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Ditchling - East Sussex, England

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Ditchling

From Ingas (Saxon, meaning 'people of') and Dicel (Saxon Name)

Orig. Dicelinga (765), Diccelingum (880, Alfred's Will), Diceninges, Dicelinges, Digelinges (1086, DB), Dicheling (1230) and Dichlinge (1589). Dyccanlyngum (ix cent.);
Dychenynge (xiii-xvi cent.); Dytcheling (xvii cent.).

Ditchling is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is contained within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park.

The parish is a long, narrow strip little more than a mile wide, and about 6 miles long from north to south.

  • Area 15.49 Square km (5.98 sq mi)
  • Population 2,027 (2007) ["East Sussex in Figures". East Sussex County Council. Retrieved 26 April 2008.]
  • 1,802 (2001 Census)
  • OS grid reference TQ325151
  • District Lewes
  • Shire county East Sussex
  • Country England
  • Post town Hassocks
  • Postcode district BN6
  • Dialling code 01273

NOTE - Bold links are to GENi profiles or projects. Other links are to external internet pages.

Ditchling Common, north of the village, is the source of the eastern River Adur which meets with the western River Adur near Henfield and flows on to the English Channel at Shoreham-by-Sea. Once the King's land as part of the Saxon Manor, now a Country Park north of Ditchling and just East of Burgess Hill. Jacob's Post marks the spot where Jacob Harris, a pedlar, was hanged in 1734 for the murder of Richard Miles. The site is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Jacob himself and pieces of the post are reputed to have magical curative properties. Among the many diseases curable by carrying around a fragment of the gibbet were ague, neuralgia and toothache, while touching the hand of a man swinging on the gibbet could cure barrenness. The severed hand could also be used to create the infamous "Hand of Glory". A candle was placed in the hand and when lit, a burglar was sure to be safe when entering a house at night as the residents would stay fast asleep while the candle burned.

Ditchling Common was once home to a Chalybeate (Iron rich) spring whose waters were once famed for curing Rheumatism and other ills, though it is now dry. At one time it was known that "in the wettest season it never overflows, nor in the time of drought does it ever fail". A Bronze Celt (Axe Head) and masses of molten copper were found near the spring in the 19th century.

Ditchling Beacon

Orig. Ditchling Castle. Changed to beacon suffix as site was used as a coastal defence beacon site.

History

The people of Dicul settled in Ditchling in Saxon times and King Alfred the Great held lands there as a Royal Manor.

Ditchling is first recorded in 765 as Dicelinga in a grant by King Alduuf of land bordering that of Ditchling. Later it is recorded that the Manor and its lands were held by King Alfred. When Alfred died in the year 900 it was given to a kinsmen named Osferth, and then reverted to the Crown under Edward the Confessor. After the Norman conquest, the land was held by William de Warenne

The Domesday book mentions a church and a mill in Ditchling and the population was approx 150 households. In 1095 there is mention of a manor house, what is now Wings Place. The land passed through several hands until in 1435 it was owned by the Marquess of Abergavenny who held it until the 20th century, when it was sold to developers who failed to get planning permission to build.

Public houses, The Bull and The White Horse also the cafe/eatery Ditchling Tea Rooms (previously known as Dolly's Pantry). It has a few shops.

Ditchling has community groups and societies, including the Ditchling Film Society and the Ditchling Singers.

Places of Worship

Ditchling has a long history of Protestant Nonconformism. The village has four extant places of Christian worship and one former chapel.

//media.geni.com/p13/b4/ea/05/03/53444849246612d2/ditchling_st_original.jpg?hash=25caf6a3b474f4214af42e5c28772c23491a8c188706e0450823c1427c8d993d.1715929199St Margaret's Church

Image Geograph © Copyright Paul Gillett and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence.

St Margaret's Church, (above) founded in the 11th century, is the village's Anglican church. The fabric of the flint and sandstone building is mostly 13th-century, although the nave is original. In 1740, a chapel (now called The Old Meeting House) was built on the side of a late 17th-century house off East End Lane. It is now used by the Unitarian community.

