Crowborough High Street

Crowborough is perched 800ft. above sea level in the centre of the High Weald, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. William Cobbett travelling from Forest Row to Uckfield in 1822 described Ashdown Forest as ‘a heath with here and there a few birch scrubs upon it, verily the most villainously ugly spot I ever saw in England’! How wrong he was. Today Ashdown Forest which adjoins Crowborough is appreciated by many who come from far and wide to enjoy the area.

The Victorian ‘romantic’ view of the beauties of the landscape probably contributed to the development of the village centre at the beginning of this century, when Crowborough was described by local estate agents as ‘Scotland in Sussex’.

Boys Firmin’s Guide, first published in the 1890’s emphasises the beauties of the situation and the surrounding countryside. ‘Nature has been very bountiful in Crowborough. Placed on one of the most elevated ridges in the County of Sussex, it commands extensive panoramic views, being surrounded by valleys and hills richly beautiful in form and colour.

In prehistoric times these hills and valleys were densely forested. However, recent research suggests that the forest was not as impenetrable as was once thought. Mesolithic and neolithic tools have been found in considerable numbers in surrounding parishes. Concentrations of these tools show that there was some settled occupation, and rock shelters have been excavated in Tunbridge Wells, and High Hurstwood. The flint implements recorded from within Crowborough include a neolithic fabricator discovered during alterations to Crowborough Rugby Club and a small scraper and some flint flakes, waste products of flint working, from close to Allfreys Farm.

Centenary Cake

Excavations at an iron-age hill fort at Garden Hill, Hartfield, show the inhabitants to have been readily influenced by the Roman invaders. Their traditional round houses were replaced in the 2nd Century A.D. by a rectangular villa building with an adjoining stone-built bath house. Garden Hill appears to have been a management centre for small iron-smelting furnaces in the area. There is a similar hill fort at Saxonbury Hill, Frant.

These early iron smelting furnaces were known as bloomery furnaces, the iron being formed in an impure mass, known as a bloom, inside the furnace.

An important Roman Road, the London-Lewes way, crosses Ashdown Forest, its alignment from Five Hundred Acre Wood towards Camp Hill being the nearest to Crowborough. This road was probably constructed for the purpose of distributing the products of local iron works. Sections of the road in the Weald are surfaced with bloomery slag. Many Roman iron-working sites are known in the vicinity and work by the Wealden Iron Research Group has shown sites of differing importance, large complexes probably controlled by the Roman authorities such as Oldlands at Herons Ghyll, and smaller sites servicing local needs. A number of small bloomery sites exist within the parish boundaries in Jefferies Wood, near Redbridge Farm, and at Steel Cross but none has been definitely attributed to the Roman period. The use of bloomery furnaces continued until the introduction of water powered blast furnaces in the 15th century, and therefore some of the local sites could be medieval. Iron Age, Roman and medieval sites have been excavated in Minepit Wood, Rotherfield.

Frank Humphry Fire Engine at the Centenary Summer Fair

A minor Roman road, following the line of the Rotherfield-Withyham parish boundary for part of its route, appears to link the Roman site with the London-Lewes way.

Crowborough was, until 1905, part of the ancient parish of Rotherfield and its early history cannot be divorced from the history of Rotherfield itself. The original church was constructed in the 8th century and, as a royal estate, Rotherfield is mentioned in the wills of Alfred (899) and Athelstan Atheling (1015).

Some older local place names provide clues about the gradual development of the farmland during the Saxon period. Rotherfield itself means ‘open land of the cattle’; Rumsden means ‘spacious woodland pasture’; Hoadleys, a heath forest glade; Rendlie, a cleared forest glade; and Gullridge, meaning ‘golden ridge’, is of special interest in view of corroborative evidence from the early settlement there. A Saxon bloomery site, unique in the Weald, has been excavated at Ashdown Forest.

The Domesday book reference to Rotherfield is interesting. It was one of only two royal holdings in Sussex, the other being Bosham in West Sussex.

Centenary flower bed.

‘King William holds Rotherfield in Lordship, from the holding of the Bishop of Bayeaux. Earl Godwin held it. Then and now it answered for 3 hides. Land for 26 ploughs. In Lordship 4 ploughs 14 villagers with 6 smallholders have 14 ploughs, 4 slaves; woodland at 80 pigs from pasturage; a park. Value before 1066 £16, later £14; now £12; however it pays £30’.

The park, Miss Pullein suggests in her book ‘Rotherfield the story of some Wealden Manors’ was not, in fact, Eridge Park but another hunting park with a pale, a ditch and bank with a fence on top, and gates for access. It can be traced from local place-names; Maynards Gate and Palesgate are part of our parish, and the others are Browngate, Boarsheadgate, Redgate, Blackthorngate, Colshornegate, Markgate and Highgate. In the Count of Mortains holding in Rotherfield, Ansfrid is named as holding one hide from the Count and Dr. L.E. Saltzman suggested that this hide might be the Manor of Alchomes, now partially occupied by Crowborough Beacon Golf Course.

