Town Teasers

QUESTION:

Cowdray House was supposed to have been destroyed by what?

ANSWER

A curse of Fire and Water apparently did for the house in 1793.

Ooopsy daisy...

There are two versions of the story. One, the sub prioress of Easbourne Priory was a bit put out when Henry Vlll chucked her and her fellow nuns out in, the dissolution of the monasteries and cursed whoever took the land next. Step forward Sir William FitzWilliam, Earl of Southampton, who was building Cowdray at the time.

Two, Sir Antony Browne, owner of Cowdray between 1542 to 48, was cursed by a rather aggrieved monk, after he pulled down Battle Abbey Church, which he happened to own as well.

But which ever may or may not be true, on Tuesday 24th September 1793, Cowdray House, which was by then owned by George Samuel Browne, the eighth Viscount, caught fire, after a careless chippy left a piece of smouldering charcoal on some wood shavings. Aided by the strong winds the whole place burned down.

Owner George thought he’d had a lucky escape as he was busy trying to shoot some dangerous falls in a tiny boat at Laufenburg, Germany with his mate Charles Sedley Burdett.  You can guess where this is heading?  Neither was ever seen again. Presumably drowned.

QUESTION

Cowdray Park Estate owns property all over the Midhurst area. These buildings are all easily recognised by their bright saffron yellow paintwork. But why was this colour chosen?

ANSWER

It has long been the custom to paint the woodwork on properties owned by large estates the same colour,  to show they are owned by the estate.

When the Second Viscount Cowdray, Weetman Harold Miller Pearson, inherited Cowdray in 1927 he thought it would be a nice idea to have all the woodwork of estate cottages bright yellow.

An unusual choice by anyone’s standards but as he sat as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Eye in Suffolk, it was a political statement, that no-one since has seen fit to change, so banana yellow it remains!   

QUESTION

Why did famous author-to-be HG Wells take up Latin studies at Midhurst Grammar, aged 15?

ANSWER

HG well’s mother was in service at a country pile up the road called Uppark and young HG was apprenticed to Cowap’s Chemist Shop, in Church Hill, Midhurst.

The walk to and from work was a colossal round trip of 18 miles, so he took digs at No 89 South Street, Midhurst.

Staying in the town also allowed him to study Latin at Midhurst Grammar in the evenings, which helped greatly as he was then able to understand the prescriptions!

QUESTION

Midhurst was chosen as a film location for the 1958 comedy Carlton Brown of the F.O, starring Terry Thomas and Peter Sellers. What was the name of the fictional island, that the town “played” in the movie?

ANSWER

Midhurst was chosen as the location Gaillardia because train passenger services had been withdrawn but the track and station buildings were still used for goods traffic. 

However, the Gaillardia or Blanket flower is a plant from the sunflower family named after M. Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th-century French magistrate. 

Peter Sellers playing the fool... again!

We aren’t sure why the writers of the film Carlton Browne of the F.O. gave the name to the former British colony long forgotten by the Foreign Office. But they did and when valuable mineral ores are found on the island, the Russians become interested and the inept Cadogen de Vere Carlton-Browne is sent to ensure British rule continues, unsuccessfully as it happens, sparking a revolution.

To aid the filming an old 1870’s engine, “Terrier” tank No.32640 was sent from Brighton engine shed and starred as the train which was divided by a painted white line when the island was partitioned into two.

QUESTION

What are Midhurst Whites?

ANSWER

Midhurst Whites are the calcium silicate bricks which were made in a brick works based in the town which opened in 1913. They are pale yellow-white and have been used, amongst other things, in the construction of the light wells at Battersea Power Station.

The brickworks, situated next to the long gone Midhurst Common station, had it’s own little 2' 6" gauge “railway” to transport the materials back and forward.

For those of you who have more than a passing interest in brickwork....the bricks were made by mixing calcium lime with fine siliceous aggregate (whatever that might be) and water. The mixture is then moulded at high pressure and finally cured with steam.

Oh yes, the world of brickery is an exciting place!  

QUESTION

Midhurst Grammar School was founded in 1672 as a charity school for 12 poor Protestant boys by a local man called Gilbert Hannam. What did Gilbert do as a living?