Emmanuel Chapel, used by an Evangelical congregation, was built in the early 20th century but may have had a predecessor elsewhere in the village.

Ditchling Unitarian Chapel (formerly Ditchling General Baptist Chapel, and also known as The Old Meeting House) dating from 1740. 'Mark Rutherford' was once connected with it according to A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes and it is still used as a Free Christian chapel. (below - right of the adjoined cottage), WIKI.

In the 18th and 19th centuries the Old Meeting House was an important centre for Baptists from the wider area, whose records and memorandum books allow a unique insight into a small rural religious community of the period. These records (in the East Sussex Record Office) bear witness to often fractious and heated debates about morality and religion.

//media.geni.com/p13/ac/e9/08/5c/5344483e5efb63a5/ditchling_the_old_meeting_house_original.jpg?hash=bf174d7c3fb7d1b01e4f8441a0b2c41697472336c233086354c4cb819c841b1f.1715929199Ditchling Unitarian Chapel

Image by The Voice of Hassocks - Own work, Public Domain, Wiki Commons


The Quaker community have a modern meeting house near the centre of the village.

The Beulah Strict Baptist Chapel (now a house) on East End Lane was in religious use between 1867 and the 1930s.

Manors/Estates

  • The Estate of Ditchling was one of those held by Alfred the Great, and at his death in 900 was bequeathed to his kinsman Osferth. The property must have reverted to the Crown, for it formed part of the demesne land of Edward the Confessor. Under King Edward, and probably before, the manor appears to have stretched northward in a narrow strip right up to the borders of Surrey, including 4 hides of land in the East Grinstead district, around Fairlight, with the only iron mine recorded in Domesday Sussex. These 4 hides, with the mine and 6 woods, lay in the rape of Pevensey and were given by William the Conqueror to the Count of Mortain. William de Warenne was given the remaining 42 hides but by 1086 the manor was assessed for 33 hides only. Warenne held Ditchling as a demesne manor, with the exception of 10½ hides which he leased to 5 men, who appear to have held them together as one estate. The main manor of Ditchling therefore descended with the rape (q.v.), passing on the division of the barony in 1439 to the Lords Bergavenny. See family connections - Guy Larnach-Nevill, 5th Marquess of Abergavenny.

In 1312 John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, obtained the grant of a weekly market on Tuesday at his manor of Ditchling, and a yearly fair there on the vigil, feast, and morrow of St. Margaret (20 July). In the 18th century a fair was held on Lady Day, 25 Mar., and after the change in the calendar on 5 April. There was also one on 12 Oct. for pedlary. They were still held in 1835, but had lapsed before 1888. In this manor the custom of Borough English obtained.

