In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Bognor Regis like this:
BOGNOR, a small town and a township-chapelry in South Bersted parish, Sussex. The town stands on the coast, 3¼ miles S of the South Coast railway, and 6½ SE by E of Chichester. It has a governing body, under a local act; a head post office;† a station with telegraph at the terminus of a railway, opened in 1864, to the South Coast line at Eastergate; and a pier, constructed chiefly of iron on the screw principle, 1,000 feet long with a head 40 feet across, opened in 1865. ...
The town was changed from an obscure hamlet to a fashionable watering-place, between 1786 and 1799, by Sir Richard Hotham, at a cost of about £60,000; and took, for a time, the name of Hothamston. It was frequented by Queen Charlotte and her children, in the time of George III.; and it then possessed a sort of exclusive character; but it afterwards became dependent on general public patronage. It comprises rows of brick houses, two squares open on one side to the sea, a crescent, a terrace, and several detached mansions; it possesses good lodginghouses, several hotels, and excellent bathing conveniences; and it has a church of 1821, an Independent chapel of 1869, a Wesleyan chapel, a public school for 50 girls, a reading room, a circulating-library, a people's institute, a small annual regatta, and occasional races. Markets are held thrice a-week; and a fair on 5 July. The surrounding country is flat; and the Bognor rocks, famed by geologists, and not long ago forming a line of low cliffs along the coast, are now visible only at low water.-Pop. of the town, 2,523. Houses, 487.—The chapelry was constituted in 1822. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Chichester. Value, £107.* Patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bognor Lodge, built by Sir R. Hotham, is now the seat of Sir J. E. Harrington, Bart.
Bognor Regis through time
Bognor Regis is now part of Arun district. Click here for graphs and data of how Arun has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Bognor Regis itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Bognor Regis, in Arun and Sussex | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/687
Date accessed: 19th April 2024
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