Edinburgh Square, Midhurst

This website is awful to use at the moment. This is my third attempt at trying to put this on here!

After lunch at the nursery at Trotton, Mum and I went back to Midhurst for a walk round. Midhurst is one of the most attractive of small towns in West Sussex with plenty to look at and many old buildings.

This picture shows a pair of cottages that probably date from the second half of the 19th Century. They stand in the elegantly named Edinburgh Square. I have no idea why the road was given the name of Scotland's great capital, but it may be due to the fact that the Cowdray Estate who built and owns them has much land up there. Cowdray houses and properties are painted either the yellow you see in the picture, or dark green. The yellow was used originally for general estate workers, while the dark green was for the more senior employees.

Why the yellow? Weetman Dickinson Pearson later to become 1st Viscount Cowdray bought the Cowdray Estate in c.1908 and was Liberal MP for Colchester in Essex (where there is a Cowdray Avenue). The yellow was a political pun on the Party he represented. The Cowdray Estate still owns many properties and provides employment for many in the area, carrying on a centuries old tradition of good work and service to the community and all things countryside.