A day out in… Petworth Overview
‘Proud Petworth, Poor people. High Church, Crooked steeple’. So goes the traditional rhyme about the West Sussex town of Petworth, which has become rather out of date, on a couple of counts. Firstly, the church of St Mary’s famously crooked 180foot wood-and-lead steeple was dismantled in 1800, and its replacement taken down in 1953, to the effect that nowadays the church has no spire at all. This means that St Mary’s cannot be described as a ‘high church’ in terms of dimension (though when it comes to denomination, the current rector does employ plenty of incense in his services). As for ‘poor people’… well Petworth has upped its status since the ditty was coined. The average property price, according to Rightmove, is £677,148, with detached houses selling for £1.3m. To quote the Sunday Times Best Places to Live Guide, ’Nowhere does posh better than this little market town’. The adjective ‘proud’ is, however, still applicable. Petworth does have its problems, notably relentless traffic flow through its narrow streets, but it is very clearly a thriving little town, which punches well above its population weight (last census 3,027), particularly in the cultural sphere.
History
Petworth was entered into the Domesday Book of 1088 as ‘Peteorde’, in the hundred of Rothersbridge, a settlement of 44 inhabitants (consisting of 24 villagers, 11 smallholders and 9 slaves). The manor was gifted to the Northumberland-based Percy family in the 12th century; in 1308 Henry Percy built a fortified lodge for hunting holidays (its deer park then, as now, covering 700 acres). This building, known as Petworth House, was almost completely rebuilt in 1572, and again – in its present Baroque style – between 1688 and 1702. Its formal
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gardens were replaced with a more natural-looking landscape garden by Capability Brown in 1750, under the orders of George Wyndham, the 3rd Earl of Egremont. Wyndham was a larger-than-life philanthropist who filled Petworth House with art, and children (he had 43, with nine mistresses, many of whom lived under his roof). The village grew up in the shadow of its stately home, as a market town, and its narrow streets – all sharp right-angles and unexpected squares – retain its early medieval street plan, with original half-timbered vernacular buildings still extant, among a mishmash of styles from different periods. Among these, Petworth enjoys a plenitude of elegant Georgian piles, including Leconfield Hall (once a courthouse, now a public venue) and Newlands House (now an art gallery). Petworth House is this year celebrating the 75th anniversary of its takeover by the National Trust: the town is long used to a daily influx of visitors, many of whom also visit its plentiful independent stores, which include a staggering 30 antique shops (that’s one for every 100 people, surely a record).