In 1292 we find the earliest written reference to Crowborough. John de Lewes, Rector of Buxted, complained that some of his parishioners were attending the more accessible church at Withyham ‘during the greater part of the winter season owing to the inundations and dangerous character of the highway’. Their own chapel had decayed, the land had returned to cultivation and, as a result he was losing their tithes and offerings! Land was granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury - two acres of land lying on the waste of ‘Cranbergh’ hill at a place commonly called ‘Scherche juxta Gelderegg’ (Gillridge).

Unfortunately, no record exists to tell us whether their chapel was ever rebuilt.

Stepney, the Bluebell Engine at the Centenary Summer Fair

As the population increased, more land was cleared for farming. The Rotherfield Manor map of 1597 shows the expansion of agriculture with its record of old and new woodland clearances known as assarts. The medieval bloomery sites, although less numerous than the Roman, show that the iron industry, with its attendant occupations of wood coppicing, charcoal burning and mining was still in existence.

The site of a medieval moated manor house can be seen still close by the stream at Walshes Manor. A new house was built later, higher on the hill, and this in its turn gave way to a fine new manor house built by Alexander Fermor in 1551. This house was destroyed by fire in 1893. Alexander Fermor had Hamsell Furnace and Nicholas Fowle had Rivenhall in Rotherfield parish.

Nicholas Fowle’s brother, Anthony, owned Maynards Gate Furnace, the only one of the famous Wealden water-powered blast furnaces that lies within Crowborough parish, and one of the few to have been excavated, in 1975 the site was threatened by the development of Crowborough’s new industrial estate! Excavation by the Sussex Archaeological Field Unit revealed the wheel pit, the furnace base, a working floor, possibly for bellows, and a gun casting pit, probably capable of casting guns up to the size of a Saker, 6-6 1/2 ft. long and weighing half a ton. Cannon balls were also found on the site.

In 1573 Ralph Hogge, the Queen’s Gunstone maker of iron, complained that other ironmasters were casting ordnance and shot and shipping it ‘to Strangers to carry over the Seas, as they say such nombrs that yor enimie is better fournished with them then or owne contry ships ar’. The two principal villains, according to Hogge, were Nicholas Fowle and Alexander Fermor. Perhaps this illegal export trade laid the foundations for future smuggling activity when Crowborough men were apparently not averse to enjoying a skirmish with the revenue men.

Ashdown Artists who exhibited in the Town Hall as part of the Crowborough Centenary Celebrations

At the time of Hogge’s complaint, there was a very real threat of invasion by the Queen’s enemies. An elaborate system of warning beacons were already in existence. The lighting of these beacons indicated to the population close by where the invasion had taken place, and gave early warning to London so that the ‘trained companies’ could be alerted.

In 1576 William Lambarde published an edition for his ‘Perambulation of Kent’ which contained a map of the system for Kent. The map shows Crowborough Beacon because it linked with another at Ightham in Kent. The warning signal from a coastal beacon, we do not know which, alerted Crowborough, then Ightham, and another beacon near Rochester and then on through further beacons to London. Two men were required to keep watch at the beacons day and night in order to ensure an efficient and speedy alert in the event of invasion.

The baptism of Alexander’s great-grandson, Henry Fermor, who was to become Crowborough’s great benefactor, was recorded in Rotherfield Parish Registers on July 6th, 1667. Henry’s name does not occur again in the registers and there is no evidence to suggest that he spent more than his childhood here. Later he lived in Sevenoaks in his ‘mansion’ house close to the Vine Inn; he was created Baronet in 1725. In his will he remembered his childhood home and showed his concern for the welfare of the inhabitants of the outlying area of the parish known as Crowborough. He directed that £1,500 be used to provide ‘a chapel or church and a charity school built in the plainest and cheapest manner so as to be strong and lasting’ at a place called Crowborough ‘for the use and benefit of the very ignorant and heathenish people’. Charity Farm was purchased with the £500 allotted to provide for repairs to these buildings.

Crowborough Beacon Golf Club.

Sir Henry intended that further land to the value of £7,000 was to be purchased, £4,000 to provide incomes for the schoolmaster and minister and £3,000 to provide ‘wool, hemp and books to be equally divided and distributed’ among the forty pupils at the school. Unfortunately, the terms of his will were not carried out and this money was invested in South Sea Annuities and Three Per Cent Reduced Annuities, and the charity suffered accordingly.

In 1744 ten years after his death, a chapel of ease was built together with a school house beside what is now Chapel Green. The school house has since become the vicarage and in 1880 the new ecclesiastical parish of Crowborough was formed and the church of All Saints was built to replace the chapel that had fallen into disrepair. The present Sir Henry Fermor Primary School was built on land belonging to Charity Farm, but the rest of the land has long since been sold.

