East Wittering - History

History

There has been a settlement at East Wittering for over a thousand years. Before the Norman Conquest King Harold had control of the Bishops. The area is mentioned in the Domesday Book, as part of the Hundred of Westringes, and the parish church of The Assumption dates from the early 12th century: Pevsner describes it as having an impressive coherence and sureness of touch. For centuries the land was in the hands of the Wystryng family. In Victorian times the RNLI raised enough subscriptions to launch a distress boat from the beach at East Wittering, a role now covered by the Fire Service. Last century the area began to attract greater numbers of holiday makers but in May 1944 it became the landing beach for the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division during a dummy run for D-Day, code named Operation Fabius.

Since then it has returned to a quiet area with a small primary school, popular with week-end surfers. Nikolaus Pevsner described the village as "a jumble of bungalows and chalets near the beach in an untidy half grown up state". St Anne's Anglican Church was designed by architect Harry Sherwood who was surveyor of the fabric of Chichester Cathedral. The foundation stone was laid on 6 June 1958 by the then Bishop of Chichester who consecrated the building on 14 May 1959. Within the Church there is a plaque inscribed "1914-1918 No lives were lost from this Parish. All returned safely. LAUS DEO" which testifies to the fact that East Wittering is one of the Thankful Villages - those very rare places that suffered no fatalities during the Great War of 1914-1918.