  • The Park of Ditchling - was first mentioned in 1274, when trouble arose between the men of Ditchling, under Walter the Park-keeper, and Matthew de Hastings, the sheriff of Sussex; (fn. 13) but it seems to have been made into a park before 1216, since Earl John claimed and established that King John had granted privileges of freewarren and chase to his family. It lay to the southwest of the village, extending up on to the Downs and into the parishes of Keymer and Clayton. John de Warenne kept a stud of horses in Ditchling Park, and at his death in 1304 the stud was purchased for the use of Edward, 1st Prince of Wales and afterwards Edward II, and continued there, in the charge of John de Dychenynge, 'Keeper of the Prince's Colts'. In 1305 the Prince wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert de Winchelsey, asking him for the loan of a good stallion for the improvement of the stud. In 1439 the extent of the Park was 300 acres. It was still enclosed in 1576, when it was granted by Henry, Lord Bergavenny, to Margaret daughter of George, Lord Bergavenny, the wife of Henry Poole, and her sons John and Francis for their lives. Henry Poole died in 1580, and Margaret and her father leased the greater part of the Park to Anthony Stapley. There was a lawsuit in 1597 with William Overy, who claimed also to have a lease, with some justification. At that time, however, it had 'houses, buildings, lands, meadows and pastures' within the pale limits, and in 1632 it is said to have been long disparked and converted into a farm, the tenants of which had for more than a century occupied Westwick. Apparently it was retained by the Stapleys, for in 1691 the property, still called Ditchling Park and containing 300 acres, was sublet by Sir John Stapley of Ringmer to Richard Webb of Ditchling, with the exception of all oaks and ashes beyond those needed for firebote, housebote, haybote, palebote, and hedgebote to be spent on the premises. The Park Farm still forms part of the Abergavenny estates.
  • The 'Chase of Frekeburgh and Shortfrith in the 15th century, and in 1439 formed part of the dower of Beatrice, Countess of Arundel. It had an area of 500 acres, extending into Burgess Hill on the west and Wivelsfield on the north-east. By the end of the 15th century it was broken up into farms.
  • Ditchling Garden Manor, extending into Chailey parish, originated from about 1095, when the second William de Warenne gave to the Priory of St. Pancras at Lewes, a garden with houses and the land which is between the two roads, with the wood adjoining it, and two hides there, for my brother Rainald at his request. The monks were also given the right to pasture their cattle with the demesne cattle in Shortfrith and Fragbarrow.

At the dissolution of the monastery in 1537 the last prior, Robert, surrendered the manor to Henry VIII, The king granted it to Thomas Cromwell in 1538, and subsequently to Anne of Cleves. When she died in 1557 it reverted to the Crown, and in 1560 was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Edward Gage, son of the Sir John Gage who was Chamberlain to three monarchs. Sir Edward died in 1568 leaving the manor to his seven younger sons and their heirs male to hold in common. In 1577 five of these sons settled it on Thomas, one of the brothers, and his heirs. Thomas Gage of Firle and his son Sir John Gage, 1st Baronet Gage of Firley incurred heavy fines for recusancy - refusing to attend Anglican services, and in January 1581 Thomas sold the manor, with the exception of a barn and a piece of land, to John Eversfield of Worth and his son Thomas. John died in ownership of it in 1595 and his son Sir Thomas in 1616, but Thomas Eversfield, son of the latter, with William Eversfield, sold Ditchling Garden in 1621 to Sir Edward Sackville, who appears to have passed it on to his elder brother Richard, Earl of Dorset, who leased it in 1623 to Sir George Rivers, and died owning it in the following year. Richard's heirs were his daughters Margaret and Isabel, but it isn't clear what happened to the manor subsequently. In 1650 it was conveyed by Purback Temple and Sarah his wife to Thomas Gratwick, but not long after came into the possession of Thomas Beard, who held courts there from 1656 until 1679. In 1696 and 1699 courts were held by Thomas Beard, junior, and from 1702 to April 1714 by Thomas Midmer. In that year Ditchling Garden was evidently sold to Thomas Godley, who held a court there in November and continued in possession until 1742, when he, together with John Legas and Judith his wife, sold the manor to Dr. Richard Russell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Russell_%29 doctor%29 WIKI). Between 1758 and 1760 it passed to Dr. Russell's son William Russell, who assumed his mother's surname of Kempe, holding it until 1787. In 1788 it was owned by John Ingram, and subsequently Mr. Charles James Ingram (1940).
Alias - Wings Place, formerly Ditchling Garden Manor, also known as Anne of Cleves House, is a Grade I country house. It is a Tudor house, said to be one of the best examples in the country. In 1936 it was reconverted from cottage property and restored. (See image below as Owned by Jamie Theakston). It is in the main an Elizabethan timber-framed house believed to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who likes the doors to be left open. It is unlikely to be the ghost of Anne of Cleves as she never visited the place despite owning it.

