Catholicism owed its survival, in Sussex as elsewhere, largely to families of wealth and position who could support a chaplain. Burton Park (or Bodexton or Bodecton) was such a centre, at least from the late seventeenth century and maybe earlier. The house and estate, owned by the Gorings in the sixteenth century, passed in 1724 to the Biddulphs of Staffordshire and in 1835 from them tothe Wrights of Essex. On inheriting the property, Anthony George Wright added Biddulph to his name ; after the death of his son, Anthony John Wright-Biddulph, in 1895, the estate was sold. This essay is an account of the owners ; of the Jesuit chaplains between 1680 and 1780; and of the mission of which Burton wasthe centre.