Hurstpierpoint, Sussex

Historical Description

Hurstpierpoint (locally called Hurst), a small town and a parish in Sussex. The town stands on an eminence, under the South Downs, 1½ mile WNW of Hassocks station on the L.B. & S.C.R., and 8 miles N by W of Brighton, comprises one long street, and has a good inn, a weekly corn market on Tuesday. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Hassocks (R.S.O.) Acreage of the civil parish, 5088; population, 2883; of the ecclesiastical, 2429. The manor was held by Earl Godwin, passed to the Fitzwarrens, the Pierre-points, the Dacres, the Gorings, and the Shaws, and belongs now to the Campions. Danny Park, a Tudor edifice, stands close under the Downs, and is surrounded with a park containing some old trees. Pakyns, half a mile W of the village, is the old house of the Borrer family. A circular camp, probably Early British, is on Wolstanbury Hill, at the back of Danny Park. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chichester; gross value,, £650 with residence. The church was rebuilt from designs by Sir Charles Barry, is in the Early Decorated English style, contains some ancient monuments, and a brass to the Right Rev. James Hannington, D.D., first bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa. St George's chapel of ease is a small building in the Gothic style, and was erected in 1851. The chapelyard commands views eastward to Ash-down Forest, and northward to Leith Hill in Surrey. There are Baptist and Wesleyan chapels, a large middle-class school, and charities. The middle-class school is St John's College, in connection with similar foundations at Lancing and Ard-ingly; it stands about a' mile E of the town, was built in 1851 at a cost of, £20, 000, contains accommodation for 300 boys, and has a chapel in the Early Middle Pointed style, built in 1862. The Diocesan Training School for Poorhouse Girls, Chichester House, was founded by the Hon. Mrs Campion of Danny Park in 1884, and is available for twenty-six girls. The late William Harrison Ainsworth, novelist, was for some time a resident in this village. Sayers Common, a hamlet 2 miles north-west, was formed into an ecclesiastical parish from the civil parish of Hurstpierpoint in 1881. Christ Church, erected in 1880, is a building of flint and red brick in the Early Pointed style. The living is a vicarage; value, £159. Patron, the Rector of Hurstpierpoint.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Hurstpierpoint from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Hurst-Pierrepoint (St. Lawrence))

Maps

Online maps of Hurstpierpoint are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Sussex newspapers online:

• Mid Sussex Times
• Chichester Express and West Sussex Journal
• Sussex Agricultural Express
• Hastings and St Leonards Observer
• Sussex Advertiser
• Brighton Gazette
• Bexhill-on-Sea Observer