Editing Midhurst (section)

== History ==
Midhurst developed as a Saxon village at a strategic crossroads of what are now the [[A272 road|A272]] (east-west) and [[A286 road|A286]] (north-south) routes.<ref name=Timeline>{{cite web |url=http://www.cowdray.co.uk/historic-cowdray/history/ |title=History &#124; Cowdray Estate |publisher=Cowdray.co.uk |date=31 March 2007 |access-date=15 October 2015 |archive-date=23 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923210815/http://www.cowdray.co.uk/historic-cowdray/history/ |url-status=live }}</ref> There may have been a village there since Roman times. After the Norman Conquest Robert de Montgomery ordered the building of a [[motte-and-bailey castle]] on what is now called St Ann's Hill, a strategic bluff on a curve of the River Rother, overlooking the cross-roads and a long stretch of Rother Valley to the north, east and the west, protecting the River Rother crossing. St Ann's Hill may also have been the site of an Iron Age fort<ref>{{cite web|title=Midhurst Society – St Ann's Hill|url=http://www.midhurstsociety.org.uk/web/stannsleaflet.pdf|access-date=16 May 2014|archive-date=17 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517152836/http://www.midhurstsociety.org.uk/web/stannsleaflet.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Although there has been a settlement in Midhurst since at least the early [[House of Normandy|Norman]] period, and probably from Saxon times, the buildings in the Old Town, centred on the Market Square, are principally Tudor in origin. Almost every house in this part of the town dates back to the 16th Century, and parts of a few buildings, such as the old coaching inn that is now the Spread Eagle Hotel, date to the 15th century. Even the apparently more modern North Street is lined with Tudor buildings behind classical and Georgian façades that were added during the 17th and 18th centuries, a time of prosperity for the town.<ref name="Tudor Midhurst">''Tudor Midhurst''. A Midhurst Society Publication (brochure). 2nd Edition 2009</ref> There are also several actual 18th-century buildings scattered throughout the town, and distinctive Victorian and Edwardian developments of terraced housing along the main routes out of Midhurst.  During the mid and late 20th Century there was significant housing development to the south of the town, in the Little Midhurst, Holmbush and Fairway areas, which continued into the 21st century.

=== Manorial (pre-modern) period ===
In 1106 Savaric fitz Cana (Fitzcane) received land in Midhurst and the neighbouring village of Easebourne from [[Henry I, King of England|Henry I]], and in 1158 his son built a fortified manor house on St. Anne's Hill. The family later adopted the de Bohun name, and in about 1280 abandoned the fortified manor house to build their principal home on flat land across the River Rother from St. Ann's Hill, in the neighbouring parish of Easebourne, 'at a place called Coudreye' (old French for a "hazel grove").<ref name=Timeline/> Between 1284 and 1311 St Ann's Castle was in the hands of the [[Bishop of Durham]], and during that period was largely dismantled.<ref name="british-history.ac.uk">[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80 "Midhurst"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603010842/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80 |date=3 June 2015 }}, in ''A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester'', ed. L F Salzman (London, 1953), pp. 74–80 [accessed 28 May 2015].</ref>

However "the chapel of St. Denis within the former castle of Midhurst"<ref>Suss. Rec. Soc. xlvi, 315. Footnote 4 in [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80 "Midhurst"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603010842/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80 |date=3 June 2015 }}, in ''A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester'', ed. L F Salzman (London, 1953), pp. 74–80 [accessed 28 May 2015]</ref> appears to have escaped the destruction, as it was functioning in 1291, and is referred to in 1367 as standing "in a place called Courtgrene".<ref>Cal. Inq. p.m. xii, 127.  Footnote 5 in [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80 "Midhurst"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603010842/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80 |date=3 June 2015 }}, in ''A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester'', ed. L F Salzman (London, 1953), pp. 74–80 [accessed 28 May 2015]</ref> There is still a house called Court Green beside the current entrance to the castle enclosure. At some period after this date the chapel of St. Dennis was eventually demolished, and the re-built foundation can be seen within the castle curtain wall.

