The Battle of South Harting was a relatively small military engagement that took place on the night of 23–24 November 1643^{(Jul. Old Style)}/3–4 December^{(Greg. New Style)} in the village of South Harting, in West Sussex, England, during Lord Ralph Hopton's Southern Campaign of 1643–1644 during the second year of the First English Civil War.

It was fought between a Royalist detachment of the Earl of Crawford's Regiment of Horse who had quartered for the night in the village, and a Parliamentarian force consisting of Colonel Richard Norton and his own Regiment of Horse who later that night came upon Crawford's men seemingly by chance while they were resting in the various houses in the village — a fight then ensued.

The Royalist propaganda newsbook Mercurius Aulicus provides the only detailed albeit biased account of the engagement and describes how the Parliamentarians were defeated by the Royalists. In it, it claims Norton's 400 Parliamentarian horse and dragoons withdrew from the village the same night due to a desperate last-ditch act of deception carried out through a charge consisting of six mounted officers together with a boy, who made it appear as if a separate body of horse had been following Norton's regiment without their knowledge and had surprised them. It goes on to imply that Norton's men were dismounted and somewhat disorganised after having been ordered to split up into groups and spread themselves throughout the village to attack the various houses in the middle of the night and so, upon believing they were about to be engaged by a second mounted force, they withdrew from the village with some of the Royalists pursuing them.

Having been reported on just over two weeks later by the Mercurius Aulicus, it helped to boost morale in Royalist circles at the time, while discrediting the capabilities of the forces of Parliament and Colonel Norton, although it did nothing strategically to alter Hopton's Southern Campaign of 1643–1644, and the casualties on both sides published in the Royalist account by the Mercurius Aulicus, even though they might be exaggerated, appear to have been minimal.

In November 1643, the First English Civil War had been running for fifteen months, since King Charles I had raised his banner in Nottingham and declared the Earl of Essex, and by extension Parliament, traitors. That action had been the culmination of religious, fiscal, and legislative tensions going back over fifty years.

During the invasion of Sussex during Lord Ralph Hopton's Southern Campaign of 1643–1644, South Harting was a strategic location for the Royalists being at the foot of a crossing over the northern side of the South Downs which acted as the first line of communication between Royalist-controlled Oxford and Winchester, and Arundel — which Hopton intended to take for the King. It was through South Harting from Petersfield, and then up the South Downs and past Sir William Ford's (Father of Sir Edward Ford) house and large estate at Uppark, and then back down the southern side of the South Downs through North Marden, that Hopton's horse advanced towards Arundel via. His foot took a different route bypassing the South Downs via East Meon to attack Lord Lumley's house at Stansted, just outside of Chichester. During Hopton's advance through Sussex, Colonel Norton's Regiment of Horse was employed as a fast and agile force used to harass Hopton's horse as they advanced on Arundel.

In the period of 1641–1642 the total adult population of the parish of Harting, which included the village of South Harting, and the hamlets of West Harting and East Harting, can be estimated to have been roughly 400, showing the parish was small but not insignificant in size just before the outbreak of the English Civil War. According to the archaeologist Robert Garraway Rice, during this time the parish itself was "extensive and important", and according to historian Henry Doddridge Gordon "the parish of Harting [at the beginning of the First English Civil War] might rival Basing" referring to its complete loyalty to the King and the Royalist cause. Despite its small population, the Parish contained five squires, one parson, and one yeoman, who were all united in their devotion to Charles I; namely Sir William Ford and his son Colonel Sir Edward Ford of the large Uppark estate in the south of the parish on top of the South Downs, the Catholic family of Sir John Caryll and his son also named John Caryll of the Harting Place estate in South Harting, and Major Cowper of Ditcham.

Harting Place was owned by Sir John Caryll and he and his family lived there in the manor house directly west of the Parish Church of Saint Mary and Saint Gabriel. It was the seat of the Manor of West Harting with the Manor of East Harting being owned by Sir William Ford. The two manors were split down the middle by the street that runs through the middle of South Harting, today literally called 'The Street'. Harting Place is described by archaeologist George Anelay as "a very impressive set of buildings" and is visible on the 1632 West Harting Manorial Map (pictured right); it had a large crenellated gatehouse immediately north of the church which was equally as big as the manor house and faced onto The Street, its own fenced private deer park, a large walled private garden between the church and the manor house, an orchard to the north, and four ponds to the south — the largest of which may have had its own water-powered mill.