The History of Kingston Gorse Estate
Residents of the Kingston Gorse Estate are encouraged to contribute to the creation of the 'history of the estate' so that current and future residents can benefit from historical knowledge derived over many years.
If you have any pictures, articles or personal recollections of the past, please forward them to the editor of the site using the 'contact us' form below, so that they can be consolidated into this historical record of the area.
An Early Map of Kingston Gorse Estate from 1959
Historic Map & Kingston Chapel
They’re not as beguiling as Wild West ghost towns with tumbleweed blowing down the main street, rickety boardwalks and swing doors on lost saloons creaking in the wind. But they’re every inch deserted settlements. Of the Sussex variety, that is.
West Sussex can claim at least 50 villages that vanished in the 500 years after the Norman conquest. Nearly all were on the South Downs and coastal plain. Today most of them are only detectable by field names, pottery finds and crop marks on aerial photographs.
Several have utterly vanished, inundated by the English Channel that has endlessly devoured the coastline of Sussex over the centuries. One of them lies some 200 yards offshore half way between the western end of Kingston Gorse and Angmering-on-Sea.