South Harting suffered greatly during the English Civil War and was ransacked multiple times by both sides.

A Royalist garrison was present in the village from early December 1643 centred around Harting Place, the house of Sir John Caryll who was an ardent Royalist, to protect the lines of communication between Winchester and Oxford, and the newly captured Arundel.

Major restoration work was carried out in the 1850s,[3] and in 2010 further improvements were made including the building of an attached room for the Sunday school.

Since 1880, the Harting Old Club has had its annual meeting on Whit Monday and the village Festivities started in 1961, replacing a traditional funfair which used to take centre stage in the street.

[13] The painter Theodore Garman worked and painted in the village and is buried in the parish church graveyard.

Bertrand Russell and his wife Dora founded the experimental Beacon Hill School[15] at Telegraph House, which was their residence in 1927.

[16] Admiral Sir Horace Law lived in South Harting and was a lay preacher at the parish church, where a room is named after him.

[17] Television presenter and producer Cliff Michelmore (1919–2016) was a local resident and was buried in the graveyard of the parish church in 2016 next to his wife Jean Metcalfe who died in 2000.