Some Little Known Facts

Lancing has been famous since Victorian times for it’s Romano-British Temple ruin near Lancing Ring.

St Mary’s Church at Sompting has similar status for it’s Rhenish Helm and Saxon origin.

A Roman Road passed from east to west (or vice versa) through both settlements and traces are still to be found in the landscape.

Several literary and artistic individuals are associated with both villages including the poets Trelawney and Swinburne and the author Anna Sewell, who wrote “Black Beauty”.

Like many other locations along the English Channel, both Sompting and Lancing were heavily involved in Smuggling.

Each village had it’s Lord of the Manor – the Carr-Lloyds at Lancing Manor House (demolished for the Leisure Centre) and the Crofts & Tristrams at Sompting Abbots.

The enigmatic and romantic soldier monks, known as the Knights Templar, were present here in mediaeval times, particularly at Sompting & Cokeham.

The Railways opened an important Carriage Works here and it remained until the 1960’s.

The pioneering schoolteacher, Miss Harriet Johnson introduced her progressive techniques and wrote “The Dramatic Method of Teaching” at Sompting School during the early part of the last century.

Coombes Church has remarkable early wall paintings.

Cokeham had a manor house, a chapel, a cross and a "hospital", all now gone.