Ferring is a coastal village,

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

and electoral ward in the Arun District of

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. It is part of the built-up area of Worthing and is accessed along the A259 road west of the town - comprising North Down Farm and Highdown Hill to the north and the town itself to the south, with approximately equal size green buffers to the town in size, to east to Goring-by-Sea and west to East Preston. In the 2001 census 4361 people lived in 2179 households, of whom 1423 were economically active. The area's seafront is pedestrianised and the beach itself is a mixture of shingle and pebble, reinforced by groynes. The population at the 2011 Census was 4,480.

History

The site of the village is an ancient one: the name itself is Saxon; it is mentioned in 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 ...

; the parish church is Norman, and is dedicated to St Andrew. Until the 1920s the village was a small one; when the south coast began to be built-up, particularly with holiday homes, Ferring began to increase in size.

Sport and leisure

Ferring has an amateur football club, Ferring Football Club, which plays at the Glebelands. It also has an amateur cricket club, Ferring Cricket Club, which plays at the Little Twitten and is believed to have been established in 1864 or earlier. In 2024 the club entered into league cricket for the first time in its 160 year history. The club will still play friendly games on Sundays. The club has a youth section with three teams of different age groups. Ferring Radio was a community licensed station broadcasting across the South Coast on 97.7fm originally for the benefit and experience of clients with special needs attending Ferring Country Centre. The station has been revived in 2020 on-line to provide music and local news and information during the extreme medical crisis and isolation. Parks and open spaces There are three parks in Ferring: Glebelands Recreation ground, Ferring Village Green and Little Twitten. Events take place in these areas at various times throughout the year.

St Andrew's Church

St Andrew's church was built in 1170, although the site has had a church there since 765. It has a well-maintained courtyard and is situated in the centre of the village. In the churchyard are buried the ashes of Major John Bigelow Dodge (1894-1960), veteran of the Great Escape of 1944, and there is a Commonwealth war grave of a

Royal Sussex Regiment The Royal Sussex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that was in existence from 1881 to 1966. The regiment was formed in 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 35th (Royal Sussex) Regiment of Foo ...

officer of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

.
CWGC Casualty Record.

Ferring Rife

The Ferring Rife is a stream in West Sussex, England that rises in the West Durrington area of Worthing. It has multiple sources including one near Castle Goring and another in Titnore Wood. The streams that make up the Ferring Rife converge north of Littlehampton Road, passing through Maybridge, then west of Ferring into the sea. It flows southwest, west and then south into the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

, between the villages of Ferring and East Preston.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in West Sussex Arun District Populated coastal places in West Sussex