//media.geni.com/p13/1a/29/bf/c1/5344484924668f51/wings_place_original.jpg?hash=84b602ff6b2c256fe6adcbcd52103c38bb6c671d4838c0a7c64e3011f87fb3a3.1715929199

Image above Geograph © Copyright pam fray and licensed for reuse under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ Creative Commons Licence]
  • Piddingworth [Pidelingeworth, Pedelyngworth (xiii-xv cent.); Pillingworth (xvii-xix cent.)], a small estate on the Downs in the extreme south of Ditchling, was held of the Castle of Lewes for a third of a knight's fee. There is mention of a Martin de Pidelingeworth in 1201 and 1204, and Nicholas de Pydelyngworth was living in 1283. In 1290 Joan widow of Nicholas held a messuage and 60 acres of land in Ditchling as her dowry, part of the inheritance of Robert le Causays and William son of Robert de Mulstone, presumably her husband's heirs, who then sold the reversion to Gilbert Sykelfot. About the same time William de Mulstone sold most of his land at Pillingworth to Gilbert, who evidently became lord of the whole property. He and Joan de Pydelyngeworth were both living in 1296, but Gilbert's son John was in possession in 1327 and 1332.

In 1421 a messuage and 200 acres of land in Ditchling, very probably Piddingworth, were claimed against Robert Oxenbridge and others by Thomas Stonkylle and Alice, and John Yoo and Margaret, as heirs of Gilbert Sykelfot, their wives being descendants of Isabel wife of John de Kyngstone, daughter of Gilbert; but the result is not recorded.
Piddingworth is subsequently found in the possession of the Earls of Arundel, the overlords, in 1425 and 1440. After the division of the rape what appears to have been this manor descended with Ditchling manor to the Lords Bergavenny until in 1523 it is said to have been granted to John Alchorne the elder, with remainder to his elder son John and his heirs male, or failing them to Thomas the second son and his heirs male. The younger John died before his father, leaving two young daughters, Joan and Agnes, whereupon his brother Thomas took possession of the property, claiming that, in addition to the settlement above made, his father had actually willed the property to him. Thomas Alchorne died seised of it in 1559, leaving a widow Margaret, and was succeeded by his son Nicholas. He was followed by another Nicholas Alchorne, whose mother Alice was holding a third of 'Pillingeworth Farm' in dower about 1615. Tuppin Scrase agreed to buy the property from the Alchornes in 1624, but the transfer was delayed because Nicholas did not produce his mother's release of her share. An owner of the name of Alderson is mentioned as succeeding Tuppin Scrase, but John Wheeler died owning it in 1643, leaving it to his son John, a boy of 10. In 1709 John Westbrook, grocer, of London, left the manor, with 375 acres of land, to his son Durban, whose brother and heir William died in 1750. John Westbrook, apparently William's son, held the estate at his death in 1788. In 1810 it was conveyed by George Nicholls and Philippa his wife to John Hamshaw, and some time before 1843 it was acquired by the Earl of Chichester, whose Park of Stanmer it adjoins, and with whose descendants it has since remained.

  • Dymocks, first recorded in 1569, is said to have been part of the impropriate rectory of Ditchling, and its tenements lay to the east of the road to the Common. In 1569 two-thirds of it were held by Henry Warren alias Deane, and the other third by Richard Michelbourne. Henry Warren died in 1595, leaving his property to his daughter Agnes Warren, and she married William Bassano, who was holding two virgates in right of his wife about 1624. Richard Michelbourne's virgate descended from father to son for four generations, all called Richard, the fourth Richard dying in 1638, leaving a son William. In 1695 John Honey devised his customary lands called 'Dimox' to his cousin Walter Lucas of Southwark. In 1763 Joseph Constable bequeathed an undivided moiety of the manor or reputed manor of Dymocks to his kinswoman Elizabeth Dobson, wife of John Dobson of Lindfield. By her will of 1769 she left her land in Ditchling to her son John, who was lord of the manor in 1784–5, after which no more is heard of any manorial rights.