ANSWER

Gilbert had arrived in Midhurst, during the English Civil War when he was on the side of the Parlimentarians, presumably as he didn’t fancy having to wear a big hat and long curly wig, preferring instead the “short back and sides” of the roundheads. 

After the war he decided to stay on and started a local weaving and coverlet making business.

What made him decide to start a charity school for twelve poor boys we can’t say, but we bet they had nicely woven uniforms, cosy beds and weren’t short of a carpet or two.

QUESTION

What did ecclesiastical case records show the parishioners of Midhurst, playing during evening prayer on Sunday 26 February 1637?

ANSWER

The naughty parishioners of Midhurst were busy at the wicket, bowling googlies when they should have been in church on that particular Sunday.

However, they weren’t the first Sussex residents to risk the wrath of God for the game.

Church records show that in 1611 two parishioners in Sidlesham failed to attend church on Easter Sunday because they were busy playing cricket. They were fined 12d each and made to do penance, presumably by being forced to watch continuous re-runs of England’s World Cup defeat by South Africa….

QUESTION

Why is the Curfew Bell still rung at 8 o’clock, every evening?

ANSWER

The word comes from the French couvre feu and it means to cover a fire.

Ding dong the witch is dead....perhaps?

William the Conqueror is generally given credit for imposing the curfew bells, rung from local churches to tell people to rake their ashes and put the fires out, so the town didn’t burn down overnight. However, it may well have not been him, but it was he who imposed heavy penalties on those who took no notice.

Kings Edward l and lll both made laws saying no-one could carry arms on the streets after the bell was tolled and now the word curfew is associated with naughty people who have to wear electronic tags and go to bed early, until they learn to be good.

The Midhurst bell is still rung, according to a report in 1860, because a lost traveller, in olden times, was saved when he heard the bell and found the town. He was so grateful he gave a quarter of an acre of land in Knockhundred Row to the town in order to keep the bell tolling. The income of which pays for the ringer to ring the bell, the repair of the bell and the maintenance of the tower, belfry and Curfew.

Except for the war, the bell has rung every Sunday, funded by the massive annual income of £4 10s…..  

QUESTION

Which member of London’s Savage Club, was nicknamed Kipper, died in Midhurst aged 96, and had his work originally described as “perfectly hopeless” by his soon-to-be life long business partner?

ANSWER

Ernest Howard Shepard started as a contributor to Punch in 1907 and worked his way up to first cartoonist. It was while he was at Punch that he was recommended to AA Milne as an illustrator for some children’s verses. Milne wasn’t convincved and at first, charmingly, described Shepard’s style as “perfectly hopeless” but soon came round. 

Shepard based Pooh bear, not on Milne’s son’s bear but on his own son Graham’s bear, a fellow called Growler, who came to a rather slobbery end in a dog’s mouth some years later.

The pair (Milne and Shepard, not the bear and the dog) never became close, Shepard later saying “I never knew him intimately. It was difficult to get beyond the façade"  but Milne did arrange for Shepard to receive a share in the royalites, thus making him pretty well off, which was nice. 

However, karma eventually caught up with Mr Milne for his less than kind comments. When The House at Pooh Corner was published,  one reviewer for the New Yorker, in her column the "Constant Reader", wrote that "Tonstant Weader fwowed up."

QUESTION

What did John Hogsflesh of Lewes have to do on the 19th  November 1534  at Midhurst market?

ANSWER

Now why wouldn't you believe in her...?

Poor old John was not only blessed with a very unfortunate surname, but he also wasn’t sure he believed in the Virgin Mary, that the body of Christ was present in the Eucharist or that only a confession to a priest could save his soul.

Since most sensible folk would keep quiet about this, we assume John was not blessed with brains either, since his punishment was to walk through the streets of Chichester, Midhurst and Lewes, wearing only a shirt, shoes and a strip of linen around his waist, whilst carrying a faggot. (a bundle of sticks), before carrying on to Chichester Cathedral.

Worse still, had he decided not to go along with this, the powers that be would have popped him on his faggot and put a match it, turning him into a Hogsflesh market day barbecue!

Pass the mustard....