Latest Homes Sussex magazine

Covering 205 square miles (530 square kilometres) of varied countryside, attractive small towns and villages in the county of West Sussex, the Horsham District has something for everyone.

Historic market town Horsham is the main town, the administrative and commercial centre of the district and there are also a large number of villages and open countryside, with more than 126,000 residents living in the whole district.

The market towns of Billingshurst, Henfield, Pulborough, Steyning and Storrington are also busy centres of activity and each has its own character and charm. Horsham’s town centre has won many awards for its design andsympathetic use of materials as well as for its many ‘In Bloom’ successes, including national winner of the small city/large town category and with Gold at ‘Bloomin’ Wild’ awards in Britain in Bloom 2007.

Readers may recognise the Shelley Fountain in Horsham as featured on the BBC TV South’s daily news opening sequence, Horsham has also been consistently placed in the top ten places to live on Channel 4s Best and Worst Places to live in the UK programme.

Christmas 2007: What’s On

Torchlight Procession and Carols Saturday 1 December: 4-5pm
The childrens’ candlelit procession starts at St. Mary’s Church, Causeway through Horsham Town Centre finishing at the Carfax bandstand with a free public carol concert.
Carol sheets will be handed out for full audience participation.
Contact: Horsham Churches Together c/o alex.cloke@btopenworld.com

Italia in Piazza – The Real Italian Food Market Carfax, Horsham Town Centre Sunday 9 December: 10am-4pm

The return of this very popular Italian produce market that made its first visit to Horsham at Easter 2007. Stock up for Christmas on Salumeria: cheeses, cured meats and pasta, olives and sott’olii, biscotti e dolci, olive oils and vinegars, torrone e cioccolata, panettone e dolci, gastronomia natalizie and speciality breads.

Carfax Bandstand Free Christmas Concerts Saturdays in December, 11am-1pm.

Saturday 1 – Horsham Salvation Army Band
Saturday 8 – Slinfold Concert Band
Saturday 15 – Horsham Borough Band
Saturday 22 – Mid Sussex Youth Concert Band

Swan Walk Late Night Shopping till 9pm
Thursdays 29 Nov – 20 December
Thursday 29 Nov featuring Mrs Tiggywinkle
and Peter Rabbit (from 2-7pm)

Thursday 6 Dec featuring Bart Simpson
(from 2-7pm)

Thursday 13 Dec featuring Dora the Explorer featuring (from 2-7pm)

Thursday 20 Dec Chase Gift Wrapping Service in BB’s

Major shops in West Street and the Forum will also be open on these late nights

Free Parking in Horsham Town Centre from 4pm on late night shopping Thursdays and on Sundays

Horsham District Events

Billingshurst

Christmas Billifest
Billingshurst High Street and Village Hall
Saturday 1 December 9am – 4pm
Christmas Shopping plus genuine Italian and Spanish food market, Rotary Club craft fair in the village hall, children’s entertainment and local charity stalls.

Henfield

The Spirit of Christmas
Henfield High Street
Friday 14 December 4 – 8pm
Seasonal festivities, carol singing, mince pies and late night shopping.

Steyning

Christmas in Steyning
Late Night Shopping
Steyning High Street and Car Park
Wednesday 5 December 6 – 9pm
Samba band procession with Father Christmas, fairground, carol singers, entertainments, jugglers, fire eaters, jazz and other bands, farmers’ market, craft, food and charity stalls, free mince pies and mulled wine in selected shops.

Storrington

Storrington Town Centre
Late Night Shopping
Thursday 6 December 5.30 – 8pm
Spirit FM, Father Christmas, music, fire
engine, hot chestnuts, carol singers, raffles,
land trains & roundabouts, raffles, hot food
stalls and much more.

Ian Trevett admires the feisty Lewes attitude

When the streets of Lewes are aflame with burning stakes held aloft by charred-faced bonfire boys, it is a peculiar and disturbing sight. Much has been written about the provocative ‘No Popery’ banners displayed by the Cliffe Bonfire Society (although the Bonfire Societies are quick to point out that the popery in question is only that demonstrated by Pope Paul V, head of the Catholic Church at the time of the Gunpowder Plot). However, the banner that really sums up the Lewes philosophy is the simple ‘For Independence’ motto proudly flown by the Commercial Square Bonfire Society.

Only eight miles from Brighton, it would be easy for the tiny county town to be overwhelmed by the burgeoning influence of its imposing neighbour, but this would underestimate its stubborn local identity. Lewes’ bloody-mindedness was evident in a rather bolshy excise officer called Thomas Paine, who, in 1772, rallied his fellow workers to protest about their lot, years before trade unionists had even been invented. He printed up 4,000 copies of his rant about pay and conditions entitled ‘The Case Of The Officers Of Excise’, and spent the winter distributing copies to MPs. By spring, his bosses noted that Thomas wasn’t exactly applying himself to the job and fired him.

Soon after he emigrated to America and became the intellectual inspiration behind the War Of Independence. It was Paine who dreamt up the title United States Of America, and helped rouse the natives against the British colonial rulers.

He then turned his attention back to Europe, writing pieces that were highly critical of monarchies and European social institutions, including one of the first proposals for a progressive income tax. The British government put Paine on trial in his absence for seditious libel. The French, on the other hand, grateful for his inspirational role in the French Revolution, elected him to the National Convention, despite the fact he couldn’t speak the language.

In hindsight, after seeing the loss of a major colony and watching the fall of their aristocratic peers across the channel, the British authorities probably wished they had increased Paine’s wages when he was just a rebellious tax collector in Lewes. His best-known work was the revolutionary Rights Of Man, a seminal work embodying the ideas of liberty and human equality.

(more…)