About the Village

Wisborough Green lies in the northwest corner of West Sussex, astride the A272 east-west main road. The River Arun and its flood plain to the east and the heavily wooded high ground to the west maintain the essentially rural nature of the Parish and its separation from the commercial and residential development in Billingshurst and Petworth. Wisborough Green is a typical English village with a village green, public houses, pond, Church, village shop and Post Office in the centre of the village.

Location Map

Historically the village has medieval and earlier origins. It is dominated by its Church on the village’s high ground; St Peter ad Vincula is likely to have started life as a fortified structure commanding north-south lines of communication on Stane Street (Roman road) and the rivers Arun and Kird. In more recent times, the Second World War saw a Canadian Division harboured in nearby Hawkhurst Court and the 1942 Dieppe raid, commemorated annually in the church and on the Green, was mounted from its requisitioned buildings and adjacent woodland.

Predominantly a farming community but rich in timber resources, the Parish became heavily involved in both the early iron and glass industries. With the discovery of coal elsewhere these primary industries disappeared and subsequent commercial development has been very limited in scale. It is now confined to an area astride the B2133 at Newpound and several small enclaves mostly developed from redundant farm buildings.

Housing around the Green reflects the development of the village over the last 2 centuries with a minimum of recent infill. A modern estate of private detached properties sits comfortably adjacent to a mixed housing association and owned properties and a new enclave of terraced property for older people, all on the hill west of the Green. Other properties are strung out along the five roads leading into the village centre and generally backing straight onto agricultural land. Newpound to the northeast has commercial development and a number of properties mostly on larger plots. To the southwest are the scattered communities of Bedham and Brick Kiln Common and a number of bigger properties in woodland, mostly with views over the Arun valley.

The Register of Electors currently shows some 650 separate properties and 1194 electors. Children and non-eligible adults probably raises the resident population to around the 1800 mark. The Primary School has some 130 pupils, a number of whom are not from within the parish. There is no secondary education available within the parish.