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Chelwood Gate

Danehill, East SussexVillages in East Sussex
Chelwood Gate Village Hall geograph.org.uk 54548
Chelwood Gate Village Hall geograph.org.uk 54548

Chelwood Gate is a small village within the civil parish of Danehill in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. Its nearest town is Uckfield, which lies approximately 6.6 miles (10.6 km) south-east from the village, just off the A22 road. The village is near the West Sussex border. Chelwood Gate was one of the entrances into Ashdown Forest through which John of Gaunt, the third surviving son of King Edward III, would have entered the forest from his hunting lodge. There is an Iron Age enclosure which is a Scheduled Monument due to its importance as a relatively rare example of a Wealden Iron Age settlement.The village church forms part of the Parish of All Saints Danehill with Chelwood Gate. The church was built as a 'Chapel of Ease' not long after the main parish building in Danehill was completed so that the residents local to Chelwood Gate would not have to travel the longer journey on foot to the church at Danehill.The village public house, the Red Lion, was built in the 19th century and was patronised in the past by Harold Macmillan and United States President John F Kennedy. Kennedy came to visit the then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, in 1963 and a memorial to this event can be found on the Wych Cross road within the village. The village also has a village hall which is visited by a mobile library service, a village market and where there is also a nursery school.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Chelwood Gate (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Chelwood Gate
Stone Quarry Road, Wealden Danehill

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Wikipedia: Chelwood GateContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.048 ° E 0.024 °
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Address

Stone Quarry Road

Stone Quarry Road
RH17 7LP Wealden, Danehill
England, United Kingdom
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Chelwood Gate Village Hall geograph.org.uk 54548
Chelwood Gate Village Hall geograph.org.uk 54548
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Wych Cross
Wych Cross

Wych Cross is a location in Ashdown Forest, in the Wealden district of East Sussex. It lies on the sandstone forest ridge of the High Weald on the principal road from London to the east Sussex county town of Lewes at an elevated crossroads where it meets a road running east to west along the High Weald forest ridge. Wych Cross is situated about 36 miles south of London, roughly midway between London and the English Channel. The etymology of the place name (also spelt 'Wytch Cross' and 'Witch Cross' in documents of the early 19th century and earlier) is uncertain. "Wych" could be a variant of the common Old English placename "wic", denoting a homestead or settlement, it could possibly refer to a tree, the wych-elm, or it could refer to St. Richard de Wych, Bishop of Chichester.In the late 19th century a church dedicated to St. Richard de Wych was built east of Wych Cross by the then owner of the Ashdown Park estate, Thomas Charles Thompson, but it was never consecrated, and it was demolished in the 1970s. The Ashdown Forest Centre, the head office of the Conservators of Ashdown Forest, is situated at Wych Cross just half a mile east of the crossroads. It is housed in three historic Wealden barns—an Administration Barn, Information Barn (visitor centre) and Education Barn—that were conveyed to the site and rebuilt there in the early 1980s. Notable buildings at Wych Cross include the present hotel building (including a deconsecrated chapel containing eight Harry Clarke stained glass windows ) at Ashdown Park, and Wych Cross Place, built around 1900. A hymn tune named "WYCH CROSS" was composed by Erik Routley, who was born in Brighton, about 20 miles south of Wych Cross. In various DC Comics (notably Neil Gaiman's The Sandman) Wych Cross was the location of Fawney Rig, the Sussex manor house originally owned by John Constantine's ancestor Lady Johanna, and later by Roderick Burgess; and in which Dream was imprisoned for decades, along with the nearby old people's home in which Burgess's son, Alex, becomes a resident.

Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest

Ashdown Forest is an ancient area of open heathland occupying the highest sandy ridge-top of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is situated some 30 miles (48 km) south of London in the county of East Sussex, England. Rising to an elevation of 732 feet (223 m) above sea level, its heights provide expansive vistas across the heavily wooded hills of the Weald to the chalk escarpments of the North Downs and South Downs on the horizon. Ashdown Forest's origins lie as a medieval hunting forest created soon after the Norman conquest of England. By 1283 the forest was fenced in by a 23 miles (37 km) pale enclosing an area of some 20 square miles (52 km2; 13,000 acres; 5,200 ha). Thirty-four gates and hatches in the pale, still remembered in place names such as Chuck Hatch and Chelwood Gate, allowed local people to enter to graze their livestock, collect firewood, and cut heather and bracken for animal bedding. The forest continued to be used by the monarchy and nobility for hunting into Tudor times, including notably Henry VIII, who had a hunting lodge at Bolebroke Castle, Hartfield and who courted Anne Boleyn at nearby Hever Castle. Ashdown Forest has a rich archaeological heritage. It contains much evidence of prehistoric human activity, with the earliest evidence of human occupation dating back to 50,000 years ago. There are important Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Romano-British remains. The forest was the centre of a nationally important iron industry on two occasions, during the Roman occupation of Britain and in the Tudor period when, in 1496, England's first blast furnace was built at Newbridge, near Coleman's Hatch, marking the beginning of Britain's modern iron and steel industry. In 1693, more than half the forest was taken into private hands, with the remainder set aside as common land. The latter today covers 9.5 square miles (25 km2; 6,100 acres; 2,500 ha) and is the largest area with open public access in South East England. The ecological importance of Ashdown Forest's heathlands is reflected by its designation as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, as a Special Protection Area for birds, and as a Special Area of Conservation for its heathland habitats. It is part of the European Natura 2000 network as it hosts some of Europe's most threatened species and habitats.Ashdown Forest is famous for serving as inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories written by A. A. Milne. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest and took his son, Christopher Robin, walking there. The artist E. H. Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books.