George Ognell’sAlmshouse charity · Midhurst, West Sussex
George Ognell’s Charity is one almshouse, on one short lane, in one West Sussex town. Six trustees, a few dozen volunteers, and four residents who keep the kettle on. We are not a movement; we are a hinge that has not failed.
Four neighbours
Average tenancy 11 years“An almshouse is not a building. It is a promise that has been written down.”
What we do
We are a quiet operation. Our work fits on one page of accounts, in four named undertakings, looked after by six trustees and a roster of about thirty regular volunteers. Each has its own anchor on the programmes page.
Initiative · Housing
The four almshouses themselves, kept warm, watertight, and lived in. We carry the buildings, the leaded windows, and the coal contract — residents keep their own kitchens, their own keys, and the run of the garden.
Read about Ognell’s Row
Initiative · Garden & grounds
Behind the cottages, a walled kitchen garden looked after by volunteers from Midhurst and Easebourne. Soft fruit, brassicas, sweet peas; the produce goes to the residents’ kitchens and the surplus to Midhurst Foodbank.
Read about the Walled Garden
Initiative · Welfare grants
Small, discreet grants — typically £75 to £350 — to older neighbours in Midhurst and the surrounding parishes who need help with a heating bill, a hearing aid, a replacement spectacles frame, or a winter coat. Reviewed by two trustees, paid the same week.
Read about the Wassail Fund
Initiative · Visits
A weekly visit from a trained volunteer companion, on a Sunday afternoon, to older neighbours who would otherwise see no one between Friday and Monday. Last year we made 412 visits across Midhurst, Cocking, Easebourne and Stedham.
Read about Sunday DoorsVolunteer with us
Our volunteering is built around the rhythm of a parish week. None of these roles asks more than a few hours a fortnight, and every volunteer is matched in person, by a trustee, over a kitchen-table conversation.
Sun afternoons · 14.00–16.30 · two hours a fortnight
A weekly cup of tea with an older neighbour in Midhurst or one of the surrounding villages. We pair you carefully, train you in safeguarding, and you keep coming for as long as it works for both of you.
More about this roleTue mornings · 09.00–12.00 · one morning a fortnight
The walled garden behind the almshouses runs on a small team of regulars. Tools, seed and the kettle are provided. No experience is needed beyond a willingness to be patient with parsnips.
More about this roleThu evenings · 18.30–20.00 · one evening a month
We still send our quarterly appeals on paper. Once a month, four of us meet in the parish room with envelopes, donor cards and a pot of tea. It is companionable, and it gets the post out.
More about this roleStories from the row
We write a small number of stories each year, never anonymously and never without the resident or volunteer first reading the piece in full. These are reproduced with kind permission.
Story · Midhurst
Eileen, 81, moved into the third cottage at Ognell’s Row in the autumn of 2019, after eighteen months in a B&B following the loss of her tenancy on Bepton Road. She had been on the parish housing list for two years, and on ours for nine months. We had not had a vacancy.
She still walks into Knockhundred Row for her newspaper at half past seven each morning. The shopkeeper at Garlands keeps her change in a tobacco tin behind the counter.
Read another arrival story
Story · Cocking
Derek, 74, moved up from a cottage in Cocking last October. He took the smallest of the four almshouses — the one nearest the gate — and within a month had asked the trustees if he might take responsibility for the south bed of the walled garden.
He grows sweet peas and an unreasonable number of dahlias. The Wednesday-morning volunteers indulge him; the residents, more pragmatically, prefer his runner beans.
Read Derek’s arrival storyUpcoming
Our events register is short, repetitive, and beloved by the people who come every year. Tickets are not posted; we keep a list at the door.
A long-table supper, cooked by trustees, for residents, volunteers, families and friends of the charity. Sixty-four places, served at two settings, with a short reading from the founder’s will after the cheese.
Reserve a placeEight rounds, including the trustees’ round on West Sussex parish history. Proceeds to the Wassail Fund. Teams of up to six; book in advance with the landlord.
Add to your calendarOne Saturday a year, residents who wish to do so open their kitchens to neighbours. Tea, scones, a tour of the walled garden, and the trustees’ answers to any question put to them.
See all upcoming eventsFrom the office
We write four times a year. Three recent pieces, all by trustees rather than communications professionals.
· Buildings
In March we re-slated the eastern slope of the row. A short note on what it cost, who paid for it, and why we waited as long as we did.
Read · eight minutes
· Welfare
Thirty-one quiet grants, totalling £4,180, paid out in the first quarter of the year. A short account, with the residents’ permission, of where the money went.
Read · six minutes
· Residents
In October we welcomed our fourth resident, Derek, who has come up from Cocking and who has taken on more of the south garden than we expected.
Read · seven minutes