The shape of the town reflects this long-standing activity, as the Carfax was originally a large uncluttered triangular open space, where (eventually) twice-weekly markets were held. To the east lay St Leonard’s Forest, west was Guildford, tracks pushed north in two directions across common land to London, and to the south a path or ‘causeway’ led to the parish church - for centuries the largest public building. From 1066 the principal land-owning family were the de Braoses, among the Norman followers of William the Conqueror, who became lords of Bramber Rape, based at Bramber castle. At various times they entertained kings, at Knepp for the hunting and at Chesworth, which in effect became the ‘manor’ house of Horsham.

 

King John conducted a personal vendetta against the de Braose family in the early 1200s, but after his death in 1216, Horsham was on the ‘up’. The town was able to develop its new status as an incorporated borough (with 52 original burgage plots) by virtually re-building the parish church, obtaining a royal charter for an annual July fair, and at the end of the century sending the first two local representatives to the king’s Parliament. The county assizes were first held in the town in 1306 and the first privately-funded chantry built by the north door of the church, providing regular prayers for the after-life of its founder. Sixty years later Horsham is named on what was probably the first national ‘recommended routes’ map.

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The direct line of the de Braose family did not survive beyond 1399 - the last lies buried in the parish church, with his infant children, in the tomb beneath his effigy. Their Horsham interests descended through a female line to the eventual successors - the Dukes of Norfolk.

Meanwhile the town was continuing to flourish: in the 1400s two more private chantries were founded as well as a mutual ‘brotherhood’ for the less well-off, and the Archbishop was able to ‘cash’ in on this success by getting permission for a market and fair on his land just outside the borough boundary at the end of West Street. The Green Dragon aka The Olive Branch was probably built to manage these.

The highest concentration of buildings dating from the 1400s onwards can be found in the Causeway, once South Street, but there are others; around the Carfax, in East and West Streets, and towards the station, although not all are immediately obvious. There are at least 23 buildings around the town with date stones from before 1900, although the earlier the more likely to be suspect!

Chesworth was rebuilt in the early part of the 1500s by the second Howard Duke of Norfolk, and more local and national documentation begins to survive. Horsham tax-payers are listed by name in 1524, under North, East, South and West Streets, and The Skarfolkes (Carfax) and parish registers are pretty continuous from 1541, containing a number of references to aristocratic visitors to Chesworth.

At about this time Horsham was touched by national events of some moment; Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine, had spent some formative time at her step-grandmother’s house at Chesworth, where she had behaved no worse than many of her contemporaries with a music master and other young ‘bloods’. Unfortunately this rebounded when it came to light after she became queen, and resulted in her execution.

Apart from Chesworth, Horsham could boast of several large houses that reflected the changing fortunes of local families: Denne, Hills Place, Manor House, Park House, Springfield Park and Tanbridge. Denne is on an ancient site and best remembered for the Eversfields, who built much of the present house on the proceeds of ironworking. Hills was a fine Jacobean house, sadly demolished in the early 1800s, that once boasted landscaping by ‘Capability’ Brown, and was home to the lngram Lords lrwin. Two redoubtable lngram widows fought over control of the borough with the Dukes of Norfolk. The Manor House was built by Nathaniel Tredcroft about 1704 on land that was owned by the manor of the rectory, known as ‘Hewells’, and remained with the family for over 150 years. Park House was built on burgage land from 1689 onwards and Springfield about 1758, initially on the profits of brewing. They are known for their connections with the Lintotts, Wickers and Hursts, Blunts, Gales and Lyttons. Finally Tanbridge is an echo of ‘modernity’, built on an old site in 1887 by a wealthy railway contractor, and being one of the first houses with electric lighting. These are all covered in more detail elsewhere.

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