Wivelsfield: Difference between revisions

Wivelsfield parish is located on a ridge that dividesacts theas watershedsa ofwatershed between the Riversrivers [[River Adur|Adur]] and [[River Ouse, Sussex|Ouse]]. It lies south of [[Haywards Heath]], and east of [[Burgess Hill]], which are both comparative newcomer settlements, owing their existence to the coming of the railway in the 1840s. Wivelsfield is much older, and was first mention ismentioned in an 8th century charter, whilst [[Bronze Age]] and [[Roman Empire|Roman]] finds indicate even earlier origins of settlement in the area.<ref>P.Brandon - The Sussex Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton, 1974)</ref>

The settlementsettlements tended to be small farms often grouped together rather than a central village, and that is still marked by the two distinct areas called Wivelsfield and Wivelsfield Green, as well as smaller hamlets lying on the border of the old [[Haywards Heath]] to the north, Valebridge Common to the west and Ditchling Common to the south.<ref name=":0" />

Despite Wivelsfield being as biodiverse as the best protected places in the [[Weald]], it lies in a landscape without statutory protection, and county planners are allowing an eastwardseastward movementextension of settlements from [[Burgess Hill]].<ref name=":1" />

Wivelsfield grew during the late Saxon and early Norman periodperiods, initially as extended pastures for [[pannage]] byfor a number of manors to the south. The name itself is of Anglo-Saxon origin, meaning the field of a man named "Wifel".<ref>Ekwall, Eilert (1940) ''The Concise Dictionary of English Place-names''; 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press; p. 504</ref> There is an 8th-century (c. 765) reference to the village as ''Wifelesfeld''.<ref name="hcs">[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56933 Parishes: Wivelsfield, ''A History of the County of Sussex; Vol. 7: The rape of Lewes'' (1940), pp. 119–124] Retrieved 16 June 2012 via University of London & History of Parliament Trust website.]</ref>

In the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086, 1½ {{frac|1|2}} [[hide (unit)|hides]] at Berth here were held by [[William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey|William de Warenne]], perhaps part of the manor of [[Hurstpierpoint]], West Sussex. The Stanmer parish owned the eastern portion of the parish until the 14th century.{{factcitation needed|date=February 2023}}

[[Ote Hall Chapel|Ote Hall Congregational Chapel]] was erected in 1780 by the [[Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon]], who lived at Great Ote Hall and had converted a room in the house into a chapel two years earlier.<ref name="hcs" /><ref name="Stell358">{{cite book|last=Stell|first=Christopher|title=Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in Eastern England|year=2002|publisher=[[English Heritage]]|location=Swindon|isbn=1-873592-50-7|page=358}}</ref> Great Ote Hall was the only manor in the area, with much southern land being in the manors of [[Plumpton, East Sussex|Plumpton]] and [[Ditchling]].{{factcitation needed|date=February 2023}}

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Wivelsfield was the focus of a small group of local [[dissenter]]s (Particular Baptists). In 1763, they broke from the larger [[Ditchling Unitarian Chapel|General Baptist community]] at nearby [[Ditchling]] and formed a new meeting under Henry Booker, using a chapel built in 1780 ([[Bethel Strict Baptist Chapel, Wivelsfield|Bethel Strict Baptist Chapel]]) which remains in use. The surviving records and memorandum books, as well as Henry Booker's memoirs, provide insights into a small rural religious community of the period.{{factcitation needed|date=February 2023}}

The growth of [[Haywards Heath]] during the late 19th century meant some urbanisation to the north on the old Wivelsfield portion of Haywards Heath common. This part along with the former [[St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath|St Francis Hospital]] built as a lunatic asylum in 1859 were transferred out of the parish in 1934.{{factcitation needed|date=February 2023}}

The village lies in the [[Weald|Low Weald of the [[Weald]] and immediately north of the [[South Downs National Park]], which extends to include [[Ditchling]]. The soil is clay and mixed sand on top of underlying clay and sandstone.<ref name=hcs/> Wivelsfield was onceone of the larger parishes in the county, although the growth of [[Burgess Hill]] to the west reduced the size of the [[Parish (Church of England)|ecclesiastical parish]].

