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A013 - The Church of St. Oswald

Why so far from the Village?

Many people have asked why the village of Hooe is so far from its Church and it doesn't appear to have always been so. In his book, on the Church, my grandfather says,

"In his "Britannia" (1586), the historian Camden gives us a plan of the village, from which it is clear the inhabitants lived mainly in the spot known as The Grove, and consequently, near the Church. (The half-timbered cottage at Hall's Cross is probably the only remnant of the village of his day). Broken bricks 1 3/4" thick found near the old Kiln testify to its age. From this we conclude the village has sprung away from the Church - perhaps on account of some special industry in the neighbourhood such as brick-making, or leather-tanning. Brickworks and a tannery, of which there are remains, existed in the north of the parish."

Camden Map

Small section taken from William Camden's larger map, showuing Hooe, "Nenfield" (Ninfield) and the ruins of North Eye Abbey.

The ruins are now, roughly, 1 mile (1.75 Kms) from the coast.


I found a copy of William Camden's "Britannia" and, yes, there is, in the book, a very small scale map of Sussex; this I blew up until it can clearly bee seen that the village of Hooe as being some distance from where it is now. The shape of the road and the distance indicated from "Nenfield" puts the village, as my grandfather said, somewhere round about where the Grove is shown on today's maps.

We, also, know that, due to the draining of the land, and silting up along that part of the south coast, Hooe has, apparently, moved further inland and Camden's map does show Hooe much nearer the sea.

Also, out of interest only, at the bottom of this small section of Camden's map, are the words, "Ruins of North Eye", which must refer to what was left of the old Abbey. The site is still marked on today's Ordnance Survey maps but much further inland.

From the above, we know two things; assuming we accept that the map is reasonably accurate, in 1586 the whole village was much further south and nearer the Church than today while Northeye Abbey had become a ruin. So, the villagers must have moved their homes away from the Church , after 1586 - but why?

One suggestion has been that a plague or something similarly serious caused the people to move away from the source of the problem but why build a new village only a quarter of a mile away? Those who were ill couldn't have rebuilt a house to move into and those who weren't ill would, surely, just have moved out of the area for the duration or locked themselves indoors keeping all others out?

After all viruses and such weren't known then; in fact, to a certain extent they were right but for the wrong or unknown reason - they believed that the illness was carried on bad or infected air but didn't know why it was infected or how. The simple solution, they thought, was to keep the air clean, in the first place, and you could, with luck, survive.

To clean the air they burned sulphur or soaked Rue or Wormwood in vinegar and left this concoction to evaporate or used garlic and many other pungent mixtures. Yet another method was to smoke a pipe of tobacco!

Continuing the idea of a plague being he cause, there were many such plagues between 1550 and

A second suggestion is that the Lord of the Manor, at some time in history, re-built his grand house far away from the church and wanted his villagers around him, so made them move away. This, apparently, has been the case in other areas but I've not found any sign of this happening here. Another problem with this theory, is that the Lord of this manor owned other great areas of land and other villages so had a great deal of choice as to where to build his new, magnificent manor house and other villagers to consider!

So, why did the villagers move their homes? At the moment, I must admit, I don't know but I will keep researching because it's too interetsing to just forget!

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