Thakeham

Thakeham is a village and civil parish located north of the South Downs in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. The village is situated approximately 12 miles south-west of Horsham and 11 miles north of the sea-side town of Worthing. Its nearest large village is Storrington (3 miles). The parish includes the hamlets of Abingworth and Goose Green and has a land area of 1170.6 hectares (2891 acres)

The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book,(as Taceham)[3] but human occupation goes back to Neolithic times. The name Thakeham means “thatched homestead[4]” and the original village had just one main street (“The Street”) which is home to the village’s only pub, The White Lion, and St Mary’s church (12th century) and is now a designated conservation area.

Land use in the parish is predominantly agricultural, dominated by farming and wooded areas (with outstanding bluebell displays in the spring). As well as the original centre in The Street, the parish includes the hamlets of Abingworth and Goose Green.

The parish’s main population now groups south of The Street in the Abingworth area, and further south in a section of the north-eastern suburb of Storrington within the Thakeham boundary. In the 2011 census 1816 people lived in 707 households.

View from the churchyard

The mushroom factory originally existed on two sites - the main remaining site sits between the original village and the edge of Abingworth. A secondary location further south was sold for housing in the early noughties. From the profits from the sale, Sussex Mushrooms modernised and consolidated the going concern at the remaining site. In April 2011 after much delay, Horsham District Council announced they had approved the plans for 150 new homes. By 2018, some houses are now built around a new cricket pitch. In addition, the developers are building a new village hall, a building which is yet to undergo planning approval for a veterinary surgery and shop/café plus a cricket pavilion and changing rooms for two new football pitches near the Storrington Road.

Heritage assets in the parish include the 13th century Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Warminghurst, and Little Thakeham,[5] a Grade I listed country house on Merrywood Lane, designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens in 1902. Further south are two schools (Thakeham Primary and Steyning Grammar Rock Road) and Thakeham Tiles, the other industry in the village, all situated on Rock Road.

A village cricket team representing Linfield Mushrooms (as they were then called) folded in the 1970s but a club was revived following a merger with neighbours, West Chiltington, at the end of the 20th century to form West Chiltington & Thakeham Cricket Club. As part of the developer's proposals, a new cricket pitch is now in situ with a new pavilion beyond where the new Thakeham Village FC football pitches have been sited. The cricket club now runs their Men's 3rd XI plus the Women’s T20 and some colts games there.

Anna Massey, who played Miss Prism alongside Colin Firth and Rupert Everett in the 2002 film version of The Importance of Being Earnest, was born in the village in 1937. She died in 2011.[6][7]

• Media related to Thakeham at Wikimedia Commons