Sussex Maps

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Online Gazetteer

 * Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of England

Sussex Through the Centuries

 * Sussex in the early 21st century
 * Sussex in 1940
 * Sussex in 1900
 * Sussex in 1850
 * Sussex in 1832
 * Southern England in 1811
 * Sussex in 1794, western and eastern
 * England in 1732
 * Southeastern England in 1628
 * England in 1545

Other Online Maps and Collections

 * Sussex County Maps
 * British Library, georeferenced maps
 * England Jurisdictions, 1851 is an interactive map of all the parishes in each of the counties of England. Learn about its features and functions. The site also includes OS maps for the entire country.
 * 1885 County Maps: Sussex Eastern Section | Sussex Western Section: Courtesy of London Ancestor

Rapes
A rape is an administrative subdivision into which Sussex was formerly divided. Usually compared to the hundred, each of the six rapes comprised several hundreds.

Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765) describes them thus: "In some counties there is an intermediate division between the shire and the hundreds, as lathes in Kent, and rapes in Sussex." (Vol. 1, p. 116).

There were six rapes, later organised into two divisions, the Eastern and Western divisions which, in 1888, became East Sussex and West Sussex: