The civil parish is about 4 miles (6 km) long north – south and less than 1 mile (1.6 km) wide east – west and has a land area of 800 ha (1,977 acres). The southern part of the parish includes part of Duncton Down, which is 682 feet (208 m) high.
Duncton Mill at the foot of the South Downs escarpment was powered by a large spring flowing from the chalk strata. A stable flow of water at a constant temperature throughout the year is ideal for its present use as a trout hatchery.
Public transport
Compass Bus route 99 between Petworth and Chichester serves Duncton six days a week, from Monday to Saturday. There is no service in the evening, or on Sunday or public holidays. On most trips, the bus will call at Duncton only if booked in advance.[3]
History
Prehistoric remains in the parish include a Bronze Age round barrow on Duncton Common in the north of the parish.[4] The remains of a Romano-Britishvilla, including a hypocaust, were found 140 yards northeast of St Mary's parish church[5] and excavated between 1812 and 1816.[6]
The Domesday Book of 1086 records the place-name as Donechitone, and a pipe roll from 1181 records it as Duneketon. The name comes from the Old English words Dunnuca and tūn. Dunnuca was a person's name, and a tūn is a fence or enclosure.[7]
Woollen cloth making was an important local industry in the Middle Ages. Two Duncton clothiers, R Harding and J Goble, left inventories in 1621 and 1622 respectively, with Goble having owned three pairs of finishing shears.[8]
The village has a pub that was built in the 18th century.[9] In 1867 John Wisden (1826 – 1884), the famous Kent, Middlesex, Sussex and England cricketer, who founded Wisden Cricketer's Almanac, bought the pub and leased it to the Sussex cricketer Jemmy Dean (1816 – 1881).[citation needed]} The pub is called "The Cricketers"[10] in honour of Dean and another Sussex cricketer, Jem Broadbridge (1795–1843), both of whom lived in Duncton.
Florence de Fonblanque died in Duncton in 1949. She is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity parish church. "Originator and leader of the women's suffrage march from Edinburgh to London 1912" is inscribed on her headstone.[11]
Churches
The Church of England parish church of the Holy Trinity is part of the Benefice of Stopham and Fittleworth. Duncton's original parish church, St Mary's, was a Medieval building at the foot of Duncton Down, some distance south of the village. In 1864 George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield, of Petworth House, commissioned a new parish church to be built on a more convenient site in the village. It is a Gothic Revival building, designed by James Castle of Oxford and completed in 1866.[12]
A bell from St Mary's, thought to have been cast in Normandy in 1369, was transferred from St Mary's to Holy Trinity. St Mary's was demolished in 1876.[12]
