Although Heene is now a well-known residential area in West Worthing (originally known as 'Hene'), its history reaches back before the expansion of Worthing in the 1830s. Even so, the cemetery itself was only established relatively recently in 1873.
Summaries of the area's history are shown here, followed by details about the Friends of Heene Cemetery.
The villages of 'Hene' and Heene: key dates
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1086
The village of Hene was recorded in the Domesday Book.
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1558 - 1603
During this Elizabethan period, the area had 60 households with common land (salt grasses) and orchards.
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c1700
The oldest cottages in Heene Road date from this time.
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1801
There were 16 households with a population of 101 residents.
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1830
A large part of the Manor of Heene, owned by William Westbrook Richardson, was sold for residential development. The purchaser was the Heene Estate Land Company.
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1864
The Heene Estate Land Company sold their part of the Manor of Heene to the West Worthing Investment Company with a condition stipulating the construction of a new church.
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1866
Venetian-style Gothic swimming baths with an assembly room were built north of Heene Terrace, with another terrace being built east of the hotel the following year.
Heene Lane
Bushby's Farm
Heene Farm painted by Mrs W E Partridge, 1841
Heene Mill, Worthing
Heene area of West Worthing in 1896 (with the cemetery marked in green)
Heene area of West Worthing in 1879 (with the cemetery marked in green)
Heene Cemetery: key dates
You can view a separate timeline of burials, year-by-year, from 1873 to 1977 on a separate page.
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1873
The partly completed church of St Botolph's on St Michael's Road was consecrated by the Bishop of Chichester, Dr Durnford, on September 29th 1873.
The first two burials took place in the newly-created cemetery (an 11-year-old boy, Arthur William Harding, and a 64-year-old woman, Ann Blann).
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1977
Heene Cemetery was closed for burials by order of Her Majesty the Queen on 21st December 1977.
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1981 - 1983
Amid the cemetery's evident neglect, the Sussex Family History Group produced a register of monumental inscriptions.
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1986 - 1988
Various proposals were mooted for transforming the neglected and overgrown cemetery into a landscaped park - with headstones being moved to the edge. These eventually came to nothing through lack of funds.
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1992
The site was designated a Site of Nature Conservation Importance because of its old meadow community of neutral grassland and scrub, representing a small but vital oasis for wildlife in built-up Worthing.
(More recently, this designation migrated to being a Sussex Local Wildlife Site.)
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1994 - 1995
Resurrected plans to transform the cemetery into a landscaped park (or memorial garden) were finally rejected on ecological grounds. The Sussex Wildlife Trust, West Sussex County Council's ecological section and Worthing Borough Council's environmental department expressed opposition to any such development.
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1995 –2008
The Sussex Wildlife Trust maintained the cemetery with a quarterly cycle of clearance.
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2008 - 2015
The cemetery was once again left uncared for.
Although the church remains the owner of Heene Cemetery, the place is today managed by Adur & Worthing Council in partnership with the Friends of Heene Cemetery.
The Friends of Heene Cemetery: key dates
The Friends is a group of volunteers. The group has a committee (chair, secretary, treasurer and membership secretary), a constitution, and maintains its own bank account. It pays for its website and various ongoing expenses entirely through voluntary donation. Members and supporters pay an annual membership fee.
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2015
The Friends of Heene Cemetery was formed. (The Friends is an unincorporated, constituted association.)
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2018
The site's designation as a Site of Nature Conservation Importance changed to being a Sussex Local Wildlife Site.
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2020
A grant of £10,000 was awarded to the Friends of Heene Cemetery by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to collect, preserve and share the history of Heene Cemetery burials.
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2020
The Friends of Heene Cemetery’s first website was launched, becoming the repository of the group’s burials and species research.
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2022
1,500 biographies of burials completed; the 500th species identified.
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2024
The Friends were awarded a grant of £3,300 by the Worthing Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Neighbourhood Fund to support their Biodiversity and Researching Social History of Heene Cemetery project.
The Friends designed and launched version 2 of their website, doing this themselves without the need for external funding.
The work of the Friends of Heene Cemetery has been recognized by the award of the Green Flag Community Award in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
March 2022 Open Day tour
Butterfly count during Covid 2020
Friends volunteering 2020
Celebrating the glass panel on Worthing Pier
March 2022 Open Day
Open Day 2020 during Covid
Our sponsors
From time to time, we have benefited from the generosity of various sponsors. Chief amongst these were:
- an award in February 2020 of £10,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, enabling the Friends to commission and launch their first website
- and a grant of £3,300 by the Worthing Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Neighbourhood Fund to support their Biodiversity and Researching Social History of Heene Cemetery project.
