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West Marden
This is an ancient hamlet surrounded by arable farmland and woodland on chalk downs.
People have lived here for two millennia, with the remains of a 2nd to 4th century roman villa found near Cabragh house, one of the largest properties in West Marden, off Oldhouse Lane.
There are two majestic willow trees on the crossroads which mark the spot where the village pond once lay. Up until 1905 there was always an annual village fair with swings, roundabouts and stalls. After that the fair was held in a small meadow at the rear of the Victoria Inn.
Did you know?
They used to pitch the swings for the village fair over the village pond until the stumps, which were driven in to steady the swings, made the pond leak!
On bonfire night, villagers from the surrounding areas would gather to light a big bonfire on the edge of the pond, seen below in 1948. Protective covers were put over the direction finger post (see above) and the telephone box.
The pond was also useful if the bonfire got out of hand! The pond dried up in the 1970s and surface water is now channelled through tanks under the green and away down the valley.
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The red telephone kiosk now stands on the site of the old saw pit, where trees used to be sawn by hand into planks.
The photo above shows West Marden in 1955. At the heart of the hamlet is the 19th century grade II listed Victoria Inn. There is a working builder’s yard with its own carpentry workshop and there was an 11th century chapel in West Marden, demolished in the late 17th century. An evangelical chapel was built in 1901 and a church mission room, both of which are now private houses.
The photo above shows West Marden in 1960.
Couzens builders yard and carpentry workshop – the building firm called T. Couzens & Sons Ltd was set up in 1876. There were four generations of the Couzens family, Thomas (founder of the West Marden building firm), his son Thomas Martin, grandson Walter, and great-grandson Trevor.
Thomas started the business as a joiner and undertaker and it became a substantial firm of builders, contractors and funeral directors. The business covered all aspects of the building trade, employing their own heating and electrical engineers. The firm has first-class machine shops and offers modern joinery in hard and soft woods, working in many counties under prominent architects. They specialise in the restoration of churches, as well as converting ancient and old buildings into modern living accommodation.
The firm also built seventeen of the current houses in the village including West Marden Hall and the ex-council houses in Nore Down Way, created with varying designs to provide more interesting buildings. Up to 150 men were employed at one time. Some of the manhole covers in West Marden also bear the Couzens name.
Did you know?
After the Windsor Castle fire in 1992 new window frames and lantern lights were made by the Couzens workshop for St Georges Hall in Windsor Castle.
On the crossroads at the SE side of the village, just behind the bus shelter and in the garden of the house now called Fourways, stood a large wheelwrights and carpenters shop. They employed four craftsmen until the late 19the century and carts were also made by the firm for Sir Harold Reckitt of Littlegreen estate.
Timber yard – on the opposite side of the road, by the side of the pond, there was a timber yard and a saw pit owned and used by Mr. William Taylor, known as ‘donkey taylor’ because he nearly always travelled about with a donkey and cart, a common mode of transport in the 19th century!
Did you know?
A ‘dogsbody’ is the person in the saw pit on the bottom of a long two man saw, so called because they always get covered in sawdust!
Knight’s Cottages – pictured above, they are half way up West Marden hill and named after the clock maker William Knight. He was a Clock Master, taking on apprentices such as John Smith in 1777. William became free of the Clockmakers Company in the second half of the 18th century, before UK time became standardised. One of the tenants of Knights Cottage found cogs and various other clock makers’ bits and pieces in the house!
William Knight 1746 silver pocket watch and 30 hour clock face.
Did you know?
Clockmakers all over the country each had their own local time, probably based on sundials. It was only with the coming of the railways in the 1830s, and electric messaging up and down the line, that drove a need for standardisation of time in the 1850s, so that all trains ran to the same UK time!
West Marden Hall – the large house at the top of West Marden hill was built for the Earl of Durham. He lived in Northumberland but came south for the warmer winter months. The Earl once owned Durham Castle. Lady Durham and Master John loved horse racing at Newmarket. The Earl is buried in Compton churchyard. The 1950 photo below is looking east down West Marden hill.
Old post office – This used to be based in the Thatched Cottage on the right-hand side near the top of West Marden Hill. You can spot the old postbox in the wall, now bricked up. The post office moved further downhill to Knight’s Cottages and then to Compton in the next village.
Did you know?
the Tour de France cycle race came through the village in 1994 from Compton and travelled up West Marden Hill towards Rowlands Castle.
Old smithy – this used to stand in the centre of the village. During the winter evenings many youths used to go to the smithy to help the Blacksmith make horseshoes, and two forges and two anvils were kept busy, with sparks flying. It has now been converted into a private bungalow but retains its outward appearance. Adjoining the smithy were old farm buildings which have also been converted into another bungalow to blend in with the village.
