Horsham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Horsham is a market town in West Sussex, England with a population of roughly 50,000. It is the administrative and market centre of the district of Horsham.

Administration

Horsham is the largest town in the district of the same name. Horsham is administered by Horsham District Council. The second tier of administration is by West Sussex County Council which is based in Chichester. In addition there are various Parish Councils.

North East Horsham is known as Roffey, originally a separate village. It too has its own Parish Council.

History and Development

The Horsham point - a mesolithic arrowhead - is sometimes claimed as the birth of distinctly British culture, since it is the earliest known artefact that postdates the separation (due to glacial meltwater filling the Channel) of 'Britain' from the continent.

The first mention of Horsham was in a land charter of AD 947. The town had connections to the sale of horses and the name is believed to be derived from Horse Ham, a settlement where Horses were kept.

An alternative explanation is that 'Horsham' is a contraction of 'Horsa's Ham' named after the Saxon warrior who was said to have been given lands in the area. This is however considered unlikely by most local historians.

An urban myth persists, however improbable, that the name is ancient Latin for "The Whore's Shame", most likely simply for the negative connotations it bears.

Horsham may be mentioned indirectly in the Domesday Book (although this is sometimes debated among historians) adjacent manorial lands and surrounding holdings are also mentioned. Horsham had two weekly markets in the middle ages, and was noted locally for its annual fairs.

Despite a local iron industry which stayed until the seventeenth century and a prosperous brewing industry, Horsham remained primarily agricultural until the early 20th century, when other industry and residential development began to proliferate.

The town has grown steadily over recent years to a population of over 30,000. This has been facilitated by the completion of both an inner and outer town bypass. The location of any new growth is the subject of intense debate. Certainly, the town will fight hard to retain the "strategic housing gap" between itself, and its large neighbour Crawley, however the latest plans by the District Council include a large neighbourhood directly adjacent to Crawley potentially eating into the gap.

Town centre

Horsham has grown up around the Carfax, which is the meeting place of five roads. Part of this has been closed to traffic in recent years. Two shopping centres, Piries Place and Swan Walk, are located close by to the Carfax. There are also two main shopping streets; East Street and the pedestrianised West Street. A new shopping area and public square, the Forum, has recently been completed to the south of West Street, off Blackhorse Way.

To the south of the Carfax is the Causeway. This tranquil, little altered street is lined with ancient houses, and leads to the Norman church of St. Mary. (Anglican) Beyond the church is the River Arun and the town cricket field.

To the north of the Carfax is a large park, the remnant of what was formerly the Hurst Park Estate. The park has numerous football pitches, a wildlife pond and tennis courts. Various leisure facilities, including a modern swimming complex, have been built on land around the park.

Famous residents

• Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place, west of Horsham, near Broadbridge Heath.
• John G. Millais, respected painter, naturalist and author, son of the Pre-raphaelite painter John Everett Millais lived in Horsham in the 1900s.
• Edward Bainbridge Copnall (1903-1973) The Artist and president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors was born and lived in Horsham. One of his works, a sculpture titled 'The Astronomer' was presented to the College of Richard Collyer in the town, by his sister Phyllis Millar and is on display in the upper quadrangle. Other examples of his work are kept by Horsham Museum.
• Catherine Howard, one of King Henry VIII's wives, lived in Horsham
• Tim Slade - co-founder of active wear and outdoor clothing fashion label Fat Face attended Tanbridge House School.
• Robin Goodridge - drummer in rock band Bush attended Tanbridge House School.
• Jamie Hewlett - artist/cartoonist and creator of the comic strip Tank Girl (made into a film in 1995) and co-creator of the band Gorillaz (nominated for five Grammy Awards in December 2005), attended both Tanbridge House School and the recently closed Northbrook Art College, which was located down the road from Collyers on Hurst road.
• Rob Leggatt, creative Director at Blue Source (he was nominated for a Grammy in 2003)attended Tanbridge House School.
• Harry Enfield attended Collyers sixth form college before becoming a comedian. His famous Kevin the Teenager character made mention of living on Merryfield Drive in Horsham.
• Simon Nye, writer of Men Behaving Badly, attended Collyers when it was still a Grammar School.
• The Feeling - A music band who recorded the single 'Sewn' in a shed down ' Guildford Road'
• Paul Stewart - Musician.
• Ciaran Jerimah - Musician.
• Kevin Jeremiah - Musician.
• Douglas Maddon - Novellist and former lecturer at Collyer's sixth form college

Literary connections

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had the fictitious Openshaw family, in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Five Orange Pips residing in the town.

