Places to visit

Gazeteer of Towns and Villages

Towns	Villages
Lewes Newhaven Peacehaven, Telscombe Cliffs and Saltdean Seaford	Barcombe Bishopstone Chailey Denton Ditchling East Chiltington Falmer Firle Glynde Hamsey Iford Kingston Newick	Offham Piddinghoe Plumpton Ringmer Rodmell Southease South Heighton Streat Tarring Neville Telscombe Village Westmeston Wivelsfield

Barcombe

Three villages in one, Barcombe consists of the original community around the church; Barcombe Cross, where villagers fled to escape the Black Death; and picturesque Barcombe Mills, a popular fishing spot, whose riverside flour mill is mentioned in the Domesday Book.

Bishopstone

Situated on the outskirts of Seaford, Bishopstone remains a delightful Downland village. It has an elegant manor house, a Saxon church with square flint Norman tower, and pretty cottages grouped around the green - known locally as the Egg.

Chailey

A 13th century church is at the heart of Chailey, one of the largest parishes in the county. The Sussex clay belt runs through South Chailey, famous once for its potteries. Bricks are still made in the area. North Chailey, has a nature reserve of gorse and bracken, and a well-preserved windmill which is said to mark the exact centre of Sussex.

Denton Now a suburb of Newhaven and almost lost amid new homes, Denton has a number of old and interesting buildings, including a fine 13th Century church, a small manor house and attractive flint cottages.

Denton

Now a suburb of Newhaven and almost lost amid new homes, Denton has a number of old and interesting buildings, including a fine 13th Century church, a small manor house and attractive flint cottages.

Ditchling

Picture-postcard prettiness, timbered Tudor cottages, Georgian homes, village pond and medieval church are set on the green - Ditchling is everybody's dream village. It lies beneath towering Ditchling Beacon, a beauty spot on the long line of South Downs. Many famous people made their homes in Ditchling, including sculptor Eric Gill, the eccentric Rowland Emmett and, today, Forces sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn.

East Chiltington

A small village at the foot of the Downs, featuring a late Norman Church. The 206m high Black Cap is included in the parish, and near the railway is the line of a Roman road.

Falmer

Cut in two by a busy dual carriageway, and dominated by Sussex and Brighton Universities, this pretty village on the Brighton border has managed to retain its identity. Tucked away from the massed buildings and teeming students is an ancient church and mellow cottages clustering around a beautiful village pond.

Firle

The narrow village street in Firle looks much as it did a century or more ago, and has become a favourite backdrop for film makers. The village lies below Firle Beacon, the highest point on the Downs between Eastbourne and Brighton.

A road leads to a car park near the summit from where there are glorious views south to the English Channel and north to the wooded Weald

Glynde

This village has given its name to the world-famous Glyndebourne Opera House whose champagne picnics on summer lawns have become as much a part of the social calendar as Ascot, Badminton and Wimbledon. Glynde is also notable for the stately home Glynde Place and for its unusual Palladian church.

Hamsey

Once the ham - or homestead - of the de Say family, Hamsey, legend says, was almost completely wiped out by plague. Surviving villagers shut themselves off from contact with other communities for fear of spreading the disease, and they starved to death. Whether true or not, the village died and virtually all that remains today is a beautiful old church on a knoll above the river where monthly services are held by candlelight in the summer.

Iford

Quiet and mysterious, this Ouse valley village lies off the minor road from Lewes-Newhaven and has an almost feudal air. Its focal point is a fine Norman church of rough flints.

Kingston

Until 1922 Kingston was just a single street of cottages and finer houses, a 12-14th century church and a village green. This tiny community nestling in a fold of the Downs, remains intact in larger Kingston, an attractive village of tree-shaded avenues and pleasant homes.

Newick

Although extensively developed in recent years, Newick retains its traditional village green. It contains a number of buildings of special architectural and historic importance and there is a lovely old church dating from the 11th century.

Offham

A scattering of period cottages, a handsome church, one or two fine country houses, a couple of pubs and a smithy make up Offham. In the car park of the Chalk Pit Inn can be seen the entrance to a tunnel which runs under the road and down to the river, where, early in the 19th century, a cable railway lowered chalk from the quarry to waiting barges.