As a settlement originally based on the principle of [[droving]], a number of ancient routes cross the parish. The current B2112 is an old drove road, as is a portion of the A272 which crosses the northern edge of the parish; whilst the minor routeroad to [[Plumpton, East Sussex|Plumpton]] is a medieval highway. The B2112 also became part of an 18th century London-Brighton [[turnpike trust|turnpike]] which is still used as the route for the modern day bike ride between the two.<ref name=":0" />

There are more than 20 listed buildings in the parish.<ref>[http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/mapsearch.aspx English Heritage The Official List (Listed Buildings)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120424060625/http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/mapsearch.aspx |date=24 April 2012 }}</ref>

Old Wivelsfield parish church ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 338 207}}) sits high on the Long Ridge's ancient east-west trackway that runs eastwards from Bedelands, past Theobalds, Antye, Lunces, and on beyond More Farm. It was built on the placesite of a wooden church and sits next to a thousand -year -old yew, which suggests earlier use as a pagan worship place. It was replaced by a stone building around 1050, although at this point the area was regardedthen asmerely an outlier of [[Ditchling]] and did not become a parish in its own right until around the 12th century. As the area prospered during the middleMiddle agesAges the church was extended.<ref name=":0" />

The sandstone rubble of Wivelsfield church is thought to have been quarried from adjacent Lunce's Common. The Yewyew on the north side of the church (with only half of its trunk surviving) is probably the oldest thing on the site, perhaps marking a pre-Christian holy place. The church's dedication to St John the Baptist, whose midsummer (24 June) saints day was marked by hilltop bonfires, may represent continuity with the pagan solstice celebrations. The narrow north door is Saxo-Norman. It is a Grade II listed building.<ref>{{NHLE|num=1222972|access-date=16 June 2012}} List Entry details of the Church of St Peter and St John the Baptist</ref>

In the southwest of the parish is Great Ote Hall ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 331 202}}). It is a grand, timber framed Tudor mansion and a [[grade I listed building]], behind a screen of woodland.<ref>{{NHLE |num=1223018 |access-date=7 June 2009}}</ref> The east wing of the building was built in approximatelyaround 1550.<ref>{{NHLE|num=1223018|access-date=16 June 2012}}</ref> The west part of the building dates from 1600, though its history can be traced back to the 13th century.<ref name=":1">{{cite web|url=http://www.otehallfarm.co.uk/great-ote-hall/history|title=The History of Great Ote Hall|publisher=Ote Hall Farm|access-date=7 June 2009|archive-date=12 February 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100212023418/http://www.otehallfarm.co.uk/great-ote-hall/history|url-status=dead}}</ref> Between 1437 and 1537 the Hall was owned the Attree family. The current{{when|date=March 2024}} owners, the Irvines, of the 350 acre Great Ote Hall Estate also own the 180 acre Randolph Farm, at [[Hurstpierpoint]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Bangs|first=David|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1247849975|title=Land of the Brighton line : a field guide to the Middle Sussex and South East Surrey Weald|date=2018|isbn=978-0-9548638-2-1|location=[Brighton]|oclc=1247849975}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=History of Great Ote Hall |url=https://www.greatotehall.co.uk/the-venue/history/ |access-date=2023-05-08 |website=Ote Hall |language=en-GB}}</ref>

In the far west, in the part that merges with the north of Burgess Hill by [[Wivelsfield station|Wivelsfield Station]], is Theobalds ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 325 206}}), a Grade II* [[listed building]]. It is of the 16th and 18th centurycenturies, with a Horsham slab roof perhaps quarried on the farm, although there is thought to have been a settlementssettlement here since the Saxon period. Its rear wing is 17th century or older, and the main door is studded with the date 1627. The Attree family occupied the house from 1600 to 1823 after leaving Ote Hall.<ref name=hcs/><ref>{{NHLE|num=1223095|access-date=16 June 2012}} Theobalds</ref>

Also in the far west is Antye ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 325 206}}). The Antye farm house has at its core a timber -framed hall house of circa 1400. Both Theobalds and Antye farms have field patterns that, even today, reflect their origin as an early cooperative farming community. Their countryside still retains a patchwork of tiny ancient woods and fields. They were sold off field by field as plots of land by the Ote Hall Estate in 1920, and the Valebridge Road and Janes Lane are [[ribbon development]]s.<ref name=":2" />

The parish still retains its agricultural air. It still has many rich woodlands, much marshland and a number of green lanes. The growth of settlement within the parish has centred around Wivelsfield Green, which straggles along the road to [[Chailey]]'s North Common. The area around the church, which was never very big, remains some distance away.

