Woolbeding House
Grade I listed building in Chichester, United Kingdom
Woolbeding House is an 18th-century country house in Woolbeding, near Midhurst, West Sussex, England. It is a Grade I listed building.
It was probably built by Sir Richard Mill, 5th Baronet between 1711 and 1760 and was originally of a quadrangular plan with an open courtyard in the middle. The courtyard was later roofed over. The house is built of coursed Hythe sandstone in 2 storeys with an attic and has a 7-bay south-facing frontage with 5 hipped dormers. A series of gardens, the Woolbeding Gardens, have been created in the grounds of the estate and they are open to the public.
History
The place Woolbeding, meaning "Wulfbeard's people", was recorded in Domesday Book of 1086, and it had many owners including the de Wolbedinge family and the Earls of Arundel.
The manor of Woolbeding belonged to William Aylyng in 1567 and passed by marriage to the Grey family. The Elizabethan building of this period was an H-shaped building. The Greys owned the manor until Margaret Grey married Sir John Mill in 1652, and it was then passed down the Mill family.
The public source identifies “Woolbeding House” as grade I listed building in Chichester, United Kingdom. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Woolbeding, House and Grade.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Woolbeding House”, the useful work is to connect “grade I listed building in Chichester, United Kingdom” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17528905. Authority coordinates are 50.997, -0.757. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1711, 1760, 1086 and 1567.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Woolbeding House”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Woolbeding House primary sources, Woolbeding House archive and Woolbeding research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Woolbeding House” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.