Poling

It's all too easy to underestimate Poling as a strip of houses jammed against the south side of the A27 north of Littlehampton.

This would be a mistake. The heart of the village lies south of the main road and is an interesting place with more history than you might expect.

St John's Priory

The village of Poling has strong medieval connections with the Knights of St John - or to give them their full title the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem - brave God-fearing crusaders or loot-hungry maniacs, depending on your point of view.

The attractive last remnants of St John's Priory, which the Knights built in the village now form part of Farirplace Farm.

Roman Villa

There are also traces of a large Roman Villa in farmland south east of Poling. In terms of scale, the Poling Villa is somewhere between Bignor (which was a large farmstead) and Fishbourne (which was undoubtedly a full scale provincial palace).

Most of the excavation work has been done on the bath house, which was a farily substantial building. Maybe one day the main part of the villa itself will get a full excavation and become another major addition to the Roman buildings in Sussex.

There's nothing to see at the site of the villa, but if you take a walk along the footpath which crosses the fields from Poling Church to Angmering Church, then you will pass right over its remains.

Although the site of the villa may seem a strange one today, it is thought that the villa actually sat close to a fairly navigable inlet of the the River Arun which has now largely silted up.

Poling Church

One of the highlights of Poling is its church, at the southern extremity of the village, seemingly trying to get away from the noise of the A27 without straying too close to the A259.

St Nicholas, Poling predates the Norman Conquest and several parts of the Saxon church can still be admired, including much of the nave.

The churchyard contains a memorial for the great gentleman, cricket diplomat and Kent and England batsman Colin Cowdrey, whose second wife was Lady Anne Fitzalan-Howard (later Baroness Herries of Terregles) the eldest daughter of the 16th Duke of Norfolk.

Sir Harry Hamilton Johnson, one of the heroes of the British Empire in Africa in the 1880s, retired to Poling. His stone in the churchyard is also notable as one of the few pieces of Gill typeface actually cut by the Sussex sculptor (Eric) himself.

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