The market town of Horsham is yet another shining jewel in the county of West Sussex. Horsham owes much of its natural beauty and stately landscape to the fact that it sits comfortably on the gorgeous River Arun. This river has given life and nourishment to cultures dating back to the Stone Age and England as we know it wouldn't exist if this river simply took one different turn throughout its winding length. Horsham has a healthy population that is swiftly approaching one hundred thousand and it grows more and more each day as the neighboring metropolises expand and extend. Horsham is a mere thirty miles south of London and one can see the suburban sprawl that extends all the way up to Horsham's backdoor. Many of the town's residents commute to London but quite a few of them also work in nearby Brighton, another large city that is even closer to Horsham than London.
Don't let its neighbors fool you, though; Horsham is no mere extension of London or Brighton but is instead an important and influential town in its own right. The famed "Horsham Point" is all that is needed to cement the towns legacy as one of England's most important areas. This "point" is in fact an arrowhead that was discovered recently and is believed to date back to the Mesolithic era. While an arrowhead in and of itself is rarely remarkable, this arrowhead marks the point when Britain became a singular landmass. In those days, the Ice Age was ending and humanity was beginning. Melting glaciers filled what is now the English Channel and that act forever separated England from the rest of the continent.
One of Horsham's most famous legacies, aside from the arrowhead, is the town's rich history of brewing. Horsham was a brewery town in every sense of the word during its rise and some of the best ales and stouts were created within the town. King and Barnes, one of the most famous breweries in history, was formed in Horsham over one hundred years ago and though the town has recently lost some of its major brewing business it still creates some of the most sought-after beers in Europe. What is remarkable, though, is that Horsham never became the hedonistic wonderland that many brewery towns turned into. Horsham has always had a strict sense of law and order and it was in fact the very last town in the United Kingdom to execute a man for being gay. Nobody remembers the man's name now but it was as recently as 1834 that he was hanged. John Weeks, a resident of Horsham, had a fate that was arguably worse: He was the last man in England to be executed by "pressing". Pressing, for the uninitiated, is arguably the most horrific form of execution. Though it varied from location to location, the convict in question would be laid down and then literally crushed by massive weight. Fortunately, Horsham is not the strict town that it once was and no visitor need fear being crushed to death during a stay in town. A visit to Horsham is in fact highly recommended due to the sheer beauty and magnificent history of this unique and lovely burg.
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