Welcome to the Chaldon Herring Parish council and village website. Its purpose is to provide accurate information about the village to its own residents and to everyone who visits us either in person or on the internet.
The Parish extends to 1253 hectares and includes East and West Chaldon, Whitenothe, Tadnoll and West Fossil. The population is 170, many of whom are actively engaged in farming and managing the valleys and hills of the chalk downland that runs to the sea, 2 miles distant.
The village is overlooked by the Five Marys, a line of barrows dating from the late Bronze Age (1620 to 700BC) on the high ground to the north.
After a brief mention in the Doomsday Book, for centuries this isolated community was engaged in the harsh business of agriculture, supplemented by smuggling, until it was discovered in the early 20th Century by the literary and artistic set from London – thus began our long association with the Powys family, Sylvia Townsend Warner and the sculptor Elizabeth Muntz.
More recently, changes to agricultural practice have made many of the cottages and barns redundant.These have been bought and converted by people from far and wide, who have also been attracted to this small unspoilt settlement within the valleys close to the spectacular Jurassic coastline – now a World Heritage site.
While the village shop and school closed many years ago, St Nicholas church, The Sailor’s Return pub and the Village Hall in their various ways provide focus for the village.
Please click on any of the tabs for more information – for photographs of the village and its surroundings, to find out where to stay or catch a bus, to meet the Parish Council, or gather many other facts about Chaldon Herring.
