Monk's House

St Peter's Church is the parish church of Rodmell, East Sussex, England, and dates from the 12th century. It is a Grade I listed building and is among the earliest surviving examples of Norman architecture in the country.

Rodmell is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located three miles (4.8 km) south-west of Lewes, on the Lewes to Newhaven road and six and a half miles from the City of Brighton & Hove and is situated by the west banks of the River Ouse. The village is served by Southease railway station, opened in 1906. The Prime Meridian passes just to the west of the village. The village name has been variously spelled as Ramelle or Redmelle (11th century), Redmelde (12th century), Radmelde (13th century) and Radmill (18th century). It most likely derives from Brittonic where Rhod denotes a wheel and Melin refers to a Mill, hence mill wheel. A less likely derivation is from Old English read *mylde, "[place with] red soil". Before the time of the Norman conquest the manor of Rodmell was held by King Harold II. At the time the Domesday Book was compiled, there was a church in Rodmell, which was granted to Lewes Priory by William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. The early Norman church is dedicated to St. Peter. The font is believed to be Saxon, predating the building itself. More recently, Monk's House was the home of the author Virginia Woolf for twenty-one years until her death in 1941. The village is bisected by the road from Lewes to Newhaven which passes through Iford. This road also passes the neighbouring village of Southease. The village was part of the Holmstrow hundred until the abolition of hundreds in the 19th century.

Southease is a small village and civil parish in East Sussex, in South East England between the A26 road and the C7 road from Lewes to Newhaven. The village is to the west of the River Ouse, Sussex and has a church dedicated to Saint Peter. Southease railway station lies roughly a kilometre east over the river and may be reached via a swing bridge. The church has one of only three round towers in Sussex, all of which are located in the Ouse Valley and all three built in the first half of the 12th century. It is downstream of Lewes, the county town of East Sussex and upstream of Piddinghoe and Newhaven. Paths along both the banks of the river allow hiking in either direction along the river. The remains of a slipway on the west bank of the Ouse just north of the bridge faces Mount Caburn. The nearest village is Rodmell, about a kilometre to the northwest. The South Downs Way winds its way through the village towards the nearby River Ouse and the railway station. A new bridge has been built over the A26.Most cottages in the village date from the 17th century.

Lewes Brooks is a 339.1-hectare (838-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south of Lewes in East Sussex. The Falmer-Glynde and the Ouse valleys meet in Lewes Brooks, and the Upper and Lower Rises are the remains of the chalk uplands eroded by the Ouse.This site is on the flood plain of the River Ouse, and has fields separated by ditches. Variations in salinity from brackish to spring-fed, together with periodic clearing of ditches, produce a variety of habitats. The site is home to a diverse array of invertebrate fauna, especially water beetles. There are also rare snails, flies and moths.

Southease railway station is located 0.5 miles (800 m) east of the village of Southease in East Sussex, England. It is on the Seaford branch of the East Coastway Line, 53 miles 40 chains (86.1 km) measured from London Bridge via Redhill. The station is surrounded by agricultural land. The South Downs Way crosses the Seaford Branch here.

The Church of St Nicholas is an Anglican church in the village of Iford, East Sussex, England. It is in the Diocese of Chichester, and in the United Benefice of Iford with Kingston, Rodmell and Southease. The building is Grade I listed.

Glynde Reach is a river in East Sussex, England and tributary of the River Ouse. The main channel is fed from sources near Laughton, Rushy Green on the outskirts of Ringmer, two streams near Selmeston and several near Ripe.

Southerham Grey Pit is a 8.5-hectare (21-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest south-east of Lewes in East Sussex. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.This site exposes rocks dating to the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, around 100 million years ago. It has preserved many inoceramid bivalves which are not found elsewhere in Britain and are important for regional correlation. It is also the last remaining source for fossil fish in the area.

The Lewes and Laughton Levels are an area of low-lying land bordering the River Ouse near Lewes and the Glynde Reach near Laughton in East Sussex, England. The area was probably a tidal inlet in Norman times, but by the early 14th century, some meadows had been created by building embankments. Conditions deteriorated later that century, and by 1537, most of the meadows were permanently flooded. Part of the problem was the buildup of shingle across the mouth of the Ouse, but in 1537 a scot tax was raised, and a new channel cut through the shingle. By the mid 17th century, shingle was again preventing the region from draining properly, until the new channel was reinstated around 1731. In 1758 John Smeaton surveyed the area with a view to improving it for agriculture. He suggested straightening and widening the river channel, raising the banks around meadows, and building a large sluice near Piddinghoe, to keep the tides out. Some dredging and widening were carried out, but the straightending and sluice were discarded. In 1788, William Jessop surveyed the whole river, with the main object of improving navigation. The Ouse above Lewes became the River Ouse Navigation, with 19 locks, and for the lower river, he suggested radical straightening, and removal of the shingle bar near the mouth of the river. The work was overseen by a Lewes schoolmaster and civil engineer, and was completed in 1795. Similar treatment of the Glynde Reach occurred between 1796 and 1803, and as well as enabling ships to reach Lewes, the faster moving tides drained the meadows much more effectively. Improvements continued in the early 19th century under the leadership of John Ellman, a renowned agriculturalist who became the Expenditor for the Lewes and Laughton Levels. Severe floods occurred in 1829, but the meadows drained within 48 hours. Management of the flood defences for the Levels passed to the River Ouse Catchment Board in 1939, following the passing of the Land Drainage Act 1930. After three reorganisations and the subsequent privatisation of the water industry, responsibility passed to the Environment Agency, who suggested in 2012 that the land drainage functions should be managed by a local internal drainage board. Lewes District Council objected, and agreed to fund flood and coastal erosion management after the Environment Agency's internal drainage district for the Ouse was formally abolished from 31 March 2017.

Iford is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is located two miles (3.2 km) south of Lewes. The parish lies on slopes of the South Downs in the valley of the River Ouse.

Asham Quarry is a 2.6-hectare (6.4-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Newhaven in East Sussex. It is a Geological Conservation Review site and in the Sussex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.This site provides important biostratigraphical and lithostratigraphical evidence about environmental conditions during the last 100,000 years, the Last Glacial Period and the Holocene. It is notable for its extensive early and mid Holocene deposits and for having yielded a series of radiocarbon dates.

Southerham Machine Bottom Pit is a 1.8-hectare (4.4-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Lewes in the East Sussex. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.This site is historically significant for the number and quality of fossils of Cretaceous fish found by nineteenth century scholars such as Gideon Mantell. These fossils are particularly important for helping to understand the early evolution of fish groups such as the teleosts.The site is private land with no public access.