Welcome to the website page exploring the history of Lurgashall Parish
The Archive room at the Village Hall is next open to visitors on Wed 10th & Wed 24th APRIL, 2.30 – 5pm.
Contact: archive@lurgashallvillagehall.org
The Edgars of Stag Park Farm
Stag Park Farm nestles in the centre of the Leconfield Estate north of Petworth Park and is the most south-easterly property within the boundary of Lurgashall Parish. It cannot be seen from any road and is visible only from a distance on public footpaths.
The farm has an illustrious history, having been built by the 3rd Earl Egremont in c.1782 as a model farm where he could put into practice his progressive ideas on agriculture and farming. The farm has always been renowned for its herd of Sussex cattle.
Stag Park Farm, courtesy of Leconfield Estate website.
The role of farm/land steward or farm bailiff at Stag Park was a highly prized one, and this role was held for over 30 years, from c.1886 to 1919, by John Gibbons Edgar.
Edgar was born and raised in Cumberland, not far from Cockermouth Castle which is the ‘other’ home of the Egremonts of Petworth. Edgar trained to be a farm bailiff but by 1881, aged only 30, he was out of work and living with relatives.
Two years later, in 1883, Edgar married Mary Robinson in Whitehaven, and not long after that the couple moved down to Sussex where he was given the job of farm steward at Stag Park Farm, living in the beautiful regency farmhouse with his wife and new daughter, Mary Isabel.
Mary Edgar died in 1903 and was buried in Lurgashall churchyard. Her widowed husband John Gibbons Edgar continued to live and work at Stag Park Farm, supported by his daughter Mary Isabel, until his retirement in 1919. During his time at Stag Park Farm, Edgar was a churchwarden at St Laurence’s Church for 18 years.
In 1919 Edgar moved to Fishbourne where his daughter joined him again in c.1929 to be his housekeeper until his death, aged 88, in 1936. He is buried with his wife in Lurgashall churchyard. A year later, Mary Isabel moved to Hill Cottage on Angel Street in Petworth where she lived until her own death in 1962. Mary Isabel never married.
It is to this family, their love of Lurgashall and their generosity that we owe the presence of the beautiful pews in the nave of St Laurence’s Church. On the side of one of the pews is a plaque which says:
TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF MARY EDGAR WHO ENTERED INTO REST AT STAG PARK ON 7TH DECEMBER 1903 AGED 51 YEARS: ALSO OF JOHN GIBBONS EDGAR, FOR 18 YEARS CHURCHWARDEN OF THIS PARISH, WHO PASSED INTO THE HIGHER LIFE ON 25TH MARCH 1936 IN HIS 89TH YEAR AT THE GABLES, FISHBOURNE. THIS TABLET TOGETHER WITH THE SUM OF £1000 IS BEQUEATHED TO THE CHURCH OF ST LAWRENCE (sic), LURGASHALL AS A MEMORIAL TO THEM IN THE FORM OF A RE-PEWING OF THE NAVE OF THIS CHURCH BY THEIR ONLY CHILD MARY ISABEL EDGAR.
