Thursday 22 November 2007

Latest information.


Parham House.

Country house constructed in 1577 incorporating part of earlier fortified house. The main front of the house is E-shaped. It is constructed of stone rubble and ashlar with a Horsham slab roof. Additions were carried out in 1870.

This site has been described as a;
Fortified Manor House.
The confidence that this site is a medieval fortification or palace is Possible.
Masonry ruins/remnants remains.

It is interesting that this house may at some point been a fortified manor house, or even a Palace, lot more reserach is needed.


There is no map or plan in the Parham archives that shows the position
of the lost village. It is because we have no information about its
whereabouts that we asked if the Worthing Archaeological Society could
do some geophysical work on the site, possibly followed up by
excavation. The only early map we have is an estate map drawn up
between 1750 and 1779 which shows only the odd barn and hovel, and the
stables that were demolished in 1779.

The documentary evidence we have is restricted to a note made by a
descendant of Sir Cecil Bysshopp, 7th Baronet, who stated that he
pulled down what remained of the village, the old stables which lay to
the south-east of the house, and planned the quadrangle of offices and
stables to the north. He died in September 1779. The assumption is
that the village was already in decay by then and that the villagers
had decamped earlier over a period of time.

The estate map is framed and hanging on a wall between the entrance
hall and the shop at Parham House.

Sussex Notes and Queries Vol 15 pp 314-315 - at TQ/059141 which states that the arch classification is "Poor (Vague bumps making no certain pattern)" and history classification "small quantity of documentary evidence for village's former existence but period of desertion not known". And in SAC 25 William Durrant Cooper states "... "and in the park are the remains of a considerable village, of large gardens, a parsonage house, and several meadows, pulled down or altered by former possessors."

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