There has been some discussion in the past about the origin of the name Knockhundred Row in Midhurst. The Midhurst Society notes that the origin of the name has been lost in the mists of history, noting that ‘Hundred’ is an old county division and perhaps the Lord of the Manor was entitled to ‘knock up’ 100 men to take up arms against an enemy.

Given it climbs a hill to Midhurst’s historic centre, it seems more likely, though, that the Knock part of the name means 'hillock', from the Brittonic ‘cnoc’.

A hundred was an old, Saxon land division of a shire for administrative, military and judicial purposes under the common law. It was introduced by the Saxons between 613 and 1017, and a hundred had enough land to sustain approximately one hundred households headed by a hundred-man or hundred eolder. Midhurst, however, was just a parish in the hundred of Easebourne and there is no evidence of any settlement there prior to Domesday in 1086. This is in contrast to nearby Woolbeding, where 24 households were recorded. There has been some suggestion, however, that Midhurst was settled at this time and was omitted from the book in error.

It has been shown that in 1278, and for the previous hundred years, the bailiffs of the Earls of Arundel had held the court of the Hundred of Easebourne under a certain ash tree at Midhurst. In that year an attempt to prevent this was made by certain persons to whom Sir John de Bohun (Lord of Midhurst, b.1446 – d.1494) had granted the lordship of the town. It is possibly significant that on the Subsidy Rolls for 1296 Midhurst is called a 'hundred', though on later occasions it is termed a 'borough'. The site of the hundred court in later times is uncertain.

Midhurst, its castle and town, is generally considered to have been established in the twelfth century, although some maintain the settlement has Saxon origins. Given the evidence that the court of the Hundred of Easebourne met under an ash tree in Midhurst from at least the late twelfth century, it is reasonable to suspect that this happened within the large market square, which was open and undeveloped for the whole area between what is now Sheep Lane and Church Hill at the top of Knockhundred Row.

We can therefore have some confidence that the name Knockhundred either refers to the route up the hill leading to the hundred meeting place or is the historic name of the hillock on which Midhurst castle and borough were founded – the hundred hill.