The parish church in Midhurst originated as a medieval chapel dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. In about 1216 the founding charter of a
college of priests at Easebourne (re-established about 1230 as a Benedictine nunnery), lists Midhurst amongst its dependent chapels. When Easebourne Priory was suppressed in 1536 and handed to the Fitzwilliam family, the chapel in Midhurst achieved parish church status, and was substantially re-built.  The additional dedication of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene to St Denis (also the dedication of the former chapel within the castle) is first recorded in 1764.<ref name="westsussex1">{{cite web |url=https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/media/1736/midhurst_eus_report_and_maps.pdf |title=Midhurst Historic Character Assessment Report |date=January 2010 |author=Roland B Harris |publisher=Westsussex.gov.uk |access-date=15 October 2015 |archive-date=10 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610213019/https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/media/1736/midhurst_eus_report_and_maps.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

The little town developed outside the castle, mainly to service it and the immediate surrounding area, and to provide a market place for local agricultural surpluses. It was bounded by an escarpment dropping in the north to the Town Meadow, in the east to the River Rother and in the South to a tributary to the Rother. To the west it was bounded until the late 12th century by a 1.5-metre deep ditch, with a dyke and pallisade, approximately where Duck (or Dyke) Lane now lies.<ref name="westsussex1"/>

Other than the castle, the principal engine of growth for the town was its regular market, for which the earliest known reference is in 1223.  Many of the early buildings were grouped around the market area.  These houses were built of highly perishable materials, and none have survived. Most would have been about a perch wide (about 5 metres), with long gardens at the rear, opening onto back lanes. On market days country people would bring their produce to sell at stalls in the open air.  Apart from foodstuffs, the principal trades were in wool, cloth and leather, and related trades such as weaving, whitening, quilt-making and cobbling.  These were largely determined by the predominance of shepherding in the surrounding agricultural area.<ref name="Tudor Midhurst"/>

Midhurst was a '[[free borough]]' and in 1278 was said to have been so from time beyond memory. It was governed by a bailiff who was elected by the burgesses from among themselves.  The bailiff regulated the market by ensuring the assize of bread and ale, appointing two ale-tasters yearly, and acted as clerk of the market. Disputes over the respective rights and duties of town and manor were settled in 1409 by an agreement whereby Michael Bageley and six other named burgesses agreed, on behalf of themselves and their successors, to pay 40 shillings a year to Sir John de Bohun, Lord of the Manor, and his heirs, for the right to take the market tolls.  In return they were required to hold both the three-weekly courts and to conduct two 'law days' in the name of Sir John. If they failed for a whole year to hold the courts the agreement should lapse, and if they neglected to keep the streets and ditches in order the lord's manorial officers should be responsible for apprehending offenders, but were required to hand over any fines to the burgesses. This arrangement was confirmed in 1537 by Sir William Fitzwilliam, after his purchase of the manor.<ref name="british-history.ac.uk"/>

Midhurst was first represented in the [[Parliament of England|Parliament]] of 1301 and was consistently represented from 1382 onwards. From these early beginnings, and until the Great Reform Act of 1832, the town had two members of parliament. The electors were the owners of certain properties, which were marked by "[[burgage]] stones", one of these stones remains and can be seen with a descriptive plaque embedded in the wall of a building just north of the Old Library (Council Offices) on Knockhundred Row.

