Graffham

Two tables on the village street

The Foresters Arms has an inglenook and a real fire, and the building dates from 1609, extended in Victorian times. It sits on Graffham's long main street with a garden at the back and dogs allowed, and the kitchen, under chef Thiago, runs a seasonal menu that has lately included fish and chips, burgers and roast pork belly with crackling. The beer is local: two Langham cask ales, the Hip Hop session golden and the Best premium bitter, with a rotating guest such as Dorking's DB One. The pub is registered as an Asset of Community Value.

A little further along stands The Woodcote, which until late 2024 was the White Horse. Glen and Asta Manchester took the century-old pub, renamed it after Woodcote Lane, and turned it toward the kitchen, cooking that sources from Sussex gamekeepers, farms, fisheries and cheesemakers. The Sunday Grill opens with a sharing board of small things before changing starters and mains; The Times called the à-la-carte menu "stuffed with temptation." They removed the old inn sign, which shows a jockey in the racing colours of a former owner's father, and presented it to her.

The shop and paths into the hills

For everything else there is Graffham Village Shop, run since 2008 by Jeeva and Vasu Jeevathasan. It carries bread, milk, meat and fish, wine and newspapers, and the café does hot drinks, pastries and sandwiches and can suggest a packed lunch if you are heading for the hills. During the first lockdown the pair kept things going for the whole village; the shop earned a Community Champion award, and Jeeva was later given the British Empire Medal for his service through the pandemic.

The Downs are about a mile up. Footpaths climb from St Giles through steep woodland, where deer are common, to meet the South Downs Way on the chalk ridge, and two prehistoric barrows sit on Graffham Down above the village. For flatter going, Lavington Common is a rare patch of open lowland heath just to the north, sandy underfoot, with heather, adders and sand lizards; the Serpent Trail threads through it. The paths there flood after rain.

Ancient arches and a railway pub

St Giles occupies the quiet southern end of The Street, nearest the incline. Two arches of the nave are 12th-century; G. E. Street rebuilt most of the rest in 1875 as a memorial to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, and the shingled spire followed in 1887. Cardinal Henry Edward Manning was rector here from 1833 until 1851, when he left the Church of England for Rome. The Domesday surveyors counted thirteen households and valued the manor at eight pounds a year in 1086.

Out at Selham, still within the parish, The Three Moles was built in 1872 as the Railway Inn for a station that closed in 1955. It took its name from the three moles on the Mitford family crest and is, the landlords maintain, the only Three Moles anywhere. Tom and Ollie have run it since 2017. The kitchen does empanadas, bookable Sunday roasts and summer roast ciabattas, and pours St Austell Tribute; nobody under twelve is admitted, garden included. Cyclists get covered parking, puncture tools and a water refill.

Space to play and ways to arrive

The recreation ground runs to nearly seven acres of tennis, bowls and cricket beneath the Downs, with a play park finished in 2025, and Empire Hall keeps up a run of films, yoga and pickleball. Petworth House and its deer park are a short drive, as is the Weald & Downland museum at Singleton. Pulborough station is about ten miles off, and by road you come in on minor lanes three miles south of the A272. A book-a-bus service, the 99 Flex, covers the village, booked by app or phone up to two days ahead and subject to availability, rather than run to a timetable.

The people who make the parish

Around five hundred people live in the parish. Helen Martin, leaving the infant school after almost eighteen years, put it plainly: "This is an amazing village. I've made so many friends here."