Heyshott

The Unicorn and a Village Without a Shop

The Unicorn is the only pub in Heyshott, and its kitchen aims higher than a village this size has any obligation to. A sample menu runs from a black-pudding fritter with smoked cheese and tomato jam, through gin-cured salmon with dill crème fraîche and a twice-baked soufflé of the day, to a Cumberland sausage ring with mash, onion gravy and Savoy cabbage, and pheasant breast with sausage-meat and mixed-nut stuffing on bubble and squeak. Dogs are welcome in the bar, where the pub keeps homemade dog biscuits and asks you to mention yours when you book. The welcome note is signed by Jenni.

There is no shop. Heyshott had one and lost it, so bring what you need with you. Manor Farm at Hill Barn sits on the official Cocking-to-Littleton route and doubles as a refreshment stop.

Arriving Beneath Heyshott Down

The village lies at the foot of the South Downs, about three miles south of Midhurst, with Heyshott Down rising immediately to the south. There is no railway here, or at Midhurst; the practical railheads are Haslemere and Chichester, with buses on to Midhurst. By car you turn off the A286 between Midhurst and Chichester and follow a signed lane about a mile in. Without a car, West Sussex runs the on-demand 96 Flex Book-a-Bus, booked by app or phone up to two days ahead; check that the village is covered when you book.

Walking is a major local draw. The Cocking Hill to Littleton Farm route is a five-mile, moderate walk of about two and a half to three hours, climbing gently to Heyshott Down before following the ridge past ancient cross-dykes and burial mounds, with the south-western Weald opening out to the west. OS Explorer OL8 covers it. The down and escarpment lie within an SSSI managed in part by the Murray Downland Trust; a survey here recorded twenty-seven butterfly species, among them the Duke of Burgundy, with dark green fritillary on Heyshott Down itself.

St James and Richard Cobden

The parish church, St James, is worth the detour off the lane. It is the only known medieval Sussex church built directly on gault clay, and the damp ground shows in its raised pew floors and an underfloor drain. The nave is thirteenth-century; the rest was rebuilt in the nineteenth, and until 1882 the building was a chapel of ease to Stedham. Rubble walls sit under tiled roofs, topped by a weatherboarded bell turret and a shingled spire.

Inside, four pieces of fifteenth- or early-sixteenth-century glass were returned to the north-aisle window in 1912 by Jane Cobden-Unwin. Her father, Richard Cobden, worshipped here, and a plaque marks his old front pew: "In this place Richard Cobden, who loved his fellow man, was accustomed to worship God." Cobden was born at Dunford Hollow in the village and grew into the leading voice of the Anti-Corn Law League. Dunford House, built for him in an Italianate style on the site of his birthplace, later hosted conferences on peace and free trade; Gandhi and George Bernard Shaw are believed to have visited, and a Sèvres vase given to Cobden by Napoleon III remains among the family's possessions there.

Cobden's Legacy, Village Traditions and Days Out

His daughters kept the thread going: Anne Cobden-Sanderson helped found the Women's Freedom League and was jailed after a 1906 suffrage demonstration, and Jane was among the first women elected to London County Council, in 1889. Jane's will created the charity behind Cobden Hall on Leggs Lane, still the village's meeting place, with a community cinema, talks, and keep fit, Pilates and yoga.

Heyshott keeps its own year: a bonfire night going back to 1953, with a torchlit procession, Punch and Judy and a raffle, and a May Day revived in 2015 with a maypole and a dog show judged just for fun. For a day out, Midhurst has the Tudor ruins of Cowdray in its water meadows, and Petworth House holds Van Dyck, Turner and Gainsborough inside a 700-acre deer park landscaped by Capability Brown.

The Village Craftsman at St James

Back in the church, the altar and chancel rails were made by William Parry, who served the village as blacksmith, carpenter, sexton and clerk for forty-eight years.