Buxted (St. Margaret)

BUXTED (St. Margaret), a parish, in the union of Uckfield, hundred of Loxfield-Dorset, rape of Pevensey, E. division of Sussex, 1¾ mile (N. N. E.) from Uckfield; containing 1574 inhabitants. This parish is situated on the road from Lewes to Tonbridge-Wells, and comprises 8208 acres, of which 829 are common or waste; it abounds with sandstone and ironstone, and it is said that the first pieces of ordnance cast in England were produced here. Buxted Park, the seat of the Earl of Liverpool, is an elegant mansion, in an ample and richly-wooded demesne. The living is a rectory, with the living of Uckfield annexed, valued in the king's books at £37. 5. 2½., and in the gift of the Archbishop of Canterbury: the tithes of Buxted have been commuted for £960, and there is a glebe of 50 acres. The church, beautifully situated within the grounds of the park, is a spacious and venerable structure in the decorated English style, with a square embattled tower surmounted by a lofty spire. A district church was erected at Hadlow Down, in 1836. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans. Dr. Saunders, rector of Buxted, in 1719 bequeathed land now producing £70 per annum, for the establishment of a free school at Uckfield, for six boys of this parish and six of Uckfield. His successors in the benefice have been eminently distinguished for their talents: of these may be noticed the Rev. William Clarke, author of a work on the connexion of the Roman, Saxon, and English coins, and his son Edward, who published Letters concerning the Russian Nation, and other productions, and who was interred here: a later rector was Dr. D'Oyly, whose successor was Dr. Wordsworth, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, who died in 1846. That celebrated scholar Dr. W. Wotton, father-in-law of the Rev. William Clarke, lies interred in the churchyard; and the accomplished and intrepid traveller, Dr. E. D. Clarke, grandson of the Rev. William Clarke, was born, and passed his boyhood, in the parsonage-house. There are several chalybeate springs.