Harting

Gunning King

From the collection of Danish critic and author Georg Bröchner, who wrote for the British art magazine "The Studio" in the early 20th century.

This drawing is of South Harting in West Sussex, England, UK, done by Gunning King in 1928. In the background is the St Mary and St Gabriel Church with its copper steeple.

Of the three Hartings, East, West and South, the last is the center of the single parish and is often called simply Harting.

Harting is a large parish of 7,946 acres on the Hampshire border of Sussex, consisting largely of down and woodland. The River Rother divides it from Rogate on the north, and the southern border is on the South Downs. The northern part of the parish was originally heath land, West Heath and Ryefield being rabbit warrens belonging to the lords of Harting and the Abbots of Durford.

The church stands at the southern end of the village under the Downs. Most external details of the church date from the 14th century, but the tall, slender proportions of the nave and relatively thin walls – 2ft by 4in thick – could be around the 11th century, though no detail remains. Analysis of the sequence of building is made harder because of a fire in 1576.