It seems that originally 'Sulla's place' was a small settlement that lay on the drove road, crossing the Downs above it, en route to villages to the north. The area has evidence of human habitation (and burials) from Neolithic through Celtic, Roman and Saxon times. A hoard of Saxon Silver was found nearby at Upper Chancton Farm, but none (so far!) in Sullington.

For many centuries after the settlement's name was recorded as Sullington, it remained little more than a few scattered dwellings. There were only 21 taxpayers in 1327. This long narrow parish, like its neighbours, had an area of downland for sheep, arable in the valley and woodland to the north on the greensand and gravel.

The ancient village church, whose earliest parts are of c. 1000, is surrounded on three sides by the manor farmstead, and the old rectory lay c. 300 metres to the north-east.

A mill on the western boundary existed in 1086. There are two very old timber-framed cottages along the Thakeham Road, Water Lane Farm, and Leather Bottle Cottage which served at some date before 1812 as the Duke's Head inn but no inn was recorded after 1855.

There were two "great houses" in the parish, Sandgate north of the main road and Rowdell on the Washington border south of the road.

The park round Sandgate, including lodges and cottages, was created in the 19th century. A school was opened west of the Thakeham road in 1866.

During WWI, the timber on the Sandgate Estate was felled for pit and trench props, and after WWII the house was demolished and the sand on which it stood extracted for the building industry. The proximity of sand and clay gave rise to Sullington's major industry between the wars, brick and tile making, at Chantry and the Thakeham road and quarries exist until the present day.

At this time building started around the Warren, a unique habitat of silver sand and heather, natural beauty and spectacular views of the Downs. Under the energetic leadership of Miss Clarke-Williams, moves were made to save The Warren and place it in the stewardship of the National Trust. It exists today as a wonderful 80 acre recreational area serving the greater Storrington community.

In the 1970s an industrial estate and some small factories grew up along Water Lane.
In 1981 the population was 2,225, virtually all development having taken place in the north of Sullington, linking it to Storrington, and away from the original church and farm which still today sit in a delightful tranquil, unsurrounded position under the South Downs.

A village hall was built in the 1950s and replaced by a new hall on the same site in 1984, and in 2004, Storrington and Sullington Parish Councils combined as one, a proposition which was first rejected in 1930!