Chapels in West Marden – the earliest known chapel is 11th century and was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is recorded that offerings made there in 1414 helped pay for the priest at Up Marden. Between 1558 and 1585 this ancient building was sold, at the same time that West Marden became part of the parish of Up Marden. However, after West Marden chapel was sold and pulled down, some of its 11th century stones may have been incorporated into the chancel arch at St Michael’s Up Marden, so parts of the West Marden’s old chapel may still live on. Some paving stones, probably from the old chapel, were also discovered when excavations were being carried out to erect the two bungalows opposite West Marden farm house (below).
Evangelical chapel and churchyard – children from Compton and West Marden used to go to sunday school in the evangelical chapel, two thirds of the way up West Marden hill behind the cottage with the thatched roof. Fruit and vegetables from harvest thanksgiving services were given annually to Emsworth cottage hospital. Also using the chapel were the West Marden choir, the adult school sisterhood (est 1929) and the little white ribboners.
Mr Evan Starling, an evangelical christian worker was superintendent of the West Marden mission and looked after the chapel. He was a well-known ‘colporteur’ for more than 40 years and covered Sussex and Hampshire. The Chapel closed in the 1970s and is now a private house.
Did you know?
A colporteur was a peddler or salesperson who travelled around selling religious texts like bibles.
Church mission room – This small cottage, on the end of pond cottages, was licensed in victorian times and is now a private house. It was sold by the Langdale Trust to T. Couzens. The thatched cottage adjoining was converted into two cottages in the 1930s by T. Couzens and Sons of West Marden.
The Victoria Inn
This family run pub, on West Marden Hill at the heart of the hamlet, is a grade II listed 19th century inn built in 1810.
Charlotte North bought the pub in 2021 and also runs the nearby Compton village shop and tea room. The pub is now a thriving local with ‘theme’ nights, good food and excellent beer. The pub has also earned a well-deserved entry into the CAMRA good beer guide.
The welcoming pub has a bar area with roaring log burner for the colder days, and well behaved dogs are welcome. The separate dining room is perfect for an evening meal for couples or with friends. There is also a pretty garden with wonderful country views, where you can sit and soak up the sun on a summer’s day.
The pub’s sign was painted by Ralph Ellis of Arundel (1885-1963). He was a renowned WW1 artist, sketching and painting his fellow soldiers. Then after the war he was known as a portrait and landscape painter, who also specialised in the design and painting of inn signs.
Did you know?
The Victoria Inn used to have a village shop in the front room. Things were more informal in those days, and customers entering the shop used to leave money in the tin on the shelf when buying goods!
One of the pub’s previous owners was T Couzens, owner of the builder’s yard and workshop, whose family were well known in the hamlet. It was perhaps odd he chose to own a pub, because he was a tee-totaller, which meant he never drank alcohol!
Did you know?
The family also owned the field behind Down Cottages which was used for travelling horses and other horses that helped pull carriages up the steep West Marden Hill.
- Victoria Inn, West Marden, West Sussex PO18 9EN
- Website: www.victoriainnwestmarden.com
- Phone: 023 9263 1330
- Menus (specials change daily): click here
Christchurch Forestside
The medieval parish of Stoughton extended to the boundary with Hampshire and included Stansted Park and the hamlet of Forestside. The parish was formed from parts of Stoughton and Up Marden, and has now been combined with them again as part of the Octagon parish.
Christchurch Forestside, was built in 1852 by Charles Dixon, a wealthy Victorian philanthropist and the owner of nearby Stansted House, to serve his estate workers and the village of Forestside. Consecrated in 1856, this later became the church of a parish, which included Stansted Chapel and part of Up Marden. The adjoining Forestside school is now a private house.
The east end faces the road, with two ogee-headed lancets below a traceried mandorla, an almond shaped frame around a statue in Christian art. Though simple, it is effective with elegantly curved tracery like the veins of a leaf. The church is of high quality but its architect is unknown, with flint masonry and Caen stone dressings.
The aisleless interior is dominated by the chancel arch, with dumpy shafts on head-corbels, whose flowing hair turns to foliage. East of the arch, the closely set chancel roof-timbers echo its curves. The splays of the east windows are decorated in dark blue and gold. Though the rest of the walls are plain white, they may have been a different colour originally.
The vividly coloured east window glass of 1856 depicts the Tree of Jesse with an unusual dragon in the bottom right hand corner. As with the church, the designer unfortunately remains unknown.
On the east gable of the nave is a heavy triangular belfry and the side-windows of the chancel are in the form of trefoils. The windows in the nave are grouped trefoil-headed lights, in threes and fours. This is an unusual feature for this date, although found more frequently in the later 19th century.
The heads on the chancel arch are a young Queen Victoria and a Bishop of Chichester, possibly St Richard. The end of one of the pews features the Octagon Parish logo in carved oak.
The font is a shallow and octagonal bowl, profusely carved with foliage and quatrefoils, on a marble stem. The seat and desk in the chancel is by H S Goodhart-Rendel from 1926.
- Christchurch Forestside – Parish Giving Scheme
- W3W: revives.destroyer.crockery
- Postcode: PO9 6EE
- See the 16 page Octagon Walks Booklet – click here