The Sussex Place-Names Net is a group of people having an active scholarly interest in the place-names of Sussex, major and minor. "Having an interest" means collecting names, making databases, constructing and publishing explanations of names, identifying the sites named by names no longer current, and putting specialist knowledge from other disciplines at the disposal of place-name scholars. They publish in the informal journal called Locus focus. The "owners" and copyright-holders of Locus focus are the Net; the editor is Richard Coates, whose address you must know since you are reading this through his web-site. Many Net members are also online and participate in a discussion-group to which outsiders are welcome to send queries or contribute in other ways. We can be found at
spnn@cogs.susx.ac.ukOur aim - a rather general one - is to make further information available to a future Editor in Sussex of the English Place-Name Survey. The Survey covered Sussex over 70 years ago, but published very little in its two-volume work The place-names of Sussex (1929/30) about the minor names of the county. Such a distance also makes it possible for new views to arise about the origin and meaning of the names that were actually surveyed. We hope to contribute to all aspects of the enterprise, in both collection and correction.
We are not a mindlessly exclusive body, and would be happy to welcome new members to the Net, with no formal qualifications required but with the sole condition that anybody wishing to join should be active in research, on however small a scale, anxious to make their findings widely known, and keen to join in semi-public discussion. Contributions to Locus focus, queries, notes, short articles (1000 words maximum), notices of events, are welcomed from members of the Net and non-members alike. Notes and short articles will be subject to editorial control in a friendly and constructive spirit.
We expect to publish two issues a year, in Spring and Autumn. For the time being, this will happen thanks to the good offices of the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences at the University of Sussex.
The first twelve issues are available online, though without non-text material, 1,1 1,2 1,3 2,1 2,2 3,1 3,2 4,1 4,2 5,1 5,2 6,1 .