Isaac Roberts' Observatory

Birch Grove, Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, England is a country house dating from 1926. It was the family home of the British prime minister Harold Macmillan, Earl of Stockton, who died there in 1986. During Macmillan's time, Charles De Gaulle, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, Jawaharlal Nehru and John F. Kennedy stayed as guests at Birch Grove. The house is now owned by the Scottish entrepreneur James Hay. Birch Grove is a Grade II listed building.

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.

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.

Danehill is a village in East Sussex, England.

East Grinstead and Uckfield is a constituency of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament. Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, it was first contested at the 2024 general election. It is currently represented by Mims Davies, who was previously MP for Mid Sussex, until the 2024 election.

Furner's Green is a hamlet in the civil parish of Danehill in East Sussex, England.

Ashdown Forest, a former royal hunting forest situated some 30 miles south-east of London, is a large area of lowland heathland whose ecological importance has been recognised by its designation as a UK Site of Special Scientific Interest and by the European Union as a Special Protection Area for birds and a Special Area of Conservation for its heathland habitats, and by its membership of Natura 2000, which brings together Europe's most important and threatened wildlife areas. Ashdown Forest lies within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, "...one of the best surviving, intact medieval landscapes in Northern Europe", characterised by rolling hills, steep-sided ghyll streams, sandstone outcrops, nationally high woodland cover, many interconnected ancient woods, narrow sunken lanes, scattered farmsteads and hamlets, small irregular-shaped fields, and open heaths, of which Ashdown is the greatest example. The forest's distinctive open heathland landscape with its hilltop clumps of conifer trees has been immortalised in the illustrations provided by EH Shepard for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories of A. A. Milne, who lived on the northern edge of the forest at Chuck Hatch.

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.

St Giles' Church is an Anglican church in the village of Horsted Keynes in Mid Sussex, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. Serving an extensive rural parish in the Sussex Weald, it stands at the north end of its village on the site of an ancient pagan place of worship. The present building succeeds the original wattle and daub church, its wooden successor and a Saxon stone building—although the Norman architects who erected the cruciform structure in the 12th century preserved parts of the Saxon fabric. Long established local families have been important in the life of the church for centuries, as indicated by the extensive range of memorials and fittings in the building and its large churchyard. The village got its name from the de Cahaignes family, one of whose ancestors is apparently commemorated by the rare 13th-century "heart shrine" in the chancel. Another family with more recent connections to the parish is the Macmillan publishing dynasty, the most famous of whose sons—former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan—is buried in the family plot. Various changes have been made to the Norman church, mostly in the 13th and 14th centuries, and some Victorian restoration was undertaken. Nevertheless, the building still retains its original cruciform shape and its central tower topped by a landmark broach spire. The church continues to play an active part in parish life, maintaining links to the local school and holding regular services. English Heritage has listed it at Grade I for its architectural and historical importance.

Horsted Keynes is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The village is about 5 miles (8 km) north east of Haywards Heath, in the Weald. The civil parish is largely rural, covering 1,581 hectares (3,910 acres). At the 2011 census, it had a population of 1,586, increased from 1,507 in 2001. The 0° meridian passes about 1 mile to the east of the village of Horsted Keynes.

Michael Hall is an independent Steiner Waldorf school in Kidbrooke Park on the edge of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. Founded in 1925, it is the oldest Steiner school in Britain, and has a roll of 400 students aged between three (kindergarten) and eighteen (6th Form). The school owns a large amount of land.The school offers a broad education to boys and girls from pre-school to university entrance, based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. The curriculum embodies cultural studies, sciences, general arts and humanities, crafts, music and movement and foreign languages. EFL is available in term time. The school explains its educational ethos, curriculum and approach to prospective parents at open mornings. A range of sports, games and extra-curricular activities is offered. Entrance is non-selective and there is no streaming; for sixth-form entry an interview is conducted and GCSE grade C (or preferably higher) is required in selected sixth-form subjects.

The Byline Festival is a festival whose aim is to promote independent journalism and free speech. The festival was founded by Stephen Colegrave and Peter Jukes in 2017. Its tagline is "Dance, Discuss, Laugh and Change the World".