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Horsham District Council - Heritage Trail - Dragon's Teeth to defend Horsham [full inscription unknown]
9 Causeway, Horsham, United Kingdom
WEST CHILTINGTON St Mary’s wall paintings Prehistoric and Roman remains have been found in the parish, and the Sinnocks, a curious local road name, was a medieval common field. You can see the old village stocks and whipping post prominently placed by the churchyard wall. A church was recorded in the Domesday record (1086), probably on this site, but the present building dates mainly from the 1100s. Entering the church you will see paintings in the south aisle, on the arches and south wall of the nave that have been dated to the 1150s. These include an Annunciation and Nativity with shepherds, both appropriate for a church dedicated to St Mary. There is evidence for new paintings being made over these in the 1300s, and a Christ with tools and a St Christopher date from the 1400s. The colours are still remarkably fresh, and remind us that early churches were often a riot of colour.
Church Street, West Chiltington, United Kingdom
THAKEHAM Domesday church and an attempted murder This is the heart of an ancient parish, the church was listed in the Domesday survey of 1086, when herds of over 400 pigs were pastured nearby, and a retired soldier worked his land with a yoke of oxen. In 1257, near Champions Farm opposite the Abingworth Hall Hotel on the Storrington Road, the rector was brutally attacked and nearly killed by a group of men led by the rector of neighbouring West Chiltington, probably as the result of a disagreement over the church tax known as tithes. In the 1600s, Champions was owned by the Shelley family, ancestors of the Warnham-born poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The church contains an impressive series of 16th century memorials to some of the Apsley family who lived at Thakeham Place, just to the south, and one to James Butler of Amberley Castle.
Crays Lane, Thakeham, United Kingdom
STORRINGTON Storks and artists In 1086 the Domesday Book records Storrington as ‘Estorchestone’ a place well-known for storks. The history of Storrington has little to do with storks, and more to do with being a flourishing market place, with a fulling and tanning industry. In the early part of the 20th century it was also a centre of an artistic community. Storrington was given permission to hold a regular market from 1399, as well as a twice-yearly fair. These continued until the end of the nineteenth century. With the markets went inns and public houses, the White Horse was recorded as an inn in 1666, and the Half Moon in 1844. Rabbit breeding was also once an important local industry, and is still indicated by various place names ending in ‘warren’, signifying a place where rabbits were kept. Until the 1800s there were three working windmills and three watermills, and there was at least one earlier fulling mill down Chantry Lane. Fulling was a part of a process of preparing cloth that needed running water. At the end of the 19th century Horsham District became the home for a number of Roman Catholic orders forced to flee persecution in France. At Storrington the White Canons built a priory. This became the home for a number of artists including the poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907) who spent two years trying to beat opium addiction, and Hilaire Belloc who stayed there in 1906. The area attracted Wilfred Meynell, the poet and writer, as well as Arthur Bell (1875-1918) the disabled poet. Bell lies buried in the churchyard, his headstone was carved by the then up and coming sculptor Eric Gill. Sir Arnold Bax, the composer lived at Storrington until his death in 1953. At nearby Sullington lived the writer A J Cronin and various artists including Edwin Harris, some of whose watercolours can be seen at Horsham Museum.
Old Mill Drive , Storrington, United Kingdom
PARHAM Golden Pippins and Victorian Adventurer This name first recorded in 959AD comes from words meaning ‘the pear tree settlement’, but the fruit most associated with Parham is the Golden Pippin Apple, which probably originated here in 1629. Robert Palmer, a citizen and mercer of London, bought Parham in 1540. His son Thomas, who sailed with Francis Drake, laid the foundation stone for the present house in 1577. It was sold to Thomas Bishop of Henfield in 1601, and his descendants lived there until 1922, when Baroness Zouche sold to the Pearson family. In the 1830s the 14th Baron Zouche, Robert Curzon, visited monasteries in the Near East rescuing many historic biblical manuscripts that are now in the British Library. He wrote one of the best travel books of the Victorian era ‘Visit to the Monasteries in the Levant’ retelling his adventures. There have been pleasure grounds and orchards here since earliest times, and the park is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest, with ancient trees and rare lichens. Deer have roamed here since at least 1628, and in the early 1700s, workers were paid 6d a night for ‘watching’ to guard against poaching. For most of its history Parham has been a quiet peaceful place, though it was sacked during the Civil War like nearby Amberley Castle. The church of St Peter in the grounds of Parham House was mostly rebuilt in the early 1800s, although there are remains from the 1500s in the vestry. There are box pews, with a fireplace in the one belonging to the lord of the manor, and the pulpit and screen are Georgian. The 6th baronet is said to have demolished the village, then sited around the church, and rebuilt it at Rackham, but archaeologists have found nothing to support this story.
PARHAM House, A283, Parham, United Kingdom
HARDHAM Early wall paintings and Roman sites Hardham Church was probably built c.1050, and has one of the finest series of wall paintings in the county, painted in the 1100s. It is one of a group of six churches including West Chiltington where the surviving paintings can be compared with contemporary illustrated manuscripts. A single group of painters may have been responsible for these wall paintings. Re-used Roman bricks and tiles in the walls of the church, remind us that Hardham is close to the line of Stane Street, the Roman road. Several Roman sites have been found in the vicinity, notably a military staging post, bath house and villa. From this site anyone in power could control the tidal waters of both the River Arun & River Rother. A bridge built in 1785 over the River Arun, and by-passed in 1936, can be found on the east side of the present road crossing into Pulborough. This is a small version of the medieval bridge further west at Stopham.
St Botolph's Church, London Road, Hardham, United Kingdom
Pulborough. Pulla’s hill and coaching inns'. In front of you is the lush floodplain of the Arun abundant with fish and wildfowl, one of the main reasons Pulborough has been settled for over 200,000 years. The evidence for these early settlers are the flint tools that they left behind and locally found examples can be seen at Horsham Museum. Roman settlements lie under modern day Pulborough, and appeared at the junction of Stane Street, the road that linked London to Chichester, with the Roman road from Barcombe east of Lewes. It was the Saxons, who followed the Romans, which gave Pulborough its name meaning Pulla’s hill or the hill by the pool. By the time the Domesday Book was written in 1086 there were 2 churches, 2 mills and 100 households rich enough to be recorded. The early settlement was built around the parish church, and two manor house sites can be seen at Old Place, now an empty moated site and New Place where part of a medieval building still survives. As you walk or drive down the hill into Pulborough you will be following the shift of the village’s focus, as by 1600 it was strung out along Lower Street away from the parish church. This shift increased with the construction of a new bridge across the Arun in 1785, the opening of the Arundel to Petworth turnpike in 1803, and the railway station in 1859. Pulborough apart from being a suitable coaching stop at inns like the old Swan, between London and Chichester, was also a centre for the local leather industry. Whilst Pot Lane that now lies on Pot Common was probably the site of a local pottery.
Old Rectory Lane, Pulborough, United Kingdom