Midhurst

Coordinates: 50°59′06″N 0°44′24″W / 50.985°N 0.740°W / 50.985; -0.740

Midhurst (pronounced /ˈmɪd.hɜːrst/, or in the Sussex dialect: Medhas /ˈmɛd.həs/) is a market town and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex (until 1974 part of the former county of Sussex), in southern England. It lies on the River Rother about 20 miles inland from the English Channel, and about 12 miles north of the county town of Chichester.

The name Midhurst was first recorded in 1186 as Middeherst, meaning "Middle wooded hill", or "(place) among the wooded hills". It derives from the Old English words midd (adjective) or mid (preposition), meaning "in the middle", plus hyrst, "a wooded hill".

The town is home to the Norman St. Ann's Castle, which dates from the about 1120, although the foundations are all that can now be seen. The castle, the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Denis, together with South Pond (the former fish-pond for the castle) are the only three structures left from this early period. The parish church is the oldest building in Midhurst. Just across the River Rother, in the parish of Easebourne, is the ruin of the Tudor Cowdray House.

Midhurst (UK Parliament constituency)

Midhurst was a parliamentary borough in Sussex, which elected two Members of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons from 1311 until 1832, and then one member from 1832 until 1885, when the constituency was abolished. Before the Great Reform Act of 1832, it was one of the most notorious of England's rotten boroughs.

History

From its foundation in the 14th century until 1832, the borough consisted of part of the parish of Midhurst, a small market town in Sussex. Much of the town as it existed by the 19th century was outside this ancient boundary, but the boundary was in any case academic since the townsfolk had no votes. As a contemporary, writer, Sir George Trevelyan explained in writing about the general election of 1768,

No doubt these "burgage tenements" had once included houses, but long before the 19th century it was notorious that several of them consisted solely of the marker stones, set in the wall of the landowner's estate. Even compared with most of the other burgage boroughs this was an extreme situation, and during the parliamentary debates on the Reform Bills in 1831 and 1832 the reformers made much play of Midhurst's "niches in a wall" as an example of the abuses they wished to correct.

Midhurst (disambiguation)

Midhurst is a market town and civil parish in Chichester District, West Sussex, England.

Midhurst may also refer to: