Shermanbury

Shermanbury is a village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the A281 road approximately 2 miles (3 km) north of Henfield. The present day village consists mainly of a ribbon development of bungalows on the east side of the A281, while the ancient parish church is to the east by Shermanbury Place. Between these is Ewhurst Manor, a 16th-century house on an old moated site with a 14th-century stone gatehouse and nearby artificial lake and farmstead.

The eastern River Adur flows through Shermanbury, where it is met by the Cowfold Stream. The Normal Tidal Limit is at the footbridge near the church although a weir further downstream means only the highest tides reach this far. Boats could reach Mock Bridge (where the A281 crosses the river) until the early 1800s.

The parish has a land area of 775 hectares (1,915 acres). In the 2001 census 454 people lived in 182 households of whom 253 were economically active. The population at the 2011 Census was 542.

In the Domesday Book, based on a survey completed in 1086, the manor of Shermanbury, then called Salmonesberie, is held by Ralph from William de Braose, having been formerly held by Azor from King Harold. There are two ploughs, one belonging to the lord and one shared by one villager and three smallholders. There is a small church and four slaves. There are three other manors in Shermanbury parish, Woolfly, also held by Ralph, and Morley and Sakeham held by William son of Ranulph. The parishes of Shermanbury and Cowfold comprised the Saxon hundred of Hamfelt, and was on the eastern boundary of the Norman Rape of Bramber.

Shermanbury's Saxon name indicates its past function: the burh or defended stronghold of the scirman - shire man, perhaps the sheriff, but maybe some other official or steward. It has been suggested that the burh was the stronghold of one of the Saxon longitudinal divisions of the county. The abrupt slopes of the hillock used to be joined to the higher land to the east, but a second channel of the Cowfold Stream was cut through that peninsular long ago, making it an island. On that eastern side too, you can see the remains of an ancient bank and ditch defending the peninsular burh.

Shermanbury's manor house and church on their knoll (TQ 214 188) is surrounded on all sides by the Adur and the Cowfold Streams and the fields were traditionally flood plains. In Christmas 2012 the manor became an island for 10 days, cut off by floods, with the park drive under three foot of water. Christmas church services had to be cancelled. The area was also flooded in 2020.

None of the farm houses in the area are now owned by a resident farmer, and just four let their land for farming by neighbouring farmers. The rest are managed for leisure in its various forms. Frylands Farm was the last to be broken up and sold, in 2015.

To the south of the 18th century Shermanbury Place (which replaced the earlier manor house) is a reedy mill pond, whose peace is only broken by the calls of water birds. To the west, where the old Cowfold Stream joins the Adur, are the footings, races, and wharf of the water mill that long clacked and rumbled there.