Here you can read a history of Felpham on the British History Online website
including categories on:
Landscape History
Settlement
Roads
Felpham as a Seaside Resort
Social and Cultural Activities
Manor & Other Estates
Economic History
Agriculture
Mills
Other trades and industries
Local Government
Church
Non-Conformity
Education
Charities for the Poor
The former parish of Felpham, (fn. 1) which included the hamlets of Flansham and Ancton and which has been noted since the 18th century as a seaside resort, lies on the south coast east of Bognor Regis and within sight of the South Downs. In 1881 the ancient parish had 1,883 a. (fn. 2) A small portion of Bersted civil parish (19 a.) was added in 1913. (fn. 3) In 1933 the parish was divided in three, 932 a. in the south-west going to Bognor Regis urban district and civil parish, 449 a. in the north including Flansham to Yapton, and 522 a. in the east including Ancton to Middleton. (fn. 4) A new civil parish of Felpham was created in 1985, excluding Flansham and Ancton and with other differences from the ancient parish. (fn. 5)
The northern and western boundaries of the ancient parish generally followed the Aldingbourne rife and its tributaries the Felpham or Flansham rife (fn. 6) and the Ryebank rife; the lower part of the Aldingbourne rife, called brynes fleot in 680 and 953, at the latter date bounded the Anglo-Saxon estate of Felpham. (fn. 7) Those seem to be early boundaries, whereas the configuration of the eastern boundary with Middleton, which partly follows the modern Middleton and Elmer roads, seems to indicate that Middleton was once part of Felpham. (fn. 8)
The present article deals with the area of the ancient parish, except that the part transferred to Middleton in 1933 is treated with the history of Middleton from c. 1900…
A P Baggs and H M Warne, ‘Felpham’, in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 5 Part 1, Arundel Rape: South-Western Part, Including Arundel, ed. T P Hudson (London, 1997), pp. 160-182.