South Harting: 5 things you didn't know about the village
A blowtorch fire at Uppark, a Domesday village with nine mills, a progressive school, Anthony Trollope's asthma retreat and a dairymaid who inherited a mansion.
The Uppark fire began on 30 August 1989 when a workman's blowtorch ignited roof lead flashing, two days before the work was due to finish. The house stands about a mile south of South Harting, whose other stories include a Domesday manor with nine mills and Anthony Trollope's 1880 move for cleaner air.
The great fire at Uppark, the house about a mile south of South Harting, began on 30 August 1989 when a workman's blowtorch set light to roof lead flashing, two days before the work was due to finish. That is Wikipedia's account, citing The Independent. A Geograph caption words it differently, calling it an oxy-acetylene torch, so the exact tool is not settled. Here are five more stories from the village.
A Domesday village
The Domesday Book of 1086 records the manor of Hertinges, which is Harting. Wikipedia says it had 134 villagers, 42 smallholders, 20 slaves and nine mills. The entry covers what is now South, West and East Harting, so the numbers are for the whole manor and not this village alone.
A school on the Downs
In 1927 Bertrand and Dora Russell founded Beacon Hill School at Telegraph House, on the Downs near Harting and North Marden. Wikipedia's South Harting and Dora Russell pages and a St Andrews gazetteer entry describe it.
Trollope came for the air
The novelist Anthony Trollope moved to The Grange in South Harting in July 1880, for cleaner air because of his asthma. The Historic England listing text and the Victorian Web biography agree, and he left in September 1882.
A battle in the dark
The Battle of South Harting took place on the night of 23 to 24 November 1643, in Old Style dating. The parish register records three soldiers buried in the churchyard on 24 November. This story comes from the same source family, Wikipedia and a Sussex Archaeological Collections article, and we have deliberately not given troop numbers, because we could not check them.
The dairymaid who inherited Uppark
Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh married the dairymaid Mary Ann Bullock in 1825, when he was over 70; Wikipedia's Uppark page says he was 71. On his death in 1846 he left her Uppark. Her age is given as 18 in some sources and 21 in others, so we say only that she was young. The match is among the best-known stories attached to the house.
How well sourced is this?
The fire, the Domesday entry, the Russells' school and the dairymaid marriage each appear on at least one Wikipedia page, with other pages backing some of them up. The battle rests on a single source family, and the Uppark fire has two slightly different accounts of the torch. Where they differ, we have said so.
What we left out
We kept other Uppark stories, such as Emma Hamilton and H. G. Wells, out because we did not check them for this page. The authorship of the village war memorial is disputed between two sculptors, so we have not named either. A hill climb event also rested on a single source.
Visiting
We have not verified current opening times for Uppark or access to the village, so check Uppark's own website before going.
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