West Sussex County Council: West Sussex Millennium Parish Maps Project

This Parish Maps Project has been part of a nationwide initiative launched in the 1980s by Common Ground. This environmental organisation encourages us to explore and celebrate the richness to be found in the ordinary everyday places with which we are all familiar; the towns and villages where we live.

The idea is to encourage groups of volunteers to celebrate what Common Ground calls "Local Distinctiveness" so that people can identify what is particular and special about their home surroundings. The maps are all about people and their sense of place.

Parish maps are pictorial and decorative. Typically they have 3 main strands - a strong feeling for the past, the present day and local wildlife.

In West Sussex the project was given a millennium slant so that the maps could be snapshots of how communities like to see themselves at this most important watershed in time.

87 groups took part and an exhibition showing 66 maps was displayed at the Worthing Museum and Art Gallery.

These map groups have been enormously varied in their membership and methods of working. Most had anything up to 20 members and there was a wide spectrum of ages, from young children of playgroup age to those in their 80s. In total, some 1200 West Sussex volunteers took part in the overall project.

The maps produced by these groups have made many West Sussex people much more aware of the extent and nature of the place to which they belong. In this sense the project has certainly been a power for good when seen against the background of so many pressures that threaten community life. The parish map makes a stand for the idea of "homeland" in its most local sense.

Although the West Sussex Millennium Parish Maps Project has now concluded, the Parish Maps Project - without the millennium dimension - is still being promoted in West Sussex in an attempt to cover those parishes that did not participate.

We have published a large format, full-colour book to celebrate this project entitled A Sense of Place: West Sussex Parish Maps. The book is now available from the Record Office or from the eshop.

Parishes wishing to make a map should contact the West Sussex Record Office, County Hall, Chichester, PO19 1RN; Telephone 01243 753600; e-mail: records.office@westsussex.gov.uk