Hardham

infobox UK place
country = England
static_

static_image_caption= Church of St. Botolph
latitude= 50.9486
longitude= -0.52278
official_name = Hardham
population =
civil_parish= Coldwaltham
shire_district= Horsham
shire_county= West Sussex
region= South East England
constituency_westminster= Arundel and South Downs
post_town=
postcode_district =
postcode_area=
dial_code=
os_grid_reference= TQ038176

Hardham is a small village in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the A29 road 1.2 miles (2km) southwest of Pulborough.

The small anglican parish church dedicated to St Botolph has some of the oldest surviving wall paintings in the country, including an image of St George slaying a dragon. The village is on the line of the Roman road Stane Street [ [http://www.roman-britain.org/places/hardham.htm Roman Britain website] ] , which changes direction here, leaving the modern A29 road which has followed it from Capel, to head south west to Bignor and Chichester. The Roman Greensand Way from Lewes joined Stane Street here and remains of a Roman way station have been found. In the late eighteenth century a canal tunnel was built on the Arun Navigation to avoid a large loop of the River Arun [P.A.L.Vine, "Images of England. The Arun Navigation" Tempus Publishing Limited 2000 ISBN 0 7524 2103 4 pp76-82.] . The railway line from Pulborough to Midhurst passed over the tunnel, and when the canal closed the railway company broke into the tunnel and filled that part of it under the rails with chalk. Standing on higher ground on the south side of the village Hardham Priory, the Priory of St. Cross, was an Augustinian monastery, established in the mid thirteenth century [ [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=36590 British History Online; Hardham Priory] ] .

References

ee also

* [http://arun.inthepast.org.uk/navigation_hardham_tunnel.htm Hardham Tunnel by Marshall and Norris]

* [http://saxon.sussexchurches.co.uk/hardham_priory.htm Hardham Priory]