A [[hornbeam]]-hedged green lane tracks north from Antye to Tilebarn Wood ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 330 210}}) a [[hornbeam]] coppice with [[Campanula rotundifolia|bluebells]] and [[holly]] called. The lane passes across the infant [[River Adur|Adur]] to Fox Hill in [[Haywards Heath]]. North of Clearwaters Farm, the [[Weald Clay|Wealden Clay]] gives way to sandstones, and the ground rises beyond ancient Kiln Wood ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 329 219}}) in [[Ansty, West Sussex|Ansty]] to meet a new built development on the south edge of [[Haywards Heath]], further squeezing the strategic gap between the mid Sussex towns.<ref name=":2" />

Hurst and Bankey Woods ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 348 221}}) and Cains Wood (({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 355 230}}) are biodiverse areas. Bankey Wood has brackeny glades where one might come across wintering [[Woodcock]].<ref name=":2" />

Both Colwell Lane ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 345 223}}) and Ham Lane, ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 356 212}}) are greenways, often sunken, with superb lines of outgrown [[Hornbeam]] hedging stools. Around Ham Lane, Wilderness, Ham and Strood Woods, are old Stanmer manorial lands. They are wet woods where many of the old deciduous trees have been replaced by conifers. Only small fragments of ancient [[Oak]]oak and [[Hazel]]hazel survive to the east under which [[Campanula rotundifolia|bluebells]] grow. The relict, moor east and west of Slugwash Lane, north east of More House Farm, ({{Gbmappingsmall|TQ 353 215}}/6) has a riot ofmuch [[Meadow-sweetFilipendula ulmaria|meadowsweet]] in its enclosures, and brooks scented with [[Water Mint|water mint]] and noisy with [[Marshmarsh frog|marsh frogs]]s (2011).<ref name=":2" />

A patchwork of smallish woods and fields sit on the site of 'The Bishoprick', the lost Stanmer and Wivelsfield Common enclosed in 1626-301626–30.<ref name=":2" /> Bounding West Wood, Hundred Acre Lane, part of an ancient south-north drove ({{Gbmappingsmall|TQ 347 189}}), tracks the watershed between the Adur and Ouse catchments for over a mile south from Wivelsfield Green. Lashmar Wood ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 350 193}}) is a wood rich in [[Campanula rotundifolia|bluebells]] and [[Anemonoides nemorosa|wood anemones]] with a large old [[hornbeam]] boundary hedge. It used to be twice the size. What is left of MercersMercer's Wood ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 357 192}}), and little South Wallers Wood ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 354 189}}), are also rich bluebell woods, colourful in spring. Cottage Wood ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 355 185}}) and Lambourne Wood ({{gbmappingsmall|TQ 356 187}}), are both the most biodiverse in the area, having around eleven indicator plants of ancient woodland. The area by the Lambourne brook the area is lusher and the [[Campanula rotundifolia|bluebells]] bloom after they are gone on drier ground. It is another [[hornbeam]] wood, and there isare [[Hedge Garlic]], [[Goldilocks buttercup]] and [[Early purple orchid]]s (2010).<ref name=":2" /> Cottage and Lambourne Woods are likely relics of the Fischhyrstes "Fish Wood" -mentioned ofin the Saxon Stanmer charter.<ref name=":0">Heather Warne, (1994). ''Wivelsfield. A History of a Wealden Parish''. </ref>

Wivelsfield is governed at the local level by Wivelsfield Parish Council, which consists of nine councillors who meet monthly. The parish council is responsible for local amenities such as the provision of litter bins, bus shelters and allotments. They also provide a voice into district council meetings.