The manor of Wiston appears under the name of WISTANESTUN in the Domesday Book, the register of English possessions made by William the Conqueror in 1086. It was then in the hands of William de Braose who, as one of the conqueror's most powerful followers, had been granted a large area of the country of Sussex as a reward for his services. Since the Conquest only six families have owned the Wiston Estate.
The house remained with the de Braose family until the early-15th century, when John de Braose (whose splendid memorial brass can be seen in the church beside Wiston House) died in 1426 without a male heir. The Estate passed to his great-nephew, Ralph Sherley, one of whose descendants, Sir Thomas Sherley, born c.1542, built Wiston House. There was a stone and timber manor house at Wiston recorded in 1357, but Sir Thomas, knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Rye in 1573, felt the need to improve or entirely rebuild it. The work was begun soon after his knighthood and conceived on a grand scale; same interiors were complete by 1576. The house was much larger than at present: the south wing stretched further westwards, occupying the space where the conservatory now stands. A three-storeyed wing ran parallel to the present west terrace, while the east court yard (outside the present main door) was enclosed by a range of buildings, including a gatehouse, which have also completely disappeared. The House was built around this paved court, and behind the mullioned windows and crow-stepped gables lay same magnificent rooms - the splendid great hall with its double hammer-beam roof, a great chamber, a panelled parlour, a chapel and 90 foot long gallery, to name but a few.
The Sherley family (Sir Thomas had a wife Anne, six daughters, and three sons, Thomas the younger, Anthony and Robert) found themselves in financial difficulties soon after the commencement of the building of Wiston House. In 1587 Sir Thomas the elder had been appointed Treasurer at-War in the Netherlands by Queen Elizabeth, but he mishandled the funds which passed through his hands. Speculation and fraudulent misuse of the money eventually led to the Estate being sequestrated by the Crown in 1602. Sir Thomas continued to live at Wiston until his death in 1612, supposedly paying the Estate rents to Queen Elizabeth, and her successor, James I. However, the Crown appears to have received nothing from the Estate, and Sir Thomas the younger inherited the problems.
The Estate finally passed into the hands of Lionel Cranfield, the Earl of Middlesex, in 1622. He was Lord Treasurer to James I. from 1621- 24, and the Estate benefited from his meticulous administration. He sold it in 1634 to John Tufton, the Earl of Thanet, a royalist who suffered greatly during the Civil War. Wiston House was occupied first by royalist and then parliamentarian soldiers in 1643-44 and the Estate was again sequestrated, this time by Parliament, before being purchased very cheaply in 1649 by Sir John Fagge, a parliamentarian soldier from East Sussex. Robert Fagge, his grandson, died in 1740, leaving a sister, Elizabeth, to inherit the Estate. She married Sir Charles Goring of Highden House, Washington in 1743.
The Gorings are a long-established Sussex family. Sir Charles began to alter the Elizabethan house after his marriage. It was then that Wiston House was reduced in size, particularly with the demolition of the outer buildings of the eastern courtyard, including the original gatehouse. The truncated ends of the wings on each side of the courtyard were refaced, as is evidenced by a stone set near the ground on the eastern facade of the north wing which reads "April 15th 1747". Fortunately, the decision was made to retain the Elizabethan double hammer-beam roof and the windows of the Great Hall, whereas in many other reconstructions of English country houses in the 18th century such features were "modernised". However, this was the period of Gothic revival architecture and the chimney-piece and wall embrasures in the Great Hall are taken directly from Batty Langley's "Gothic Architecture Improved", published in 1741-42. From this period to date the rococo plasterwork decorations to the walls of the Great Hall, apparently also based on the Langley designs, probably executed by Italian workmen.