Piddinghoe

A busy port in centuries past, Piddinghoe was also at the centre of the Sussex smuggling scene. The village has the only remaining bottle-shaped brick kiln in the country. Its church is one of three in the Ouse valley to have a round Norman tower.

Plumpton

The South Downs Way cuts across the southern end of Plumpton and nearby is the site of an Early Bronze Age settlement North of the track is a grassed-over excavation in the chalk hillside in the shape of a cross with sandstone block at its centre, this commemorates the Battle of Lewes, which was fought near the spot in 1264. The cross is visible only in the early morning or when the sun is low in the afternoon. Two miles from the old village is Plumpton Green, a newer community that has grown up beside the railway station and the well-known National Hunt racecourse. Rodmell is a charming village of flint and thatch. The Norman church houses an ancient Sussex marble font, said to be Saxon. Rodmell was an outpost of Bloomsbury some years ago when Leonard and Virginia Woolf made their home in Monks House (now owned by the National Trust). The Bloomsbury Set also had links at Charleston near Firle and Berwick Church which was decorated by members of the set. From Monks House Virginia Woolf walked to her death in the Ouse in 1941.

 

Ringmer

Some 5,000 people live in Ringmer, a village that has more than quadrupled in size in the 20th century. Ringmer has a grand green, fringed by cottages and the parish church. The naturalist Gilbert White stayed often in Ringmer with his aunt Rebecca Snooke, owner of Timothy the Tortoise, who features in The Natural History of Selbourne. Timothy is featured on the village sign.

Rodmell

Rodmell is a charming village of flint and thatch. The Norman church houses an ancient Sussex marble font, said to be Saxon. Rodmell was an outpost of Bloomsbury some years ago when Leonard and Virginia Woolf made their home in Monks House (now owned by the National Trust). The Bloomsbury Set also had links at Charleston near Firle and Berwick Church which was decorated by members of the set. From Monks House Virginia Woolf walked to her death in the Ouse in 1941.

Southease

Perhaps the prettiest of the Ouse valley villages, Southease is more properly a hamlet. Cottages from another age surround the church which is mentioned in a charter of Saxon King Edgar in 966. The present small building is all that remains of a far larger church destroyed in the 14th century. An unusual feature is the early Norman round tower.

South Heighton

High above the eastern side of the Ouse valley, South Heighton looks west to the Downs and south to Newhaven Harbour and the Channel. Although much extended in recent years, the village retains its quiet, rural character and there are some charming period homes.

Streat

Tiny Streat has been inhabited since the Stone Age. In the Domesday Book it was known as Estrat. It consists of Streat Place - an Elizabethan manor house, an early English church and a few cottages. On the slopes of the downs the large V shaped tree plantation commemorating the 1887 Jubilee of Queen Victoria can be seen.

Tarring Neville

This hamlet has the distinction of being the smallest in Lewes District. Seven cottages, two farms and a church, are all that is left of a once much larger village ravaged by the Black Death, in the 14th century.

Telscombe Village

Not to be confused with Telscombe Cliffs. Telscombe Village is tucked away in a cleft in the Downs, accessible only via a narrow meandering Downland road from the C7. It is remote and unspoiled by the 20th century.

Westmeston

A small village standing near the foot of Ditchling Beacon, Westmeston is little more than a charming grouping of old cottages around the church of St. Martin. Its principal claim to fame - or notoriety - is the terrifying ghost of a headless black dog that is said to haunt Black Dog hill. Tales are told of the sounds and smells of men and horses on the Downs on particular days in May. Legend says they come from the ghosts of the King's men, fleeing the 1264 Battle of Lewes.

Wivelsfield

The district's most westerly village is Wivelsfield, on the border with Burgess Hill and West Sussex. Like many other Sussex villages, it consists of more than one community, being linked by new residential development to Wivelsfield Green to the east. That great British institution, the donkey derby, had its first ever outing at Wivelsfield, and among the sponsors were Laurel and Hardy, Gert and Daisy and the great Charlie Chaplin.

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