The Priest House, Itchingfield

It had to be wet and gloomy again when I left work and despite this I managed to pay a quick visit to Itchingfield. Within the churchyard stands the Priest House. When it was built in the early 16th Century it stood outside the churchyard and was used as a cottage for a paid member of the clergy. After about 80 years, another cottage was built on and it was used as an almshouse and had its own garden. It was last lived in in the 1860's and the churchyard extended all around it. Since then it has been used as a Vestry and for storage. It remains a very picturesque cottage and has a full Horsham Stone roof. The stone for this would have been dug out locally and there are several flooded pits in the woods and on the corners of various fields throughout the parish where this might have been carried out.

There is a footpath that runs round the back of the cottage and descends through woods to the fields beyond and the waymarkers that can be seen have only recently been put up.