Willelmus de Cahaines,[4] a Norman knight who participated in the conquest of England, and lord of what is now Cahagnes (Bessin), was given Middletone (Buckinghamshire) and the Sussex village of Horstede (The Place of Horses in Old English).

The Horsted Cahagnes Society promotes social and cultural links, and organises annual exchange visits between the two places.

[5] Two months before being assassinated, U.S. President John F. Kennedy slept in the parish when he stayed one Saturday night at Birch Grove, the home of the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

The American Secret Service closed the village that night, siting their communication hub in the Lounge Bar of The Crown Inn.

Little remains of this now, except for the hammer ponds and other traces of this activity dotted around the surrounding countryside, although iron working is remembered in many local place names.