CHAPTER VII. 

 END OF THE FORDS AND CARYLLS OF HARTING. 



WHEN Ford, Lord Grey, Earl of Tankerville, died at 

 the summit of his fame and magnificence at Up Park 

 in 1701, he left one only child, the Lady Mary Grey, 

 as his heiress. She had been married in 1695 (July 3) 

 to Charles Bennet, 2nd Lord Ossulston, whose seat 

 was at Ossulstone in Middlesex, and never did Mr. 

 Tench see so grand a wedding at Harting Church. 

 " At the time of the marriage a guinea went for 303. : 

 and there being but four bells at Harting, the bride- 

 groom first gave the ringers four guineas, and then, 

 dipping his hand into his pocket, brought up thirty-six 

 more and gave to the Rector (Mr. Tench), who, as 

 soon as the new married couple were gone, said 

 ' Plague upon his little hand ! if it were as big as. 

 some folk's hands, it might have brought up as many 

 again ! ' " * The bells at Harting are now six in num- 

 ber, having been recast in 1785 by Mears, a dupli- 

 cate, it is said, of the Westbourne peal. This wedding 

 at the new mansion of Uppark must have been a 

 considerable event for this part of the county. We 

 can think, too, that the goodnatured Fords would con- 

 sider the news just received, that their neighbours the 

 Carylls would not lose West Harting, as heightening 

 the auspices of the occasion. 



In 1702, Oliver Whitby, whose mother was a Ford, 

 died. His father was the Archdeacon of Chichester 

 who, as we have seen, befriended Mr. Tench. As to 

 the Carylls Harting is indebted for the widows' charity 

 founded by Lady Puckering, so to the Fords is owing 

 the interest which Oliver Whitby took in our village. 

 He died at the age of forty-two, and left the lease of the 

 tithes of Wittering, which he held, for the foundation 

 of a Bluecoat School at Chichester for the instruction 

 Burrell MSS. 