Other Notable Buildings

  • Bank Cottage (now Barclays Bank) timber-framed house with a wooden plaque dated 1573.
  • The Bowries, a Jacobean house of two bays with a modern extension to the north.
  • Chichester House, has a Doric doorway.
  • Cherry Tree Cottage has a lead plaque of 1579 on the south elevation
  • Colstock and the cottage north of it form a 16th-century house with 17th-century chimney-stack
  • Cotterlings
  • Eastways Old Cottage
  • Gatlands - a timber-framed house dating from c. 1580–1600.
  • Mulberry Cottage - 17th Century
  • The Old Cottage, has a 17th-century chimney serving wide fire-places, and a later brick front
  • Old Forge lies next to the Bowries to the south, a 16th-century house.
  • Pardons, has a Georgian front in whitewashed brick, sash windows, and door hood on brackets.
  • Ricksteddle and Pear Tree Cottage, which form one house of four bays date from the 16th century.
  • Rowles Croft has a doorway with a triangular pediment of the mid-18th century.
  • Walnut Tree Cottage, dates from the late 16th century.

Notable residents and People connected to Ditchling

  • Walter Bannister (1888-1961) In World War I Walter served in the Royal Marine Artillery and in World War II he was a member of the Ditchling Home Guard. Between the wars he was Captain of the Ditchling Volunteer Fire Brigade.
  • Sir Frank Brangwyn - artist, painter, water colourist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator and progressive designer
  • Raymond Briggs - illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author
  • S. F. Edge - racing driver
  • Rowland Emett - Punch cartoonist and mapcap designs.
  • Thomas Fieldwick (1823 - 1913) - Grocer
  • Herbie Flowers - musician
  • Eric Gill - sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker
  • James Hodson - cricketer - was born in Ditchling
  • Bernard Holden- railway engineer, president of Bluebell Railway
  • Len Howard - naturalist and musician
  • Peter James - writer
  • Edward Johnston - craftsman, who is regarded as the father of modern calligraphy
  • David Jones - poet
  • Captain James Juddery (1870-1946) - on board the SS Mohegan which ran aground on the ‘Manacles’ off the Cornish coast. He was singled out and praised for his extreme bravery in swimming from the rigging to the lifeboat and back again with a line, an act of courage which led to all those who had been clinging to the rigging being saved. One hundred and six were drowned and only fifty one were saved.
  • John Vernon Lord - illustrator, author and teacher
  • Dame Vera Lynn - singer
  • Robert Mott (1764-1843) - Baptist minister
  • John Neal - cricketer
  • Rev. Francis Collins Norton (1848-1921) Longest serving Vicar of Ditchling
  • Hilary Pepler - printer, writer and poet
  • Brocard Sewell - Carmelite friar and literary figure
  • Sir Donald Sinden - actor
  • Jamie Theakston - radio presenter

World War 1 and 2

Twenty men from Ditchling lost their lives in WW1. In 1946 a further thirteen names of those who died in the Second World War were added to the village War Memorial.

World War 1

World War II

  • Sapper William ‘Tommy’ Burt, Royal Engineers - June 10th 1944
  • Flight Lt Thomas Carson, RAF Volunteer Reserve - January 25th 1943
  • Sgt James Cottingham, RAF Volunteer Reserve - August 15th 1941
  • Sgt Ronald Evans, Royal Air Force - February 3rd 1943
  • Private Cecil Faulkner, Pioneer Corps - February 7th 1946
  • Flying Officer Henry Emden, Royal Air Force - September 4th 1939
  • Sgt Harry Legg, RAF Volunteer Reserve - October 13th 1941
  • Able Seaman Frederick Noakes, Royal Navy - March 26th 1942
  • Captain William Sherrard, Royal Artillery - February 14th 1942
  • Flight Lt Richard Stevens, RAF Volunteer Reserve - December 15th 1941
  • Private William Weaver, Leicestershire Regiment - February 28th 1943
  • Captain Herbert Shove, Royal Navy - December 5th 1943
  • Lieutenant Reginald ‘Tony’ Smith, RN Volunteer Reserve - April 28th 1944

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