Travel Midhurst Map

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Midhurst tourist guide map of landmarks & destinations by Walkfo

Midhurst history

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Midhurst developed as a Saxon village at a strategic crossroads of what are now the A272 (east-west) and A286 (north-south) routes. 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.

Manorial (pre-modern) period

In 1106 Savaric fitz Cana (Fitzcane) received land in Midhurst and the neighbouring village of Easebourne from Henry I. In 1158 his son built a fortified manor house on St. Anne’s Hill. The family later adopted the de Bohun name, and built their principal home across the River Rother. Between 1284 and 1311 St Ann’s Castle was in the hands of the Bishop of Durham, and during that period was largely dismantled. The chapel of St. Denis within the former castle of Midhurst appears to have escaped the destruction, as it was functioning in 1291.

Early modern period

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. Sir David Owen, illegitimate son of Owen Tudor and uncle to 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. The rebuilding continued after 1529, when Sir David Owen’s son sold it to Sir William Fitzwilliam. 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. 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. 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. 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. The local labour market was distorted as workers were diverted from their conventional tasks to work as servants or contribute to the building. 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. 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 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 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 to be the chef at Cowdray House. In 1565, he published one of the earliest British cook-books – The Accomplisht Cook. 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. 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 families. In 1642, during the English Civil War, the ‘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. In 1672 the wealthy local coverlet maker, Gilbert Hannan, founded a grammar school for twelve poor boys in the upper room of the Market House. This school is the antecedent of the current Midhurst Rother College.

Modern period

Cowdray House and estate was owned by the Montagu family until 1843, when it was bought by the 6th Earl of Egmont. Country Life magazine rated Midhurst the second best place to live in Britain, after Alnwick.

  

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