Location and Transport

Road

Horsham lies at the junction of three routes.

• the A24 north to south route from London and Dorking to Worthing
• the A264/A29 north east to south west route from Crawley to Chichester
• the A281 north west to south east route from Guildford to Brighton

Rail

The town has one main railway station, Horsham railway station, on the Arun Valley line from Chichester to Crawley, Gatwick and London Victoria. Other services continue north to Dorking, Epsom and London Bridge. There is also Littlehaven Station, (also referred to on occasion as Littlehaven Halt) in the north east of the town on the Crawley line.

Other

Cyclists, pedestrians and horseriders can reach Guildford and Shoreham via the Downs Link, a long distance bridleway and cycle route which follows the now disused Horsham-Guildford, and Horsham-Shoreham railway lines and passes through Southwater, just to the south of Horsham.

Education

The main secondary schools in Horsham are;

• Tanbridge House School (Mixed Comprehensive),
• Millais School (Girls' Comprehensive),
• Forest School, (Boys' Comprehensive).

Horsham is also home to the well-known:

• College of Richard Collyer, (sixth form) said to be Sussex's oldest school, founded in 1532, and known more commonly as 'Collyers', on Hurst Road. This road also has on it the Arun House adult education centre (A constituent institution of the Central Sussex College).
• Christ's Hospital,To the south of the town, is the ' Bluecoat School, a private school founded in 1552, with strong links to the City of London, which moved to the area in 1902.

Emergency services facilities

Horsham Community Hospital, is open weekdays, and is located on Hurst Road. The town also boasts its own law courts, ambulance station, fire station and police station, again located on Hurst Road.

Leisure and Culture

Horsham has various facilities for leisure and culture (along with spending one of the highest amounts of money on outdoor artwork, roughly £250,000):

• The Pavilions in the Park - a leisure centre with swimming pool, located in Horsham park.
• Ten pin bowling alley, with an arcade section, also located in Horsham park.
• Shelleys - a local nightspot, with pool and snooker facilities, beneath the bowling alley.
• A BMX and Skate park located on the Hurst Road side of the park.
• Horsham Town Museum is located on the well-preserved Causeway (see section: Town Centre)
• The district indoor bowls centre and a large leisure complex at nearby Broadbridge Heath with full sized running track and 'Kinetika' Gym, which is the venue for various events and community leisure activities.
• A two screen cinema and theatre complex, called 'The Capitol'
• A two story modernised library.
• A shopping centre called "Swan Walk"
• A shopping area called "The Forum"
• A crossroads (no longer fully accessible from all four roads) known as "The Lynd Cross" (not to be confused with the Wetherspoon's pub located adjacent), the centrepiece of which is the ""Rising Universe"" (More commonly known to locals as The Shelley Fountain) a fountain designed by Angela Connor, and erected to commemorate the poet P.B. Shelley, which carries a plaque bearing one of his poems.

Trivia & Urban Legends

• The last man to die of pressing in the whole of England was John Weekes of Horsham. He was charged with robbery and murder of a woman along with three accomplices, one of which was a small boy used to sneak inside the woman's house and open access for the other three. When police found stolen property in the possession of the men, they easily persuaded the boy into turning King's evidence. Two of the other accomplices were convicted, but when John Weekes had his turn to plead, he refused to say anything. Once the judges brought in eight witness who swore Weekes could talk and was not dumb, they gave him time in the cells. When he refused further to say a single word, the judges were forced to find him not guilty of murder. Instead he was convicted of 'standing mute through malice'. Weekes was placed under 3 hundredweight boards and a sixteen stone man jumped a top of him. Local folklore continues the story, extending it to include the death of his executioner days later, sometimes in the same spot where the execution was carried out.

Sport

Horsham has a very sucessful cricket team that has played home to many first class cricketers. It runs four Saturday teams and one Sunday team. The Cockspur Cup 2005 was a huge acheivement for the club. They were captained to victory by Luke Marshall in a tight thriller in which Marshall bowled Horsham to victory in the last over.

Robin Martin-Jenkins, Christopher Nash and Carl Hopkinson have represented Horsham Cricket Club and gone on to become first class cricketers for Sussex CCC.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Horsham".

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