The 19th century was another period of enthusiasm for reconstructing historic houses. Wiston House was again remodelled in the 1830s by a then fashionable architect, Edward Blore (1797-1879). Blore proposed to demolish the Tudor structure, leaving the Great Hall as a 'picturesque ruin' in the Park, and build an entirely new house on another site. Fortunately, he had to be content with altering and largely rebuilding the south wing of the House. Outside on the north wall of this wing are two unified overmantels, long thought to have been placed there by Blore. The rectangular lower section, with lively martial figures between colonettes, is typical work of the 1570s and perhaps Game from Sir Thomas Sherley's Great Chamber - it would have been to small for the Great Hall. The upper stonework appears to belong to a later date, probably of Cranfield's 1620s completion of the house. It is now thought that these pieces were brought together and placed in their present position in the 1740s, during the Batty Langley period.
The House continued to be occupied by the Goring family until 1926. It was then privately leased until the Second World War, when it was used as the Canadian Army HQ before the invasion of Normandy. From this period dates the mural portrait of a young lady ("Jane", a wartime cartoon figure from the Daily Mirror) which is normally concealed by the Fagge portrait on the east wall of the Library. After the War the House was used as a girls' school and in 1951 the Foreign Office organisation of Wilton Park took over the lease.
This is a typical English manor church, formerly dedicated to St. Michael, but now known as St. Mary's. It stands beside the House, but serves the whole Parish. It is an ancient foundation, also mentioned in Domesday Book. However, like the House it underwent radical restoration in the mid-19th century. Little is left of the earlier structure, and nothing at all of the Norman building. Just inside the entrance, on the west wall near the front, is a chart giving the dates of the various parts of the building and a short historical survey. The front basin, though not in its stand, is late-12th century. The coloured inserts in the otherwise plain east and west windows are medieval, all that remains of the original glass. The oak screen behind the west door is 17th century. Same attractive Sussex marble (palludina limestone, known locally as winklestone) pillasters decorate the pulpit. The church has always been the burial place of the various families living at Wiston. Among its monuments, those in the south aisle, formerly a chapel to St. Mary, are most notable, especially John de Braose's memorial brass, dated 1426, and the remains of what must have been a substantial piece of sculpture, commemorating Sir Thomas Sherley and his wife Anne. His memorial tablet of black marble has recently been found in the granary over the stable to the south of the church, broken in two pieces, and it is hoped that this will be repaired and replaced in the church. It is likely that the monument was smashed during the Civil War activity on the Estate, and the memorial tablet was removed during the 1860s renovations.
An interesting monument in the north wall of this south aisle depicts a recumbent child. The clothing of the figure, and the fact that its feet rest upon a lion, as do those of John de Braose on the brass, suggest that it may commemorate the infant whose early death brought about the inheritance of Wiston by the Sherley family. The church bell is dated 1745.
There is same doubt about the age of the range of buildings to the south of the church. Some authorities believe that they were built after 1576, and certainly they contain much reused material, stone doorways and windows which probably came from Wiston House at its periods of remodelling. Various cottages in the grounds are the remains of original village of Wiston, which huddled behind the House. The village is now to the north west of the House, near Buncton Chapel.
To the south west of the House, on a spur of the South Downs, stand the remains of a famous group of trees, a former landmark for many miles around, known as Chanctonbury Ring. The trees were planted by the sixteen-year old son of Sir Charles and Elizabeth Goring, also named Charles, in 1760. He lived to the age of 86, long enough to see his beech trees attain their full maturity, when he wrote a poem about them. The ring is the site of a prehistoric hill top enclosure, c. 800 - 600 BC, and a later Romano-Celtic temple. Recent excavations by the Field Archeological Unit of University College, London, revealed large quantities of pigs' teeth and bones in the main part of the temple. Considered alongside the contemporary small bronze representations of boars found in Sussex, one was discovered on the Estate, these finds are suggestive of ritual offerings possibly connected with a local pig cult.
On 16th October 1987, South-east England suffered its worst storm in almost 300 years. The Park was decimated, the church roof was badly damaged and part of the conservatory was destroyed. Work on repairing the buildings and clearing fallen trees continued over many months. The trees on Chanctonbury Ring were decimated, but after the archeological excavation, young beeches were planted there by the Goring family in the spring of 1990 and will be growing to maturity for future generations to enjoy.