=== Early modern period ===
[[File:Cowdray House by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm 1781.jpg|thumb|[[Cowdray House]] by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm 1781, from site of modern Polo Ground. St. Ann's Hill is in background, just to right of the House.]]
The event that had the greatest effect on the town in the Tudor period was the re-building of [[Cowdray House]], which commenced in the 1520s.<ref name="Tudor Midhurst"/> Sir David Owen, illegitimate son of [[Owen Tudor]] and uncle to [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]], began construction of the building that is now in ruins beside the River Rother, on the site of the former building called Coudreye, which he had acquired upon the death of his wife Mary Bohun.  Her family had built the original house there between 1273 and 1284, after they abandoned their original castle on St Ann's Hill.<ref name=Timeline/> The rebuilding continued after 1529, when Sir David Owen's son sold it to Sir William Fitzwilliam.<ref>Footnote 52 in [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80#fnn52 "Midhurst"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603010842/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80#fnn52 |date=3 June 2015 }}, in ''A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester'', ed. L F Salzman (London, 1953), pp. 74–80 [accessed 28 May 2015]</ref>

The Fitzwilliams were a staunch Catholic family, and remained so throughout the [[English Reformation]] and beyond, making Midhurst a centre of Catholicism into the 17th century.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80#fnn7 |title=Midhurst &#124; British History Online |publisher=British-history.ac.uk |access-date=15 October 2015 |archive-date=25 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925024620/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp74-80#fnn7 |url-status=live }}</ref> Nevertheless, the Fitzwilliams were [[courtiers]] who maintained generally good relationships with the royal family and benefitted from considerable enrichment during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, at its height between 1536 and 1538.<ref name="Timeline"/> They were therefore able to inject vast sums of money into the property and its mansion.  Completed about 1540, the estate had a major impact on the local economy. Enormous amounts of food were required to feed the approximately 200 servants, huge numbers of family and visitors.  About thirty separate dishes were served to anything up to 500 people at the main daily meal. Similarly, the building works themselves, using brick and stone rather than the locally produced materials of other local buildings at the time (typically timber framing infilled with [[wattle and daub]]), would have required vast amounts of transport, storage and accounting, bringing artists, craftspeople and specialists of many kinds to the town, driving the development of a local middle class.  There are two wall paintings in the town said to have been painted by artists working on the mansion who were lodging in the houses concerned.  One is in the building on North Street currently occupied by the Olive and Vine Restaurant and Bar, and the other is in Elizabeth House, beside the Swan Inn in Red Lion Street.  They are thought to be either practice images for the work in the mansion, or painted in lieu of rent.  The image in North Street tells the story of King Ahab robbing Nathan of his family vineyard, reflecting the despair that the mostly Catholic population of the town felt in being forbidden by the monarch to practice their religion.<ref name="Tudor Midhurst"/>
[[File:Postbox in North Street - geograph.org.uk - 1749785.jpg|thumb|Part of North Street looking north]]
The extension of the town along the former lane to Easebourne towards the new mansion, which had begun in the early 14th century with the building of the first mansion on the river-side site, now intensified. This contributed to the economic expansion, as merchants built new houses and shops on North Street to facilitate their dealings with Cowdray House. It was during this period that the Angel Hotel was built, as a coaching house in response to the growing travel. Fifty years later, it hosted many of the Pilgrim Fathers, on their way from London and East Anglia to Plymouth.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}

The local labour market was distorted as workers were diverted from their conventional tasks to work as servants or contribute to the building.<ref>Tudor Midhurst: A Midhurst Society Publication.  2nd Edition 2009</ref> Town officials were concerned at the redirection of the Midhurst economy away from its traditional centre around the market place and towards the newly dynamic Cowdray House.  The bailiff and burgesses petitioned Sir Anthony Fitzwilliam to give them a plot of land on which to build a market house near the church, as a focus for commerce in the Old Town.  This was built in the market square in 1551, and although much altered since, it probably looked similar to the market house currently at the Weald and Downland Museum, with open bays on the ground floor, and an upstairs room for official use.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}

In 1605, the owner of [[Cowdray House]], [[Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu]], was briefly arrested in connection with the [[Gunpowder Plot]]. He was suspected as a plotter because of his Catholic religion and connections with several of the known plotters. Among others, he had briefly employed [[Guy Fawkes]], a native of Lewes in East Sussex, as a footman.  In addition he had stayed away from [[Parliament of England|Parliament]] on 5 November following a warning from [[Robert Catesby]], the leader of the plot. Anthony-Maria Browne spent about a year in the Tower of London, died in 1629 and is buried in Midhurst Church. Later in the 17th century, this influence began to wane. By 1621, there were about forty households of [[Recusancy|recusants]] in Midhurst. In 1634, one John Arismandy appointed John Cope and Richard Shelley to administer certain moneys after his death to provide a priest for the poor Catholics of Midhurst, to say masses every week for his soul and 'my lords ancestors'. This deed was found in the 19th century in a box hidden in the chimney of an old house with rosaries and other religious objects.

