East Itchenor is the site of a demolished 'manor' house, on the

Manhood Peninsula The Manhood Peninsula is in the southwest of West Sussex in England. It has the English Channel to its south and Chichester to the north. It is bordered to its west by Chichester Harbour and to its east by Pagham Harbour, its southern headland ...

, in

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

, England. There was never an actual manor (in the legal sense) nor is it an abandoned village. This is an area of dispersed settlements rather than nucleated ones.

History

East Itchenor derives its name from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

chieftain Icca, who laid claim to the shores of East and

West Itchenor West Itchenor is a village and civil parish, on the Manhood Peninsula The Manhood Peninsula is in the southwest of West Sussex in England. It has the English Channel to its south and Chichester to the north. It is bordered to its west by Chi ...

, as both settlements were originally known as ''Iccannore'' ('Icca's shore'). Although the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 names the village as ''Icenore'', by 1268 it was recorded as ''Estychenore'' and its eponymous sister village as ''Westichenor''. The Domesday Book also makes mention of two manors in Icenore, necessitating the distinction between 'East' and 'West': the manor covering East Itchenor was owned by the

Bishop of Exeter The Bishop of Exeter is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. The current bishop is Mike Harrison (bishop), Mike Harrison, since 2024. From the first bishop until the sixteent ...

Osbern FitzOsbern __NOTOC__ Osbern FitzOsbern (d. 1103) was a Norman churchman. He was a relative of King Edward the Confessor as well as being a royal chaplain.Barlow ''Edward the Confessor'' p. 164 During Edward's reign he received the church at Bosham, near ...

and was an endowment of the

College A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

Bosham Bosham () is a coastal village, ecclesiastical parish and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex, England, centred about west of Chichester with its clustered developed part west of this. ...

. East Itchenor was then held by Roger de Montgomery who attached it to his manor of Birdham. There was never a separate manor of East Itchenor with demesne holdings or manor courts. Manhood

By the 13th century East Itchenor had a chapel in its own right, better endowed than that of

Birdham Birdham is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located on the Manhood Peninsula, south-west of the city of Chichester. The parish church is dedicated to St James, although the dedication was to ...

parish church: in a 1291 survey the

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

was valued at £8.00 a year, as opposed to Birdham's £5.6s.8d. Never consisting of more than a few families employed in farming on the estate its population fell so that in 1440 the

Bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East Sussex, East and West Sussex. The Episcopal see, see is based in t ...

Richard Praty Richard Praty (or Pratty, – August 1445) was a medieval university Chancellor and Bishop. After serving as the King's chaplain from 1430, including two years with him in France, Praty was made Dean of the Chapel Royal in 1432. He gave up ...

united its parish with Birdham.Salzmann. The hundred of Manhood: Introduction: A History of the County of Sussex. Vol 4. p.198 A map of 1828 shows a significant mansion there but this had been demolished some twenty years later.

References

{{authority control Villages in West Sussex