Heathfield, Sussex

Historical Description

Heathfield, a village and a parish in Sussex. The village stands on a headstream of the river Cnckmere, and has a station on the L.B. & S.C.R., 46 miles from London. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office, and gave the title of Baron to General Elliot, the defender of Gibraltar. The hamlet of Heathfield Common is about a mile to the ENE, and has a post office. The parish contains also the hamlets or places of Cade Street, Punnetts Town, and Euntington. Acreage, 8032; population of the civil parish, 2300; of the ecclesiastical, 2088. Heathfield Park belonged to the Dacres, passed to General Elliot, Lord Heathfield, was sold by his successor to Mr Francis Newberry, was for some years the seat of Sir William Blunt, and in 1893 was sold to Mr Francis Henry Scott. The house has been greatly altered, but the grounds, which are very fine and have noble views, contain a memorial of General Elliot in a tower, erected in honour of him by Mr Newberry. The tower stands on a spot about 600 feet above sea-level, is a mark for the entire weald in Kent and Sussex, and commands a prospect over forty churches to a great extent of coast. Cade Street, about half a mile N of the village, disputes with one or two other localities the claim of being the death-place of Jack Cade. A very large iron furnace was at one time about a mile S of the village, produced cannon of high repute, and has left some traces. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester; net value, £330 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Chichester. The church is-ancient, consists of nave, aisles, chancel, and SE chapel, with tower and spire, and was partly rebuilt in 1861 and restored in 1869. One act of the restoration had reference to th& spire, which is about 60 feet high, and was 2½ feet out of the perpendicular, and is supposed to have been so from the time of its erection about 500 years before, and this act consisted in bringing it to the perpendicular, without taking it down, and was successfully performed. There are Congregational and Baptist chapels, a church mission room, a gospel hall, and a chapel of ease. A market is held every Thursday.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Heathfield from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Heathfield (All Saints))

Maps

Online maps of Heathfield are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Sussex newspapers online:

• Mid Sussex Times
• Chichester Express and West Sussex Journal
• Sussex Agricultural Express
• Hastings and St Leonards Observer
• Sussex Advertiser
• Brighton Gazette
• Bexhill-on-Sea Observer