Woolbeding is a village and

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish priest ...

in the District of Chichester in

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

, England, north-west of

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town, parish and civil parish in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother inland from the English Channel, and north of the county town of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first recorded in 1186 as ''Middeh ...

and north of the River Rother and A272 road. The

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

of Woolbeding with Redford has a land area of . The 2001 census recorded 158 people living in 70 households, of whom 83 were economically active.

History

Woolbeding was listed in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

(1086) in the ancient

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

Easebourne Easebourne () is a village, Anglican parish and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is half a mile (0.8 km) north of Midhurst, across the River Rother on the A272 and A286 roads. The parish includes the ham ...

as having 24 households: 14 villagers, 5 smallholders and five slaves; with woodland, ploughing land, meadows, a mill and church, it had a value to the lord of the manor of £6. Woolbeding Bridge across the River Rother is a medieval one, with three arches and two cutwaters. The large 18th century

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

Woolbeding House Woolbeding House is an 18th-century country house in Woolbeding, near Midhurst, West Sussex, England. It is a Grade I listed building. It was probably built by Sir Richard Mill Bt between 1711 and 1760 and was originally of a quadrangular plan ...

, is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It was the home of the late

Simon Sainsbury Simon David Davan Sainsbury (1 March 1930 – 27 September 2006) was a British businessman, philanthropist and art collector. Early life Sainsbury was born in London,Sainsbury supermarket family. The

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

owns the Woolbeding Estate, which includes

Woolbeding and Pound Commons Woolbeding and Pound Commons is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Midhurst in West Sussex. The commons have areas of wet and dry heath, woodland, ponds and wet flushes. Invertebrates include a number of Red Data Book spe ...

which are

Sites of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

. Telegraph Hill, from Woolbeding, was the site of a station on the

semaphore line An optical telegraph is a line of stations, typically towers, for the purpose of conveying textual information by means of visual signals. There are two main types of such systems; the semaphore telegraph which uses pivoted indicator arms and ...

from London to Portsmouth which operated from 1822 to 1847. It was previously called "Holder" or "Older" Hill. In 1861, the parish's area was , with a population of 338.

Parish church

All Hallows parish church is a Grade I

. The oldest parts of the church are

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

. The tower is small, with eight short pinnacles in a vaguely medieval style. It was built in 1728 but it has

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...

s that look like re-used Saxon or

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

ones. The present

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

and was built in 1870 but the nave has tall Anglo-Saxon proportions, with plain

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s from ground to roof, and a blocked doorway. There are more pilasters on the north wall, including a truncated one with traces of a filled-in window above it. The quoins are of large stones. These features suggest a Saxon date for the main body of the church. Inside the church is a wall monument to Lady Dame Margaret Mill, wife of Sir Richard Mill of Woolbeding, daughter of Robert Knollys, Esq., of "Grove Place, Co. Southampton", died 1744, aged 56. The coat of arms shown is ''Per fesse Argent and Sable, a pale, and three bears salient, two and one, counterchanged, muzzled and chained Or'', impaling ''Gules, on a chevron Argent three roses of the field, a canton Argent'' (recte: ''Ermine'' ). Next to a wall that separates the churchyard from the grounds of the manor house is a miniature mausoleum with Tuscan columns and square pilasters, with a frieze of military trophies such as pikes, rifles, cannon, battleaxes, drums and a helmet. There is a line of ancient yew trees near the church.

Woolbeding poets

The English Romantic poet

Charlotte Turner Smith Charlotte Smith (née Turner; – ) was an English novelist and poet of the School of Sensibility whose ''Elegiac Sonnets'' (1784) contributed to the revival of the form in England. She also helped to set conventions for Gothic fiction and wro ...

lived at Woolbeding House in the mid-1780s. Two poets grew up in the parish, each the son of a Rector of All Hallows parish, but in different centuries:

Thomas Otway Thomas Otway (3 March 165214 April 1685) was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for ''Venice Preserv'd'', or ''A Plot Discover'd'' (1682). Life Otway was born at Trotton near Midhurst, the parish of which his father, H ...

(1652-1685) and

Francis William Bourdillon Francis William Bourdillon (22 March 1852 at Runcorn, Cheshire, England – 13 January 1921 at Buddington, Midhurst) was a British poet and translator. He is known also as a bibliophile. Life Born at Trinity Parsonage, Halton Road, Runcorn, Chesh ...

(1852-1921); whose father was Rector from 1855 to 1875.

References

Sources

External links

Woolbeding with Redford Parish CouncilFurther historical information and sources on GENUKI
{{authority control Civil parishes in West Sussex Chichester District