The hundred of Preston

A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1940.

This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved.

'The hundred of Preston', in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes, (London, 1940) pp. 264. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol7/p264 [accessed 12 April 2024]

The hundred of Preston

containing the parishes of Hove and Preston.

A the time of the Domesday Survey there was a hundred of Preston (fn. 1) which appears to have included Patcham and Preston. (fn. 2) This hundred was later merged in Whalesbone Hundred, of which the Bishop of Chichester held one quarter (i.e. Hove and Preston) in 1278, (fn. 3) and so remained until 1540. (fn. 4) In 1543–4 the vills of Hove and Preston were separately assessed outside any hundred, (fn. 5) but in 1544–5 they formed what was described as the Hundred of Preston and Hove. (fn. 6) This appeared as the Hundred of Preston in 1560 (fn. 7) and 1576. (fn. 8) In 1587 the two vills were included in Whalesbone Hundred, (fn. 9) but in 1621, (fn. 10) 1622, and 1625 they again formed a separate hundred under their joint names. (fn. 11) They were described as a half-hundred in 1628, 1642, and April 1664. (fn. 12) In the assessments for the Hearth Tax in September 1664 and 1665 they were once more reckoned as a whole separate hundred (fn. 13) as they were also in 1833. (fn. 14)

Footnotes

  • 1. Prestetune (xi cent.).
  • 2. V.C.H. Suss. i, 391a, 436a. Cf. Horsfield, Suss. i, 173.
  • 3. Assize R. 921, m. 14.
  • 4. Subsidy R. 190/175 (32 Hen. VIII).
  • 5. Ibid. 190/193.
  • 6. Ibid. 190/192.
  • 7. Ibid. 190/267.
  • 8. Ibid. 190/299. In 1563 Preston and 'Ove' appeared under the heading of 'Part of the Hundred of the Manhood': ibid. 190/274; but in 1617 the claim of the bishop's bailiff that these vills were members of the Manhood was rejected and they were said to constitute a separate half-hundred: Tr. of Rec. Misc. Bks., vol. 157, fo. 170.
  • 9. Subs. R. 190/309.
  • 10. Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 79 (from Subs. R. 19 Jas. I in possession of W. S. Ellis).
  • 11. Subs. R. 190/342; 191/372.
  • 12. Ibid. 191/382, 191/390, 191/409. No such half-hundred is mentioned in a survey of 1651, nor are Preston and Hove boroughs found anywhere there: Suss. Arch. Coll. xviii, 231–6.
  • 13. Subs. R. 258/15, 258/18.
  • 14. Horsfield, Suss. i, 103. In 1834 the area of the hundred was about 1,840 acres: ibid. 165.
PreviousTable of contentsNext