spy Who Loved...
as "Mainstrike Mine".
Local history
The Pepper Papers (1899–1978) give an insight into Amberley's history as a producer of Lime, with 1904 correspondence between Peppers and companies interested in shipping Amberley chalk to North America. In 1929-35, a campaign tried to prevent the despoilation of Amberley by the erection of pylons and overhead power cables, looking at the financing of the alternative scheme of laying low tension underground cables. Frank Pepper had regular correspondence with Arthur RackhamArthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham was an English book illustrator.-Biography:Rackham was born in London as one of 12 children. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art.In 1892 he left his job and started working for The...
who had lived nearby, and John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter...
from Bury, West Sussex
Bury, West Sussex
Bury is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located six kilometres south west of Pulborough on the A29 road....
regarding the campaign to save Bury Coombe. Letters between 1926 and 1959 document claims to a public right of way over a footpath through the Amberley Castle grounds.