Small communities in the Weald, like Crowborough, remained remote from civilisation because of the problems of transport over notoriously bad roads. Horace Walpole, in a letter dated 1749, describes the problems facing travellers in Sussex. “We are returned from our expedition miraculously well, considering all our distresses. If you love good roads, good inns, plenty of positions and horses, be so kind as never to go to Sussex - Sussex is a great dampener of curiosity’.

The development of the turnpike roads at the end of the 18th century probably began to draw development away from Chapel Green and towards the present town centre. When the post windmill, which stood in Mill Lane, was offered for sale by Charles Hother in 1788, its position close to the turnpike road was emphasised.

The Ghyll, lovely woodlands in the centre of Crowborough

Edward Howis, who leased what is now the Warren estate in Withyham from Lord Henniker in 1809, boasted of taking only three hours on a good horse to reach his business premises in Piccadilly. He developed his ‘Crowborough Lodge’ estate, building two large water mills, one of which, New Mill, ground the flour for Queen Victoria’s wedding cake. His estate must have provided much needed employment and prosperity for agricultural labourers in Crowborough at a time when they were grossly undervalued.

The 1851 census returns show the enormous predominance of agricultural workers in the population of Crowborough, but this situation soon began to change.

In 1868 the railway between Groombridge and Uckfield was opened, the station, at Jarvis Brook, being originally named Rotherfield but later changed to Crowborough and Jarvis Brook. Eleven years later, in 1879, Joseph Firth established the brickworks at Jarvis Brook. The development of Crowborough was gathering momentum.

Dr. Prince who lived at The Observatory in Beacon Road contributed towards the development of Crowborough as a health resort. In his book ‘Crowborough Hill’, he states that in the cases of diseases of the respiratory organs, nervous depression, langour and debility of the system “it will be found...that the delightful and extensive scenery, the open, airy and vivifying atmosphere, abounding in ozone, together with a numerous retinue of natural attractions in the vicinity, all contribute to secure to the visitor that measure of health which generally follows the due co-operation of an active body with a cheerful and contented mind.”

The districts reputation as a health resort brought one of Crowborough’s most distinguished residents to stay for the benefit of his failing health. Richard Jefferies, the naturalist and author, came to Crowborough in 1885, staying first at Jarvis Brook and later at The Downs, London Road. Some of his most beautiful essays were written during his stay here. Sadly, the improvement in his health which was apparent at first was not sustained, and he moved once again to Worthing where he died, at the early age of 39, in 1887.

The Beacon Hotel was built to accommodate those who came to enjoy the scenery and benefit their health and the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club was formed in 1895 to help them to develop the active bodies needed to combine with cheerfulness and contentment to provide good health! Following these early developments in the community, the Civil Parish of Crowborough was formed in 1905, and in that period another distinguished author visited the town, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the immortal Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who came to live at Windlesham Manor in 1907 until his death in 1930. The latter years of his life were largely devoted to psychic research. He published two books on spiritualism in the 1920’s and in 1927 Sherlock Holmes made his final appearance in ‘The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes’.

The two great wars, which have dominated the history of the 20th century, brought soldiers from many parts of Britain and the Commonwealth to the army camps at the Warren and St John’s. The Warren Camp is still used for territorial, cadet and some regular army training. A sad reminder of the soldiers from abroad stationed in these camps during the war is the Memorial on the golf course to the Canadian soldiers of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment who lost their lives when a flying bomb fell near their tented encampment. A Service of Remembrance is held annually under the auspices of the Crowborough branch of the Royal British Legion and the Canadian Veterans Association of the United Kingdom at Canada Green, a memorial designed and built by the Town Council to commemorate their lives.

Floral displays in the centre of town.

The Goldsmiths Company purchased property known as the Hamsell Estate in 1856. Their Crest appears on many of the farmhouses on the estate which included the Pilmer Road area of Crowborough. When the company sold the estate in 1937, the Goldsmiths Recreation Ground was given to the parish. The Town Council has since purchased additional land and has developed the ground into a much needed recreation centre for the whole community. The ground now houses a sports centre including a swimming pool, a boating lake, the Locomotive Society, the Camping and Caravan and Petanque clubs.

In 2000 the Town Council opened the Queen Mother’s Garden at Canada Green to celebrate the life and 100th birthday of HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

The last thirty years have seen massive housing development within the parish, the tiny Victorian hamlets of Jarvis Brook, Whitehill, Alderbrook and Poundfield having given way to the town of Crowborough. The surrounding countryside still gives the same pleasure it gave to Richard Jefferies over one hundred years ago. “A thousand acres of purple heath sloping southwards to the sun, deep valleys of dark heather; further slopes beyond of purple, more valleys of heather - the heather shows more in the sunlight, and heather darkens the shadow of the hollows - and so on and on, mile after mile, till the heath-bells seem to end in the sunset”.