Tithe maps available on CD
Tithe maps are useful for local, building and family history studies. They include the boundaries of fields, woods, roads and rivers and locations of buildings. They follow old parish boundaries and most date from the 1840’s. The maps are usually large scale and vary in detail.
The majority of East Sussex tithe maps are available on CD. They cost £13 each, plus 80p postage and packaging. CDs work only on PCs running Microsoft Windows. To buy them complete this order form.
These maps are also free to view on public computers at the Record Office.
What the CDs contain
Each CD has a map of one East Sussex parish. You can zoom in and out to view the whole map or smaller details.
Not all East Sussex parishes are available. Areas that were free of tithes, or where no crops were grown, were not mapped. Parish boundaries may be different now to when they were mapped. If you need to check whether a map exists of the area that you are studying, please check using the directory of tithe maps available on CD.
Bringing history alive
Tithe maps are useful for local, building and family history studies. They follow old parish boundaries and most date from the 1840’s. The maps are usually large scale and vary in detail.
Generally they include the boundaries of fields, woods, roads and rivers and locations of buildings. They can show you whether there was a house on the site of your own home, who lived in it and what the land was used for.
What are tithe maps?
Tithes were taxes paid to the local church, both in cash and “in kind” (ie as produce of the land). People paid one tenth of everything they produced.
In 1836 the Tithe Redemption Act converted all in kind payments into money payments. To help reassess the tithe payment for each piece of land, maps were drawn of the majority of parishes in East Sussex.
Why tithes were abolished
By the 19th century there was a great deal of resentment towards the payments, particularly from non-Anglicans, who still had to support the church even if they did not attend it. Tithes also discouraged farming improvements because if production went up, so did tithe payments.
Some payments did not even go to the church because the right to receive tithes in some areas had passed into the hands of local landowners.
Tithes were finally abolished in 1936.
