Durrington, West Sussex

Durrington is a neighbourhood of the Borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. It is situated near the A27 road, 2.3mi northwest of the town centre.Durrington means 'Dēora's farmstead', Dēora presumably being the name of a Saxon settler. In common with many neighbouring settlements during the Saxon era, the local people also had land in the Weald, which would have been used for seasonal pasture for animals. Their land was at 'Dēoringa wīc' (modern-day Drungewick, in the parish of Loxwood).Durrington was first recorded in 934 as a Saxon estate. In that year, King Athelstan granted some of the land to one of his thegns. By the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, Robert le Sauvage—lord of the manor of nearby Broadwater—held the land. The civil and ecclesiastical parish was smaller than the Saxon estate: it extended for about 2mi from north to south and 0.7mi from east to west.The Domesday survey recorded that Durrington had "a church, eight acres of meadow and a wood of ten hogs". The church had existed since Saxon times, no later than the 11th century, but little is known of it: the structure was probably built of plaster, wattle and daub and thatch, in common with other churches of the era. It was dedicated to St Nicholas. In about 1265, the church was rebuilt and rededicated to Thomas Becket. The new design, a simple two-cell building, had a 56x nave and a 23x chancel separated by a rood screen, above which was a crucifix. There was also a wall-mounted stone pulpit, a stone altar, a series of tall, pointed windows high in the walls, an unadorned stone font and a short wooden steeple—little more than an extended belfry—extending from the nave roof. The new church was still a chapelry of St Andrew's Church at nearby West Tarring: this meant that it was served and administered by clergy from that church, and most of the parish's tithes were paid to St Andrew's. It was not an independent parish church.