CHAPTER IV. 



THE FORDS OF EAST HARTING. 

 SIR EDWARD FORD. FORD LORD GREY. 



THE Ford (1549 1746, eight generations) was from 

 Devonshire. Erasmus, the father of Edmond Forde, 

 purchaser of the manors of Harting, is described* as 

 " merchant of the Staple," a wool broker or merchant 

 of the Staple Company, whose object it was to bring 

 as many foreigners as possible to the towns where wool 

 was sold. The steady rise in the price of wool between 

 1515 and 1531 led to the introduction of sheep farming 

 on an enormous scale ;f and the great Thomas Crom- 

 well was wool merchant at Middleborough at nearly 

 this same date. It seems likely that Erasmus Forde 

 may have been brought here by the markets for fme 

 wool of the Southdown and Hampshire ranges, which 

 constituted part of the traffic between Portsmouth and 

 Spain, and the memory of which still lingers in the 

 venerable name of " The Spain " at Petersfield, and the 

 approach to the old square, called to this day " Sheep 

 Street." $ 



Edmond Forde bought Harting for a pretty penny. 

 When called upon to show his title to the manors of 

 Nutborne and Harting, which apparently were sold by 

 the Windsors as one estate, he pleads that in 1546 he 

 gave Henry and Elinor Windsor 280 for Nutborne, 

 that in 1549 he paid them 1,600 for Harting manor, 

 the larger or West Harting manor; and in 1560 



* Philipot's Visitation of Sussex, 1634, Gough MSS., Sussex. 

 Bodleian. 



t Green's " History of England," p. 320. 



J Edmund Forde, Gent., resided at Petersfield. (Evidence of 

 Petersfield Electors, Charter of Hawisa.) 



