Portal:West Sussex

West Dean House

West Dean is a village, Anglican parish and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England 5 miles (8 km) north of Chichester on the A286 road just west of Singleton. The parishes include the hamlets of Binderton and Chilgrove.

The civil parish has a land area of 6,136 acres (2,483 ha). The 2001 Census recorded 425 people living in 177 households, of whom 248 were economically active. The village is on the Monarch's Way long-distance footpath.

West Dean is in the Lavant Valley in the South Downs and has a Church of England parish church and one public house, The Selsey Arms. The church and most of the houses are built of flint, in most cases with brick quoins and window dressings. (Full article...)

Michael John Elphick (19 September 1946 – 7 September 2002) was an English film and television actor. He played the eponymous private investigator in the ITV series Boon and Harry Slater in BBC's EastEnders. He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1983 film Gorky Park. With his gruff Sussex accent and lip-curling sneer, he often played menacing hard men.

Elphick struggled with an addiction to alcohol; at the height of his problem, he admitted to consuming two litres (½ gallon) of spirits a day, which contributed to his death from a heart attack in 2002. (Full article...)

• Sussex
• UK geography

Current news may be found on the BBC web pages for Sussex.