Ringmer

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Ringmer
Sussex
Ringmer Village Hall - geograph.org.uk - 1428252.jpg
Location
Grid reference: TQ445124
Location: 50°53’24"N, 0°3’0"E
Data
Population: 4,648  (2011)
Post town: Lewes
Postcode: BN8
Dialling code: 01273
Local Government
Council: Lewes
Parliamentary
constituency:
Lewes

Ringmer is a large village in Sussex, three miles east of Lewes. It gives a name to the county's Ringmer Hundred.

The wider civil parish if the name encompasses such nearby hamlets as Upper Wellingham, Ashton Green, Broyle Side, Norlington, Little Norlington and Shortgate.

The signs of settlement here can be traced at least to Roman times.

The parish church, dedicated to St Mary, was probably built in the 13th century.[1] One of its rectors, named to the living in 1533, was |William Levett, named in the same year as rector of Buxted:[2] notwithstanding his ecclesiastic calling, am ironmaster in the Wealden iron industry and the manufacturer of new, state-of-the-art cannons for the King.

2006 fireworks factory fire

On 3 December 2006 the Festival Fireworks factory, which is in the parish near Shortgate, caught fire detonating the display pyrotechnics stored on the site. Successive explosions then followed for more than eight hours. Sussex Police, which described it as "a serious incident", established a 200-yard exclusion zone around the factory. Television pictures showed a large fireball at the centre of the blaze. Two members of Sussex fire services died and nine fire service workers were injured, along with two members of the public and two police officers. Hundreds of rockets continued to explode more than five hours after the initial blasts.[3]

About the village

Ringmer Mill stood for centuries on Mill Plain overlooking Ringmer. This post mill was in operation until 1921 but collapsed in 1925 leaving the mill post, on which the body of the mill rotated, standing as a local landmark.

Plashett Park Wood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest partly in the parish. It is a site of biological importance as an area of ancient woodland. Plashett Wood and the adjoining Plashett Park Farm provide habitats for a wide variety of breeding birds and bats, and a number of rarer invertebrates and flora.[4]

Sport and leisure

  • Football: AFC Ringmer

Outside links

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("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Ringmer)

References

  1. "Home". http://www.ringmerchurch.org.uk/. 
  2. Dunkin, Edwin Hadlow W. (1875). "Contributions towards the Ecclesiastical History of the Deanery of South Malling". Sussex Archaeological Collections 26: 73. doi:10.5284/1085488. 
  3. "Fireworks depot blaze kills two". BBC Southern Counties News (BBC). 3 December 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/6204452.stm. 
  4. SSSI listing and designation for Plashett Park Wood