1700 To The Present Day

 
Changes in the law led to the establishment of a parish Council in 1894 as a district attempt to introduce democracy at grass-roots level in place of the Vestry Meeting. Its history is told in Chapter 15.
 
A Post Office was firmly established in the 1890s and continued until 1981.
 
In the 20th century, other improvements were slower to appear, which may, perversely, have added to the rural charm of Heyshott as far as incomers were concerned. In the early decades of the 20th century, Midhurst Rural District Council was concerned that weekenders were buying properties and depriving farmworkers of accommodation. This led, in 1923-4, to the building of Heyshotts first four council houses at Austens. Other properties, Bakersfield and the rest of Austens, were added later and the building of Down Close, which won a Government award for design in 1967, completed the final phase of council house building in Heyshott.
 
Piped water to replace the use of rainwater tanks and wells, some of which were up to forty feet deep, came in the 1930s when Lord Cowdray brought in unemployed Welsh miners to dig a trench from a source at Cocking. This private water supply was later replaced by a local authority main, starting in 1948 when the Midhurst Rural District Council provided a main to the Bex Mill area. In 1963 the North West Sussex Water Board provided mains water to the rest of the village . However many houses are still connected to the public water main by piping installed for the Cowdray supply nearly 70 years ago.
 
Drainage remained primitive for many years but, increasingly, cesspits emptied by Midhurst RDC were used, until in 1977, a new drainage system to take sewage across Heyshott Common to Ambersham was dug.
 
Refuse collection by the District Council was late in reaching the village. Although the Parish Council had powers to deal with refuse collection, rubbish was mostly burned or buried until, in 1957, the District Council began collecting refuse fortnightly in the centre of the village. This service was rapidly extended to the whole of Heyshott on a weekly basis.
 
The maintenance of the roads and bridges in parishes was, for centuries, the responsibility of the parish and its surveyor, subject to orders being made by the County Justices in the event of dispute or default. With the growth of road traffic and the demand for better road surfaces, responsibility passed to the new county and district councils. The traction engine used on Heyshott roads in the 1920s and 1930s is shown on the next page: