Wivelsfield
| Wivelsfield | |
| Sussex | |
|---|---|
 Woodley House, South Road | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ341204 |
| Location: | 50°58’12"N, 0°5’24"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,980 (2011) |
| Post town: | Haywards Heath |
| Postcode: | RH17 |
| Dialling code: | 01444 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Lewes |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Lewes |
Wivelsfield village and the larger adjacent village of Wivelsfield Green are twin villages in Sussex, a mile and a half south of Haywards Heath and the same distance north-east of Burgess Hill, and nine miles north of Brighton.
The villages stand a ridge that divides the watersheds of the Rivers Adur and Ouse. While their larger neighbours, Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill, are inventions of modernity. owing their existence to the coming of the railway in the 1840s, Wivelsfield is much older and was first mention is in an 8th century charter. Bronze Age and Roman finds indicate even earlier origins of settlement in the area.[1]
The settlement 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.
History
Wivelsfield grew during the late Saxon and early Norman period, initially as extended pastures for pannage by a number of manors to the south. The name itself is of Anglo-Saxon origin meaning simply 'Wifel's field', after an otherwise unknown farmer of that era.[2] In 765 a charter refers to the village as Wifelesfeld.[3]
The Domesday Book of 1086 records 1½ hides at Berth here were held by William de Warenne, perhaps part of the manor of Hurstpierpoint. The Stanmer parish owned the eastern portion of the parish until the 14th century.
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.[3][4] Great Ote Hall was the only manor in the area, with much southern land being in the manors of Plumpton and Ditchling.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Wivelsfield was the focus of a small group of local dissenters (Particular Baptists). In 1763, they broke from the larger General Baptist community at nearby Ditchling and formed a new meeting under Henry Booker, using a chapel built in 1780 (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.
The current B2112 is an old drove road as a portion of the A272 which crosses the northern edge of the parish whilst the minor route to Plumpton is a mediæval highway. The B2112 also became part of an 18th century London-Brighton turnpike which is still used as the route for the modern day bike ride between the two.
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.
About the village
The north of the parish includes several woods and small farms south of Haywards Heath, separated from the nucleus of the village to the south by the Pellingford Brook, a tributary of the River Ouse that flows to Newhaven. Despite the influence of this brook, almost half of the parish drains west to the River Adur, which flows to Shoreham by Sea, reflecting the gently undulating terrain.
Churches
Old Wivelsfield parish church stands 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 place 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 regarded as 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 middle ages the church was extended.
The sandstone rubble of Wivelsfield church is thought to have been quarried from adjacent Lunce's Common. The Yew on the north side of the church (with only half of its trunk surviving) is probably the oldest thing on the site. The narrow north door is Saxo-Norman. It is a Grade II listed building.[5]
The village has its own theatre group, the Wivelsfield Little Theatre, which holds productions in the village hall and the church.
In culture, media and sport
- The folk singer Martin Carthy produced an LP record entitled 'Sweet Wivelsfield' released in 1974.
- The 1994 Tour de France's fourth stage, from Dover, went via London to Wivelsfield, ending in Brighton.
- Wivelsfield Green is reputed to be the inspiration for the 1960s children's television series Camberwick Green by Gordon Murray, (along with nearby Plumpton as Trumpton and Chailey as Chigley).[6]
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Wivelsfield) |
References
- ↑ P.Brandon - The Sussex Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton, 1974)
- ↑ Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 1960. p. 504 ISBN 0198691033
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 A History of the County of Sussex - Volume 7 pp 119-124: Parishes: Wivelsfield (Victoria County History)
- ↑ Stell, Christopher (2002). Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in Eastern England. Swindon: English Heritage. p. 358. ISBN 1-873592-50-7.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1222972: Church of St Peter and St John the Baptist (Grade II listing)
- ↑ "In Search of the Real Trumptonshire". Trumptonshire Web. http://www.t-web.co.uk/trumpvil.htm.
