I learned some interesting tidbits from reading the parish records that are not online. Pam Hadley of Heyshott was my pen pal before she died a few years back and helped me immensely with my research of the Midhurst-Heyshott-Cocking area as did historian, Ronnie Palmer. Between the two of them, I was able to uncover so much of my family line. I seem to remember you and I have corresponded as well. I used to publish a newsletter called 'The Hopkins Family Research Newsletter' which followed the many descendants of John and Elizabeth Randol Hopkins.
 
I found one note that I've always remembered. In the Parish Record of Heyshott there was a note on New Year's Day in the early 1700's of a 'beggar boy', estimated age seven, found frozen to death by the side of the road. I've always wondered who he might have been.
 
Anyhow, thanks for a fascinating website and the opportunity to share some miscellanies.
 
Regards,
 
Janet

There are records of there having been four inns or public houses in Heyshott-
The White Horse, the Black Horse, the Lion and the Unicorn.
 
Only the Unicorn exists today. It is possible that there was also a public house at Hoyle at one time but no written evidence of this has been found. Local tradition has it that there was one either in Old Hoyle, where a trap for lowering barrels into the cellar is said to have been by the front door or, opposite, at Old Hoyle Cottages, where Mrs Helen Downes, the present owner, can show the shelves on which the rows of glasses were kept.
 
The White Horse is the first for which any record exists. It was located in what is now Glebe Cottage and Newells Cottage, but these two were then one cottage owned by Charles Hopkins*. The account book for the Overseers of the Poor of Heyshott shows that, in 1833, one Thomas Mills paid £1 towards the Poor rate on account of The White Horse Public House. Then in 1836 Charles Hopkins was granted a licence by Midhurst Petty Sessions for the White Horse. This was renewed the following year but it was revoked in 1838. This may not have been for any misdemeanour but just because Charles Hopkins gave up running the property as a pub.
 
*A deed date 1904 notes the original cottage on this site was built by Charles Hopkins and occupied by his son, Charles. It was used as a public house from 1836-1838, the White Horse public house. In 1831, Robert Parry is noted to have leased property to Charles, '2 tenements, part and parcel of a certain farm called Peacheys and formerly belonging to John Peachey of Soham, now occupied by Robert Parry, James Poat and Wm Kilhams.' I'm not sure if this is the same property.
 
The White Horse was still owned by Charles (1770) in 1840. Charles is noted to be a publican as early as 1813 (LDS Microfilm #0918458). He married Sarah L. Charge. He was the child of Henry and Ann Eldridge Hopkins (my fourth great-grandparents). Henry was the son of John Hopkins (1687) and Elizabeth Randol Hopkins. John Hopkins is noted to be an 'innkeeper' in Heyshott in son Henry's 1739 bastardy bond with Mary Pierce over her child, Arthurah Rice, of Fittleworth.
 
The Lion Inn was located in the house now called Heyshott Farmhouse. It did not operate for very long, as it only started sometime after 1857, when Henry Pope bought the premises **, and ceased by 1880 when it was converted to a Working Men's Club and Coffee House with the objective of providing a place of recreation, other than the pub, for the young men of Heyshott. There are only two pieces of evidence which have been found about the Lion Inn. The first is in a statutary declaration by Edward Pope of Heyshott, grocer, in 1882 to the effect that he was the son of Henry Pope, innkeeper, deceased. The second is that the owner of Heyshott Farmhouse still has an inn sign of a lion with a white mane on which is inscribed 'Henry Pope licenced to sell retail beer. Not to be consumed on the premises'.
 
**Henry Pope(1808-1881) married Sarah Hopkins (1793), daughter of Nicholas Hopkins Jr. (1743), the son of Nicholas (1715), the son of the above John Hopkins (1687), the Heyshott innkeeper. As noted above.
 
Very little is known about The Black Horse Inn. the only evidence which has been found about it is in a deed dated 1916 in which Thomas Fisher Unwin of Oatscroft conveyed the present Black Horse Cottages to the trustees of the Cobden Club. In this deed the property is described as 'three messuages (formerly consisting of one messuage called or known by the name, and bearing the sign of, the Black Horse)'.
 
The original licence for the Unicorn was granted to Henry Smith on 5th September 1839. He continued to hold the licence intil 1853 when it was transferred to George Pink ***, a master cordwainer, who had been born at Stedham. The licence remained with the Pink family. first father, then son, then son's widow, until November 1884 when Henrietta Pink relinquished it to Henry Rogers, who held it for five years. In 1868 the property was surveyed by Wyatt and Sons, a firm of Chichester estate agents, who reported it to be 'occupied by Geo Pink. Front parlour and tap room, cellar and back kitchen, five bedrooms, detached wash house, shed and garden'. From 1872 to 1889 the owner of the pub was Charles Atkey Esquire of Chichester but, in the latter years, it was bought by Messrs Lambert & Norris, Eagle Brewery, of Arundel and the landlord changed to Benjamin Dabbs. He remailed the landlord for seven years until he handed over to Gerard Rassell, who died the following year and his widow carried on until 1902. In that year the licence was transferred to Percy Remnant who continued until the end of the Great War when James Richardson took over.
 
*** George Walter Pink Sr. (1811-1883) of Stedham, noted in the 1871 census as a bootmaker and innkeeper in Heyshott, was the son of Robert and Jane Hopkins Pink. Jane was the daughter of Charles (1770) and Sarah L. Charge Hopkins. Charles was the former owner of the White Horse Inn. This George Pink passed the license to George Walter Pink Jr. who married a Scottish woman by the name of Henrietta Denoon. She passed it to Henry Rogers (1829-1897) who married Charlotte Robinson, daughter of George Robinson Hopkins (he used both last names) and granddaughter of Nicholas Hopkins Jr. (1743) mentioned above.
 
Ronnie Palmer had sent me a note in which he said he suspected the Unicorn was originally John Hopkins' pub noted in John's son Henry's 1739 Bastardy Bond. We sadly could find no proof. John died in 1766, one of the fourth generation of Hopkinses found in Heyshott.
 
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Hopkins descendants of innkeeper John Hopkins (1687) and Elizabeth Randol Hopkins kept Heyshott in the business of public houses. I had the good fortune to visit the Unicorn last summer with my husband, David Hoy, and chat with the husband of a friend who lived in Heyshott until her death a few years back. What a gorgeous village.
 
Janet Anne Hopkins (because I'm a genealogist, I kept my maiden name...)
 
Janet A. Hopkins, Arizona USA