Easebourne

Easebourne
Sussex
Easebourne Priory
Location
Grid reference:	SU894225
Location:	50°59’45"N, -0°43’34"W
Data
Population:	1,717  (2001)
Post town:	Midhurst
Postcode:	GU29
Dialling code:	01730
Local Government
Council:	Chichester
Parliamentary constituency:	Chichester
Website:	http://www.easebourne.org/

Easebourne is a village in Sussex. It stands half a mile north of Midhurst, across the River Rother on the A272 and A286 roads. The parish also includes the hamlet of Henley to the north. In the 2001 census there were 708 households with a total population of 1,717 of whom 785 were economically active.

There is one public house in Easebourne, the White Horse, and one in Henley, the Duke Of Cumberland. The parish church of St Mary is 13th century or earlier in origin. Cowdray Park, to the east of the village, has a golf course, and is home to a first-class Polo club.

Adjacent to the polo grounds lie the ruins of the Tudor Cowdray House the most famous building in the village, built as a great Tudor mansion with castle features. Started in 1520, it was completed by 1542. but was devastated by fire in 1793. It has not been occupied since. Another of the village’s famous buildings is Easebourne Priory. Built for ten Augustinian canonesses, it was founded before 1238 by the de Bohun family who were from St Ann’s Hill in nearby Midhurst.

On the northern edge of Easebourne village on the A286 road Budgenor Lodge, recently converted into luxury flats, is the former Midhurst Union Workhouse which was opened in 1794 by a Gilbert Union of seventeen parishes. From 1835 it was run and enlarged by the Midhurst Poor Law Union, serving 26 parishes.

References

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Easebourne)