Sompting is a village and civil parish in the Adur District of West Sussex, England, located between Lancing and Worthing, at the foot of the southern slope of the South Downs. Twentieth century development has linked it to Lancing. The civil parish covers an area of 10.35 square kilometres and has a population of 8,514 persons (2001 census). The name Sompting (known as Sultinges in the Domesday Book) is said to come from the Old English for dwellers by the marsh (Sompt + ingas).
The Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin is a Grade I-listed Anglo-Saxon and Norman church, separated from the centre of the village since 1939 by the busy A27 road. Its tower is topped with a "Rhenish helm"—a four-sided gabled pyramidal cap which is unique in England. The church was originally built by the Saxons c.960 AD, then was adapted by the Normans when William de Braose granted it to the Knights Templar in the 12th century. The church later passed to the Knights Hospitaller in the 15th century.
The Sompting Abbotts building, designed by Philip Charles Hardwick and completed in 1856, is a preparatory school. However this has been the site of one of Sompting's manor houses since Norman times, when it was owned by the abbot of Fécamp in Normandy, and later owned by the abbott of Syon Abbey in Middlesex. In 1248 the abbott of Fecamp had a prison in the village. Queen Caroline, consort of King George IV stayed at Sompting Abbotts in 1814 on her way across the English Channel to the Continent.
The old Sompting Rectory building, now used as a nursing home, dates from 1791, however the Rectory has a long history, having previously been owned by the Knights Templar from 1154 and like Sompting Church, passed to the Knights Hospitaller in the 15th century. During the Second World War a prisoner-of-war camp was built on the Rectory Farm estate, on the west side of Busticle Lane.
Sompting's Parish Hall was originally built as a reading room in 1889 by HP Crofts of Sompting Abbotts manor. As well as the Anglican Sompting Church, there was formerly a Methodist mission chapel, registered in 1887, which still stands. Sompting Community Centre was originally built in 1872 as a Junior and Infants School.
A house which belonged to Edward Trelawny, adventurer, author and friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley, is also located in the village.
The parish of Sompting includes the hamlet of Beggars Bush on the Downs as well as the former hamlets of Upper Cokeham and Lower Cokeham, which are now part of the Sompting-Lancing conurbation. Cokeham means Cocca's homestead (ham). Sompting also historically extended west to the ancient droveway today known as Charmandean Lane, but in 1933 this land was given to the neighbouring borough of Worthing. Sompting's eastern border with Lancing has historically been defined by the Boundstone Lane, so called because of the boundary stone or boundstone that lay on the boundary. The stone is now kept in Boundstone Community College.
To the north of the parish, a settlement existed at Park Brow on the Downs in the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age and Roman times. It lasted until its buildings were burned down c.270 AD, possibly by Saxon or Frankish pirates. It is supposed that the inhabitants moved from here to the relative safety of the hillfort at Cissbury Ring.
The highest point in the parish of Sompting is Steep Down at 149 metres (489 ft)
The writer Alfred Longley lived in Sompting, creator of the character 'Jimmy Snuggles' and the Sompting Treacle Mines, where incredibly lazy people worked.
Sompting is also known for its mummers play, performed by the Sompting Village Morris dancers.
In 2005, a small group got together and started the Sompting Festival, which was held for the first time over the weekend 2–4 June 2006, as one of the launch events for the Adur Festival. Since then this has developed into the annual Sompting Beer & Music Festival held on Sompting Recreation Ground, West Street, Sompting. It incorporates the Sompting Village Hall Open Weekend, and the Somptin' Old exhibition - a fascinating history of Sompting in pictures set up by former Sompting Parish Councillor Mike Prince, which attracts interest from all over the world.