No Man's Land Gate
Early-attested site in the Parish of Up Waltham
Historical Forms
- Nonemanneslond 1361 Fine
- Nomanneslond 1279 QW 1412 FA 1493 Ipm
- Nonemanneslond 1439 IpmR
Etymology
No Man's Land Gate is no longer mentioned on the O.S. maps, though it is found on Greenwood's map, and No Man 's Land is the spot where (as Mr Belloc tells us in The Path to Rome , p. 54, 1902 ed.) 'first there breaks on you the distant sea.' It is just south of West Wood, where a network of downland trackways intersect, within half-a-mile of Stane Street and on the borders of Up Waltham, Burton and Slindon parishes, i.e. on the bounds of the Rapes of Chichester and Arundel.There can be no doubt that this is the Nonemanneslond of 1361 (Fine), where the Sheriff of Sussex held his tourn of the hundreds belonging to the two Rapes just mentioned. Nonemanneslond (loc. cit.) is said to have been in the Hundred of Rotherbridge, so that it must have been in Burton parish, slightly east of the Gate, on Burton Down, where we have the highest point in the district (758 ft.). It is mentioned again as Nomanneslond in 1279 (QW), 1412 (FA) and 1493 (Ipm) and as Nonemanneslond in 1439 (IpmR). According to Dallaway (Rape of Arundel 3) the Forest courts were also held here.