504 - Little Beech Field, Itchingfield

Another walk and another field! I went again to Itchingfield on the way home from work and did a longer walk which had not been done since early last autumn. There was mud, but it was no worse than it normally has been before the awful rain we have had.

This field was marked as No 504 on the 1839 Tithe Map of Itchingfield when it was owned by Charles Chitty. He owned a lot of land in the parish at the time and some in Billingshurst. The use of the field was not specified in the attached book that goes with the map, known as an Apportionment. I suspect it was as now, pasture. The size was given as 3 acres, 1 rod and 6 perches in the old measurements, so not a very large field. Next to it is the one remaining bit of Muntham Wood that did not get the chop and is on the right. The Chitty Family are buried in Itchingfield churchyard where their memorials can be seen. They lived at Muntham House which by 1839 was a mixture of Jacobean and Georgian in date. The house was replaced by a new one in 1887 by the Godman family when they took over the estate and it is now a school. It might be an ordinary field, but it has a story to tell.