Medieval Bognor Fishing Hamlet

c. 1200

By the medieval period, a small fishing hamlet had established itself on the coast at what would become Bognor. The settlement was modest, a cluster of cottages and boats working the inshore waters of the English Channel for plaice, sole, mackerel, and herring. The name Bognor is thought to derive from an Old English personal name, Bucge, combined with 'ora', meaning a shore or bank. The hamlet was part of the manor of Bersted, held by the Bishops of Chichester, and appears in records as a minor coastal settlement without the market rights, church, or administrative status of its larger neighbours. The fishing community lived close to the shore, relying entirely on the sea for their livelihood and on the fields behind the coast for any supplementary food. The medieval church at South Bersted served the wider parish, and Bognor's fishermen would have worshipped there. The coastline has retreated since the medieval period, and some of the early settlement may now lie beneath the sea. Bognor remained a small, unremarkable fishing hamlet for centuries, overshadowed by Chichester to the north and the larger coastal settlements to east and west. It was one of many such hamlets along the Sussex coast, distinguished from its neighbours only by the accidents of geography and later development.