Midhurst is represented by two councillors on the Chichester District Council, both of them Liberal Democrats, Jess Brown-Fuller and Hannah Burton.

Its primary economic activities, in terms of employment, are wholesale and retail businesses including motor mechanics, construction, hotels, food and drink and office administration.

The programme for each festival varies from year to year, but typically includes evening and lunchtime concerts (classical, swing, folk and jazz), an art trail, an artisan fair, a 'family fun day' for young children, theatre and dance performances, a local Gardeners Question Time, a short story competition and numerous workshops on creative skills, plus a range fringe events such as exhibitions, beer festivals, quiz nights, treasure trails and others.

The event brings together the whole community to manage the box office, arrange workshops, help with PR and social media, provide security and everything needed for a smooth-running festival.

It promotes high standards of planning and architecture and seeks to enhance the local environment and amenities, in liaison with public authorities.

[13] The Knockhundred Shuttles a Midhurst-based mixed Morris Dancing club, meets regularly to practice, and appears in numerous country festivals.

[20] The South Downs National Park, established in 2011, stretches for 87 miles (140 km) between Winchester in the West to Eastbourne and Beachy Head in the East.

St Ann's Hill may also have been the site of an Iron Age fort[29] Although there has been a settlement in Midhurst since at least the early Norman period, and probably from Saxon times, the buildings in the Old Town, centred on the Market Square, are principally Tudor in origin.

Even the apparently more modern North Street is lined with Tudor buildings behind classical and Georgian façades that were added during the 17th and 18th centuries, a time of prosperity for the town.

[30] There are also several actual 18th-century buildings scattered throughout the town, and distinctive Victorian and Edwardian developments of terraced housing along the main routes out of Midhurst.

In 1106 Savaric fitz Cana (Fitzcane) received land in Midhurst and the neighbouring village of Easebourne from Henry I, and in 1158 his son built a fortified manor house on St. Anne's Hill.

The family later adopted the de Bohun name, and in about 1280 abandoned the fortified manor house to build their principal home on flat land across the River Rother from St. Ann's Hill, in the neighbouring parish of Easebourne, 'at a place called Coudreye' (old French for a "hazel grove").

[31] However "the chapel of St. Denis within the former castle of Midhurst"[32] appears to have escaped the destruction, as it was functioning in 1291, and is referred to in 1367 as standing "in a place called Courtgrene".

When Easebourne Priory was suppressed in 1536 and handed to the Fitzwilliam family, the chapel in Midhurst achieved parish church status, and was substantially re-built.

[34] The little town developed outside the castle, mainly to service it and the immediate surrounding area, and to provide a market place for local agricultural surpluses.

If they failed for a whole year to hold the courts the agreement should lapse, and if they neglected to keep the streets and ditches in order the lord's manorial officers should be responsible for apprehending offenders, but were required to hand over any fines to the burgesses.

[35] The Fitzwilliams were a staunch Catholic family, and remained so throughout the English Reformation and beyond, making Midhurst a centre of Catholicism into the 17th century.

[36] Nevertheless, the Fitzwilliams were courtiers who maintained generally good relationships with the royal family and benefitted from considerable enrichment during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, at its height between 1536 and 1538.

The image in North Street tells the story of King Ahab robbing Nathan of his family vineyard, reflecting the despair that the mostly Catholic population of the town felt in being forbidden by the monarch to practice their religion.

[citation needed] The local labour market was distorted as workers were diverted from their conventional tasks to work as servants or contribute to the building.

[37] Town officials were concerned at the redirection of the Midhurst economy away from its traditional centre around the market place and towards the newly dynamic Cowdray House.

The bailiff and burgesses petitioned Sir Anthony Fitzwilliam to give them a plot of land on which to build a market house near the church, as a focus for commerce in the Old Town.

[citation needed] In 1605, the owner of Cowdray House, Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu, was briefly arrested in connection with the Gunpowder Plot.

[38][39] In 1637, an ecclesiastical court case records parishioners of Midhurst playing cricket during evening prayer on Sunday, 26 February (Julian), one of the sport's earliest references.

Two days later 35 of these did sign, probably excepting the special clause denouncing the Roman Faith, as did their colleagues at Easebourne, where there was an equal number of recusants.

In the Great Reform Act of 1832 Midhurst was reduced to one Member of Parliament and the constituency was expanded to include most of the surrounding villages.

Activities include clearance parties, water quality monitoring, newsletters, talks and maintaining notice and interpretation boards.

The names of fifty men who fell during the First World War, together with their service or regiment, are inscribed on panels of limestone which have been fixed to the north and south faces of the pillar.

Consisting of chancel and nave flanked by aisles on both sides, the church was largely rebuilt in the Perpendicular style in 1422, towards the end of Henry V's reign.

The MSA is also the umbrella group for the Midhurst Cricket, Rugby and Stoolball Clubs who currently hold individual leases for the playing fields.