Sompting
| Sompting | |
|---|---|
 Tower of St Mary's Church |
|
 Sompting
|
|
| Sompting shown within West Sussex | |
| Area | 4.00 sq mi (10.4 km2) |
| Population | 8,561 (Civil Parish 2011) |
| • Density | 2,140/sq mi (830/km2) |
| OS grid reference | TQ170047 |
| • London | 47 miles (76 km) N |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LANCING |
| Postcode district | BN15 |
| Dialling code | 01903 |
| Police | Sussex |
| Fire | West Sussex |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | |
| Website | http://www.sompting.org.uk/ |
Sompting is a village and civil parish in the coastal Adur District of West Sussex, England between Lancing and Worthing. It is half grassland slopes and half developed plain at the foot of the South Downs National Park. Twentieth century estates dovetail into those of slightly larger Lancing. The name Sompting (known as Sultinges in the Domesday Book) is said to come from the Old English for dwellers by the marsh (Sompt + ingas).
The Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin is a Grade I-listed Anglo-Saxon and Norman church, separated from the centre of the village since 1939 by the busy A27 road. Its tower is topped with a "Rhenish helm"—a four-sided gabled pyramidal cap which is unique in England. The church was originally built by the Saxons c.960 AD, then was adapted by the Normans when William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber granted it to the Knights Templar in the 12th century. The church later passed to the Knights Hospitaller in the 15th century.
The Sompting Abbotts building, designed by Philip Charles Hardwick and completed in 1856, is a preparatory school. However this has been the site of one of Sompting's manor houses since Norman times, when it was owned by the abbot of Fécamp in Normandy, and later owned by the abbott of Syon Abbey in Middlesex. In 1248 the abbott of Fecamp had a prison in the village. Queen Caroline, consort of King George IV stayed at Sompting Abbotts in 1814 on her way across the English Channel to the Continent.
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