In the mid-1630s, Sir Anthony Browne employed the fashionable cook, [[Robert May (chef)|Robert May]] to be the chef at Cowdray House.  In 1565, he published one of the earliest British cook-books – ''The Accomplisht Cook''.<ref>O'Flynn, Maurice. "England's First Celebrity Chef". champchefs.com. Retrieved 30 June 2011.</ref><ref>FoodReference.com. "The Accomplisht Cook, 1665–1685". foodreference.com. Retrieved 30 June 2011.</ref>

In 1637, an ecclesiastical court case records parishioners of Midhurst playing [[cricket]] during evening prayer on Sunday, 26 February (Julian), one of the sport's earliest references.<ref>McCann T (2004) ''Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century'', p.p. xxxviii–xxxix. Sussex Record Society.</ref>

By the mid-17th century, the Anglican church was well established and Catholicism apparently declining, although about a quarter of families remained Catholic, and 30 years later there were a similar proportion of [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|Nonconformist]] families.  In 1642, during the [[English Civil War]], the '[[Protestation Returns of 1641–1642|Protestation]]' in support of the Anglican Church was signed by 207 men in Midhurst, but 54 'recusant Papists' refused at first to sign it. Two days later 35 of these did sign, probably excepting the special clause denouncing the Roman Faith, as did their colleagues at Easebourne, where there was an equal number of recusants. By 1676, the estimated numbers of Conformists (Anglicans) was recorded as being 341, of Roman Catholics 56, and of Nonconformists 50.<ref name="british-history.ac.uk"/>

=== Modern period ===
In 1831 there were only 41 eligible voters and Midhurst was considered a [[rotten borough]]. In the [[Great Reform Act]] of 1832 Midhurst was reduced to one Member of Parliament and the constituency was expanded to include most of the surrounding villages.

Cowdray House and estate was owned by the Montagu family until 1843, when it was bought by the [[George Perceval, 6th Earl of Egmont|6th Earl of Egmont]], who sold it in 1910 to Sir Weetman Dickinson Pearson who in 1917 became Viscount Cowdray. The current owner is the 4th Viscount.

There was a gasworks adjacent to The Wharf just south of St. Ann's Hill; The Wharf is the last remnant of a once busy navigation canal, the Rother Navigation,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AMt1kS-O1zkC&q=Midhurst+gasworks&pg=PA117 |title=A Midhurst Lad: A Sussex Childhood from the Mid 1920s to the Late 30s - Ronald Boxall - Google Books |isbn=9781904278313 |access-date=2019-02-10 |last1=Boxall |first1=Ronald |year=2003 |publisher=Red'n'Ritten |archive-date=23 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123000319/https://books.google.com/books?id=AMt1kS-O1zkC&q=Midhurst+gasworks&pg=PA117 |url-status=live }}</ref> described in the listing for a bridge over the former canal.<ref>{{NHLE|num=1392319 |desc=Bridge on former Rother Navigation |grade=II |access-date=10 April 2025 }}</ref>

In 2002, [[Country Life (magazine)|Country Life]] magazine rated Midhurst the second best place to live in Britain, after [[Alnwick]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/guidescounty/article/108422/Best-place-to-live-in-Britain.html#part2 |title=Best place to live in Britain |publisher=Country Life |access-date=15 October 2015 |archive-date=22 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140622124524/http://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/guidescounty/article/108422/Best-place-to-live-in-Britain.html#part2 |url-status=live }}</ref>