Lancing
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Lancing is a village in West Sussex, England, on the western edge of the very picturesque Adur Valley. It is on the coastal plain between Sompting to the west, Shoreham-by-Sea to the east and the parish of Coombes to the north. It is credited as being the largest village in England, covering around 8.9 km².
It is a mix of coastal urban dwelling and rural chalk downland landscape. The oldest non-religious buildings date to around 1500 CE. The 2002 population was around 19,000.
The town was a popular seaside resort in the mid-19th century, gaining favour from the gentry of the time for its secluded atmosphere. Lancing today no longer has a notable tourist trade although there are a number of small guest houses, most of them on the coast road. Unfortunately, in the past 10 years Lancing has become a crime-ridden area with a severe drug problem.
There is a shingle beach with good stretches of clean sand at low water. South of the A259 coast road is Widewater, an internationally rare brackish (slightly saline) lagoon. Immediately north of the developed area is Lancing Ring, a Nature Reserve, part of the designated Sussex Downland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). To the north of that is farmed agricultural downland connected to Lancing College Farm. On its eastern side is Shoreham Airport, the world's oldest continually-operational airport which also served as an RAF base during World War II.
Much of the land now covered with housing was formerlly taken by a number of family-run Market Gardening businesses growing fruit or flowers for the Brighton Market or Covent Garden in London. Sparks Nursery was growing fruit such as tomatoes and Young's produced Carnations. Chrysanthemums were grown by Frank Lisher on his land south of The Finches, the house he built. The Nash family were fruit growers, producing grapes under huge glass cloches that could be rolled into place on a rail track. 'Mr Marshall's Nursery' was also notable.
In the early part of the 20th century Lancing developed a railway carriage building industry in the area that is now the Churchill industrial estate at the western edge of town.