About Us
The 400-year-old White Horse Hotel was a traditional coaching inn in Storrington, a rural village in the heart of West Sussex, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Among the well-known people with a connection to Storrington and the White Horse are Sir Arnold Bax (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953), who was resident at the hotel in the 1940s, and Hilaire Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953), who stayed in the village in 1906.
While not losing its character, the hotel was refurbished in contemporary style by the present owners in 2009 and now offers 13 bedrooms, each with en suite bathroom equipped with power shower, heated towel rail and hairdryer. Each room is also equipped with television and radio and the accommodation is perfect for both business travellers looking for a change from the usual chain hotel and for those visitors wanting a relaxed base for a leisure break. Family rooms are also offered for those with children, along with special menus for our younger guests.
The hotel also offers visitors its relaxed Ebony Bar for taking time out over a drink, while the recently redesigned restaurant offers a range of dishes to suit all tastes, including old favourites and the best of local produce.
The White Horse Hotel is an ideal venue for wedding receptions and private parties, while for business meetings it provides dedicated facilities with visual aid equipment.
 For cyclists exploring the area, the hotel now offers its Sherpa Service to carry their bags from point to point, avoiding the need for separate transport. There is also secure storage at the hotel and hose facilities for washing bicycles at the end of the day. This makes the White Horse the ideal stopover point when covering this fascinating part of the country on two wheels.
Hilaire Belloc
 The White Horse Hotel in Storrington is celebrated by the writer and historian Hilaire Belloc as one of the “mortal inns, human inns, full of a common and reasonable good” referred in his book The Four Men, which describes a journey he made on foot across Sussex in 1902.
Sussex obviously occupied a favoured place in Belloc’s heart, as in that book he has Grizzlebeard declare that “a horrible great rain of fire from Heaven” will fall “upon the whole earth, and strike all round the edges of the county, consuming Tonbridge and Appledore (but not Rye), and Horley and Ockley, and Hazelmere, and very certainly Petersfield and Havant, and there shall be an especial woe for Hayling Island; but not one hair of the head of Sussex shall be singed . . .”
Belloc, who was born to a French father and English mother near Paris in France in July 1870, died in Britain in July 1953. Despite his French birth, he grew up in England and spent much of his childhood in Slindon in West Sussex, near Storrington, in a part of the country later celebrated in his poems West Sussex Drinking Song, The South Country and Ha’nacker Hill.
After being educated at The Oratory School in Oxfordshire, which was set up by John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman in 1859 as a Catholic alternative to Eton, Belloc served his military service as a French citizen with an artillery regiment in north-east France in 1891.
After military service, Belloc returned to England and went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to study history, in which he won first class honours. He never lost his love for Balliol, later writing: "Balliol made me, Balliol fed me/ Whatever I had she gave me again."
Belloc became a naturalised British citizen before being elected to Parliament as Liberal Party member for Salford South in 1906, the same year in which he is recorded as having stayed in Storrington.
Sir Arnold Bax
 Born in Pendennis Road in Streatham on 8th November 1883, the composer and poet Sir Arnold Bax came to live at the White Horse Hotel in Storrington in the 1940s, where he is said to have pursued two love affairs, despite his growing difficulties with depression and an alcohol problem.
During his earlier creative period, Bax became increasingly infatuated with Ireland, travelling widely in the country and returning annually to the village of Glencolumbkille in Donegal for almost 30 years, before switching his allegiance to Morar in the Scottish highlands in 1928. He was also heavily influenced by Celtic music, with his orchestral work notable for colourful instrumentation and complexity.
Having discovered the work of the Irish poet and dramatist W. B. Yeats, including The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems in 1902, Bax also produced poetry and stories under the pseudonym Dermot O’Byrne, which reflect the great influence Yeats had on him, which lasted his whole life. This work, which was published in Dublin and London, included the well known Seafoam and Firelight in 1909.
At the beginning of 1911, Bax married his childhood friend Elsita Sobrino and they settled in Dublin, where, again under the name of Dermot O’Byrne, he joined in the group that met at the house of poet, painter and mystic George William Russell.
With the group breaking up as the First World War approached, Bax and Elsita returned to London. A heart condition prevented Bax from joining the Army and he formed a liaison with a young pianist Harriet Cohen, who in turn was displaced in his affections by Mary Gleaves, who accompanied him on his annual trips to Morar after 1928.
Bax accepted a knighthood in 1936, although he felt that this might clash with his affinity with Ireland, and was appointed Master of the King’s Musick in 1942, to the disapproval of those of the British establishment who felt that his music was “too Irish”.
Sir Arnold Bax died in Cork on 3rd October 1953, aged 69, and was buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery, Cork. |
