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     Percy Bysshe Shelley, great Romantic poet, who loved the countryside — whether English or Italian — would have had to ride most of a day to reach London from his birthplace, Field Place, near Warnham, Sussex.

     Now the journey takes little more than an hour on the A3, then A24, Dorking-Horsham Road. We turn off on a tree-arched country byway and arrive in the picturesque village of Warnham with Tudor and Georgian houses, an inn, The Sussex Oak, probably considerably older than its declared 400 years, and a fine church, approached by a majestic row of lime trees, and set in a Garden of Remembrance with a background of the Sussex hills.

     Shelley once wrote, “Hell is a city much like London”. He spent most of his youth in the country: Wales, Scotland and Ireland, as well as West Sussex. Indeed, he accomplished an extraordinary amount of travelling even before he left England in 1816.

     The name ‘Warnham’ combines ‘Werna’, Old English personal name with ‘Ham’, a dwelling-place. Although not mentioned in Domesday Book, it is known that the benefice was given by William de Braose to Rusper Nunnery, four miles to the north-east. The church is also mentioned in the ‘Nonae Rolls’ of 1340 and 1341. This was a record of benefices, to compare them with the valuation of Pope Nicholas in 1291. The purpose was to determine a subsidy in the form of a ninth of the corn, wool and lands of each parish.

     The Church of St. Margaret’s, Warnham, is large and stately, with a yewcovered, arched entrance to the porch, and at the side the 16th-century bell-tower. The church was built between the 14th and 19th century, in the honey-coloured local stone. There are Shelley Memorials in the Caryll Chapel and in the Chapel of Our Lady of Pity and the Trinity, better known as ‘Field Place Chapel’. This was built largely by Richard Mitchell of Field Place, who left 40 pounds in 1524, towards the construction of the tower.

     Field Place Chapel is now used as a vestry and organ loft. On the south wall a tablet records the burials of Shelley’s sisters, Hellen and Elizabeth, and of his son, Charles Bysshe, who died, aged 11, in 1826. Only one of his several children, lanthe, reached maturity and founded a family.

     On the south aisle of the church, in a showcase, are two altar books, presented in 1771 and 1828, by the grandfather and father of the poet. In the showcase there is also a facsimile of the Registry Entry of Shelley’s baptism: 7th September, 1792. The original records are kept at Chichester.

     On the floor of the Caryll Chapel a stone is inscribed to the memory of:

Timothy Shelley, Esq., of Horsham in this County, died 11th March 1771, aged 70. Joanna, his wife, died 17th November 1770, aged 74. She was born at Newark in North America.

     The stone is headed by the Shelley crest: a griffin’s head; at the foot is a shield containing the family arms.

     A silver cup, paten and flagon of 1770, bearing the Shelley arms, were presented in 1771 by Sir Timothy, as well as a large oaken chest.

     The benefice is now in the family of C. T. Lucas, the noted cricketer, who, in 1866, acquired the Manor of Warnham Court, famous for its herd of red deer.

     A mile beyond Warnham, at Broadbridge Heath, is the Shelley Arms, an inn that dates from the fourteenth century. Legend declares the youthful Shelley would sometimes seek refuge there, after a quarrel with his father.

     The poet’s birthplace is situated in pastoral country, between Warnham and Broadbridge Heath. The land is fertile, and is extensively farmed by the present owner, Miss Doris Charrington of the brewing family.

     The long, low, two-storey building of ochre stone is approached by a noble avenue of limes and chestnuts, and is surrounded by a large park. The architecture blends Tudor and early Georgian, and the older part is embowered in roses and honeysuckle. I visited it on a bright sunny day, but the house seemed transfixed in a dream-like, almost melancholy atmosphere, like a mood of the poet.

     There are many takes told of Shelley’s conflicts with his father, who is said to have been a typical, bluff country squire. But he must at least have had an awareness of the values of education, for Shelley’s favourite sister, Hellen, wrote:

“A child who at six years old was sent daily to learn Latin at a clergyman’s house, and as soon as it was expedient removed to Dr. Greenland’s, from thence to Eton, and subsequently to college, could scarcely have been the uneducated son that some writers would endeavour to persuade those who read their books to believe he ought to have been, if his parents despised education.” (Letter to Lady Shelley).

     Dissensions undoubtedly arose because of Shelley’s uncontrollable imagination and wild delusions and illusions.

     He was born in a moderate-sized room on the first floor of the comfortable but unpretentious country residence. The ceilings are low, the corridors narrow and winding, the staircase decorated by a lovely Jacobean banister. There was the scent of strawberries in the atmosphere on this warm summer day. In the bedroom, the furniture is dark and simple, the bed-canopy and curtains of a sombre shade of green. Under a painting of olive trees over the fireplace a brass plaque records:

Shrine of the dawning speech and thought of Shelley. Sacred be to all Who bow where time hath brought gifts to eternity.

     There are a few anecdotes of the poet. Often confined to his room in disgrace, he would creep down the back staircase and take food surreptitiously from the kitchen. This he would consume in the attic. It probably led to his later habit of concealing morsels of bread in his pockets, to nibble at during his walks, on which he meditated on poetry, time and eternity:

“O World, O life, O time,
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before . . . . .”

     The spirit and personality of the poet pervades the house and grounds; although no members of the family have been associated with the property since the early nineteenth century. Indeed little more is known of the family tenure of Field Place than the following note:

“Field Place came into the hands of the Shelley Family many years before the marriage of Bysshe Shelley and Mary Catherine Michell, but only became the property of Bysshe Shelley 38 years after that marriage”.

(From ‘Field Place, Warnham’, in Sussex Notes and Queries, Vol. XVII, pp. 1-9).

     No personal or family papers exist in the Record Office of the West Sussex County Council, and apart from mention in such legal documents as deeds of title, the only memento of the poet is his baptism entry, in the Warnham Parish Records.