Hotham Park House

[1] Sir Richard Hotham, a London hatter, moved to the Bognor area in the late 18th century and laid the foundation stone of the town in 1787.

He commissioned the building of the present house, with its own private chapel, in 1792, but died a few years later in 1799.

In the early 1800s the house belonged to a Jamaican planter Thomas Smith who had married Susannah Mackworth-Praed.

His only son was killed on active service in 1915 and when he himself died in 1941 the house was taken over by the Ministry of Pensions for the remainder of the Second World War.

The house itself remained empty until 1977, at which time it was acquired and renovated by Abraham Singer and subsequently converted into luxury flats.