Life got better

Life got better over time:

Peter Sydenham remembers

Living conditions in the District for the majority of its residents have changed greatly for the best as the centuries have passed.

In Norman times the majority of the people had almost none of the national wealth; a situation that largely remains to this day but with it being much better spread. Wealthy land-owners ran farms and other enterprises, using the rural population as serfs – not much better than being an owned slave with minimal rights – who were ‘tied’ to their Lord’s properties and subject to his whims. This situation slowly improved over many centuries but much still exists today.

In the 19th century the landed gentry began to have their wealth reduced by major government reforms; many were stripped of their money-making privileges. By the 1930s social reform was well under way but many in rural areas still lived in dire circumstances. In the surrounding Midhurst District villages, and even in town, many dwellings had no inside toilets and bathrooms, no mains sewerage connections, mains electricity or a reticulated water supply. Ronnie Boxall tells us, in his A Midhurst Lad book, that he lived in squalor in

Some Must Have-to-Haves in the 1960s

Duck Lane in the late 1930s. When I lived. as a small boy, in a shop on Red Lion Street during WW2, we did have a running cold tap water, an inside toilet and mains electricity; we were well off – except rats sometimes ran over us in our shared single bed! With no heating apart from a one-bar electric radiator it was far from luxurious.

In the late 30s the super-rich Peggy Guggenheim lived in a Harting cottage with minimal heating. And no hot water supply. She stayed in bed all day to keep warm.

The major Midhurst District land owner, Lord Cowdray (father of the current Lord) had started to upgrade his many yellow-painted properties, but that ceased for the duration of the war.

The several local mansions usually enjoyed the latest services and products. In some cases, the owner, for they were under no law-based compulsion, even generously provided water and electricity supplies for his rural workers.

Here are presented some insights into life since the Midhurst Society was formed in 1961.

Around town in the 60s.

from the Frances Frith Collection

In 1977: Renting a House

by Peter Jones (there are more than one in the District.)

The situation regarding land-lords attitudes persisted.

‘My family has lived in the same hamlet just outside Midhurst for many generations in accommodation rented from the owner of the local estate. In fact, my sister moved into the house our grandmother had lived in after she passed on. When the cottage next door to her became vacant I asked the 'Lord of the Manor' if it would be possible for me to rent it. He summoned me to the Big House for an interview to assess my suitability as a tenant.

I duly went along one Saturday morning and met him in his extensive gardens. He told me what the rent would be and that it was payable on the quarter days. And he told me it would be a condition of tenancy that I would have to do some work in his garden. I did not know much about gardening but I replied that I could help with lawnmowing or woodcutting. His wife, who was from a younger generation, was passing by and asked what we were discussing. When her husband told her, she replied “You can't do that now! Those days are gone, you can't insist that he helps in the garden, he just has to pay the rent”. Her husband was a little taken aback by this and after a few moments changed the subject by asking if I was married. I admitted I had a partner but we weren't married. “Well,” he said, “in that case you certainly can't live in one of my houses!” I told him we were due to be married before the moving in date and grudgingly he said that would be acceptable.

I had to supply my own rent book, and in April we moved in. When work permitted, I started clearing up the garden. Being out in the country there was a lot of wildlife and we loved watching the deer in the field opposite. That was until they moved on to our garden where they ate everything from lettuce and cabbage to the roses we had planted that spring.

The cottage had a Rayburn, and an open fire in most of the rooms. We could cook on the Rayburn, and it also heated the water, so we had to make sure it was kept fuelled all day. When the winter started to bite, we would have a fire in the bedroom, which would make it very snug but the fire would burn down in the early hours and often we would wake to find ice ferns on the inside of the bedroom windows. In 1989 we moved into Midhurst to the joys of central heating.’

The Midhurst and District Map. c1967.

Just what is ‘Midhurst’ territory is confusing. The Society defines it as the town and a given set of villages. There is a region for the Midhurst Town Council; another defined for the Postal District of Midhurst that extends to include Easebourne and other villages. There is also the region covered by he Midhurst and Petworth Observer newspaper. Then there is one for the Midhurst Parish and for the Chichester District Council - gets confusing. And the list goes on! There was once the Parliamentary Constituency of Midhurst. Exhausting.

This 1967 map of the, now gone, Midhurst District Council (MRD) seems to define the area.

From the 1967 Official Midhurst Guidebook

In WW2, sign posts were removed to confuse 5th column spies and any invading force. It seems that was not needed as it was already so confusing!