Forest Row
| Forest Row | |
| Sussex | |
|---|---|
 The centre of Forest Row | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ427348 |
| Location: | 51°5’41"N, -0°2’11"E |
| Data | |
| Population: | 4,954 (2011) |
| Post town: | Forest Row |
| Postcode: | RH18 |
| Dialling code: | 01342 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Wealden |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Wealden |
| Website: | forestrow.gov.uk |
Forest Row is a large village in the north of Sussex, three miles south-east of East Grinstead.
The village architecture is a mixture of traditional and modern. As well as many older cottages in the classic Sussex style there is a variety of more modern development, which generally blends in well. Gage Ridge and Michael Fields, with their copper-roofed houses are examples of the latter.
In addition to the businesses in the village centre, there is also an industrial estate.
Churches
- Church of England:
- Holy Trinity, Forest Row
- St Dunstan's Ashurst Wood.[1]
- Baptist: Providence Church
- Independent / evangelical: The Christian Community Forest Row[2]
- Roman Catholic: Our Lady of the Forest, opened in the 1950s and closed on Christmas Day in 2009
History
The village draws its name from its proximity to the Ashdown Forest, a royal hunting park first enclosed in the 13th century. From its origins as a small hamlet, Forest Row has grown, first with the establishment of a turnpike road in the 18th century; and later with the opening of the railway between East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells in 1866; the line, which included an intermediate station at Forest Row, closed in 1967 as a result of the programme of closures put forward by East Grinstead resident and British Railways Board Chairman Richard Beeching.
A part mediæval public house the Yew Tree (now known as The Swan), was a centre of smuggling in the 18th century.[3]
Brambletye House (known locally as Brambletye Castle) was built by Sir Henry Compton in 1631. This building features in the 1826 Horace Smith novel Brambletye House.
A mail coach robbery occurred at the bottom of Wall Hill on 27 June 1801. John Beatson and his adopted son William Whalley Beatson hid in a meadow at the foot of Wall Hill, by the entrance to an old Roman road. The mail coach made its way up Wall Hill, where it was stopped by them just after midnight. The Beatsons took between £4,000 and £5,000. Judge Baron Hotham sentenced the two men to death by hanging at the trial on 29 March 1802. Gallows were erected on the spot where the robbery took place, on 17 April 1802. Beatson and his adopted son were hanged in the presence of 3,000 people.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, came to Forest Row in June 1963 during his visit to Britain, attending mass at the Our Lady of the Forest church. At the time he was engaged in a series of discussions with the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at his home in nearby Birch Grove. There is a plaque commemorating the visit on Freshfield Hall.
Geography
Forest Row is in the north of Sussex, close to the borders of Kent and Surrey. The Ashdown Forest surrounds the village on three sides, and the upper reaches of the River Medway flow through the parish. The centre of the village lies at the intersection of the A22 road, the erstwhile turnpike, and the B2110 to Hartfield and Tunbridge Wells and there is a wide range of shops and businesses to serve the surrounding area.
Weir Wood Reservoir lies within the parish. It is also one of the largest areas of open water in the county and hosts a wide variety of resident and migrating birds.[4]
The hotels in the village are The Brambletye Hotel, The Chequers and The Swan.
Society
The village hall, at the centre of the village, is quite distinctive in its style. It has an almost Germanic and British look to it. The hall was a gift for the people of Forest Row by the Alpine mountaineer Douglas Freshfield and his mother in memory of his son Henry Douglas Freshfield who died aged fourteen in 1891. The first Freshfield Hall was very short-lived, for it was burnt down on 14 February 1895, the day after the funeral of Henry Freshfield. Douglas Freshfield and his mother wasted no time in having it rebuilt and it reopened on 17 November 1895. At the reopening Freshfield expressed the wishes of his mother and himself when he hoped the hall would be used by all classes of parishioners, and that it would keep alive the memory of its original founder.[5]
- Ashdown Forest Conservators
- Amateur dramatics:
- Cinema: Forest Row Film Society
- Music: The Jupiter Chamber Orchestra.[8]
- Forest Row Modelling Club.
- The Binkell-Bing Magic Club
- Women's Institute
Sport and leisure
- Cricket: Forest Row Cricket Club
- Football: Forest Row Junior Football Club[9]
- Golf:
- Anderida Golfers
- The Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club, established in 1889, with two courses
- Sailing: Weir Wood Sailing Club
- Others: The 'One Planker Club' (snowboarding and monoskiing trips to the Alps
The Forest Way footpath and cyclepath, on the trackbed of the disused railway line, passes through the village from East Grinstead and continues eastwards as far as Groombridge, a total distance of ten miles.
Literary connections
- The Brambletye Inn was frequented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and features in "The Adventure of Black Peter", in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson stay at the hotel in Forest Row whilst they investigate the murder of a retired sea captain.
- The film adaptation of John Fowles's novel The Collector, directed by William Wyler in 1965, contains locations (at the close of the film) shot in Forest Row.
- Writer Helen Humphreys describes staying with her paternal grandmother at Ashcroft as an aspiring novelist in her 2013 memoir Nocturne
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Forest Row) |