Poling was the site of a small preceptory of the Knights Hospitaller, a house of the Order of St John. The Victoria County History notes that after the order was suppressed the property passed to the college at Arundel in 1541.
The ghost story is one of the sound hauntings of this part of Sussex. Peter Benner, writing for Sussex Exclusive, lists the monkish choir at Poling among the county's well known manifestations of ghostly music, alongside a lone singer at Didling and a phantom polka player at Angmering.
The article does not name a witness, a date or a particular house, and 'monks' is a loose label, since the Hospitallers were a military and religious order. The story is recorded here as a thin tradition with a real historic site behind it, not as a documented event. The pin is at village level.
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