Fittleworth memories
Here are memories of Fittleworth and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Fittleworth or a Fittleworth photo.
Fittleworth Mill, 1950s
I have loved this view of the Mill ever since first discovering it as a young man of 17 or so in the early 1950s, and I have a virtually identical photograph of my own taken at that time. Sadly however I found on a visit yesterday that (at the moment anyway) it can no longer be enjoyed by the passing public, this classic view from the little road bridge just south of the Swan Inn now being nearly totally obscured by overgrown trees. Hopefully this may be remedied one day, although I do wonder whether perhaps the present owner has deliberately left it so in an understandable, if disappointing, attempt to gain more privacy.
Longcase Clock
I have a longcase clock inscribed 'John Easton, Petworth.
Does anyone have any info on this clock-maker please?
Also, anyone any interest/info on the Stevens and Stenning family trees?
BW
Richard Stevens
rtjstevens@btopenworld.com
1950''s
My friend & I used to make camps in the top room of the old mill - health & safety didn't seem to exist then! Groups of us also spent days swimming in the river, having first collected egg sandwiches from the Swan. We even once made our own raft (or the boys did) on which we were subsequently photographed by George Garland, a noted local photographer.
1950's
In 1956 we lived in Fittleworth (Orchard House) while I attended Midhurst Grammar School. I could listen to the church clock chime the hours if I woke up at night.
I would like to hear from anyone who was there then.
David Morris
Victoria, B.C.
Canada
H N Hussey
My husband inherited a watercolour of a barn entitled 'Fittleworth 1882' by the artist named above - it could read Hry N Hussey for Henry - but not clear. We wondered whether anyone could shed any light
Swan Hotel Corner
I nearly died here when I was seven years old - over-excitement on the cusp of our holiday on IOW. An errand for a quarter of ham from the village shop, and dodgy brakes, led me to come down the hill from Picknells, the shop at the top of the hill above the Swan corner and to emerge from the blind corner created by the hotel across the main road without stopping. I coincided there with Mrs Morley Fletcher who was moving probably at 20 mph in her grey A30, so I was saved. [more later... I bet you can't wait!]
Memories of West Sussex
The Old Bakery
The building in the distance is the old bakery. When I was a child/teenager (in the 1960s) my grandparents (Bert and Annie Hurd) lived in a cottage just behind where this picture was taken, and whenever we visited them we would go down to the bakery to see their friends Mr and Mrs Shoubridge (and Joyce Gumbrill who ran it and the little shop. Mr Shoubridge used to bake fresh bread daily in the oven which was heated by burning bundles of small branches called faggots. Then the ashes were raked out and the bread/cakes were baked in the oven by the residual heat. My memory says that one of the houses on the right of the picture was occupied by one Dr Death, but I cannot swear to that.
Coldwaltham Cottage
I used to live at the neighboring house...The white house.. owned by a Miss Charman. She also owned the above cottage and rented it to the Charly Williams family. he was the local green grocer. There was Joe, Mrs. Harris and old lady Williams ...Mrs Harris was her daughter and she was the cook at the local school which I attended.
More detals on email request.
Hardham
Hardham was a place to bicycle to from Pulborough, and visit St. Botolph's Church. One of the many very very old churches in West Sussex. The drawings on the walls go back hundreds of years depicting the tortures of the early Christians, and the church preserves them with the lighting being restricted. I got locked in this church once - scary because of the lighting, but a beautiful place, surrounded by floods in the Spring, but has survived all that.
A shame there isn't much else there!
Petworth Mill
My grandparents Hylands live in the millhouse at Petworth. When I was a child, after moving from a farm at Sutton my grandad Bill worked for the mill driving a flour lorry and nan Olive used to sell tickets to men wnting to fish along the the river. I loved staying there, trying to catch fish in the big millpond with our nets. I remember the millpond used to swell and come up over the road, sandbags were put up to stop it going into the cottage. There was a man who lived in a caravan a bit further down from the mill cottage, I used to think it strange he would empty a bowl into the millpond every morning, lol. When Nan and Grandad moved in there wasn't a bathroom and we had to go down a corridor at the back to use the loo, a wooden seat with a hole in it, and chamberpots at night, until a bedroom was turned into a bathroom. I remember roaming the... Read more
Home
I was born in Canada, but grew up in Pulborough as did my mother and uncle, Maureen and Frank Darby.
When I knew we were returning to Canada, a place I didn't remember, it broke my heart, and I vowed never to forget the people and sights of Pulborough.
My Grandparents are buried in the cemetery at St Mary's, and I have a brass rubbing from the church. The baptismal jug was donated by the family.
I was home last October for my Uncle's funeral in Beds, but two of my sisters and I had to visit the village and visit people. Sorry it wasn't longer, but the love for Pulborough I have never diminishes.
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