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Hartfield
Hartfield maps
Historic maps of Hartfield and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Hartfield maps
Hartfield area books
Displaying 1 of 24 books about Hartfield and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Hartfield
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Hartfield.
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Hartfield in The Late 1920s
My friend Hannah Rooth (Nee Symonds) can remember living in Hartfield in the late 1920s and 1930s. She lived at Kilnwood, in Cotchford Lane, and was married in the church in 1937. She then lived in Paddock Cottage in the same lane. In Hartfield in those days there were two pubs, a grocers, a bakers, a post office, village hall, and of course the church and church school. The village was very quiet, but there was the WI in the village hall, cricket matches, and maypole dancing at the school.
East Sussex memories
My Memories From When I Was Young
I was born and bought up in Withyham. I lived at the farm at the top of the common until we moved to a house in Balls Green.
When I was five I went to Withyham School. My favourite teacher was Miss Hosker. Mrs Jenner ran the girls' club in the hall behind the Dorset Arms, where we played games on the cricket field when it was a nice evening and if it were raining we would play games in the hall.
Withyham had only one shop with post office and a garage which sadly has gone, and there is no shop or garage now.
When I was eleven I went to Crowbrough School which later became Crowbrough Beacon School. Because there was not any public transport to the school we had to get a coach which picked you up at the bus stop and took us to school.
Withyham is a beautiful place to live.
The church is a very special place now for me as both... Read more
Charles And Eileen Brackenbury
I would like to dedicate this memory to my mother and father Charles Richard and Eileen Brackenbury. May they always be rembered for ever, love Lynda and family xxxxx
The Rectory
I grew up at the rectory in Withyham, my father Peter was Rector of Withyham and Blackham from1953 to 1986. I was the eldest of eight children. I have many fond memories of my life in Withyham and also some sad ones. My father's ashes are now lying beside his predessor (Arthur Miles) by The Dell, a small piece of ground which lies between the Rectory garden and the churchyard. I visit my father's grave two or three times a year and feel that the village has changed, not neccessarily for the better, everywhere I look are signs, No entry, No parking, Private, No horses, No cars, and one of the best farms that used to exist in the south of England now appears run down and neglected, as does the lake that the rectory overlooks. I worked on that farm (Buckhurst Estate) as a schoolboy during the harvest, and later when I left school as a student under the management of Arnold Christiensen. After Arnold retired and the then... Read more
Chesson's Coaches
Hello Patrick, I came across your reminiscences while looking for something else - as you do! I remember Tom Chesson and his coaches, was at school with Veronica Chesson, his grand daughter and also my best friend Jill Burgess. My name was Chris Langford, we usually travelled on the Ashdown Motors coach from Forest Row, in that cold winter we slithered all over the Forest and up to Old Lodge collecting primary school children for Hartfield, got stuck a few times. I expect you boarded at Withyham and went along the Ladies' Mile. When the Ashdown coach was busy Tom collected us and we were in awe of him, I remember him ordering a boy off at the radio station at Nutley and he walked most of the way home until the postman took pity on him. He was strict, and we were grateful for our peaceful journeys! But I do remember my embarrassment when allowed to travel in the passenger seat, a great honour, and the school rabbit peed in... Read more
Life on The Forest, 1940s on
We moved to Yew Tree Cottage, out on the Forest, in December 1940, when I was 20 months old, and my father finally sold up in the early 1980s. I loved the Forest, and was allowed to roam free from an early age. I have many memories of the wide open spaces [yes, they were then, when the smallholders cut and gathered the vegetation for their animals' food and betting, and cut birch for firewood]. Once, when I'd wandered off [aged about 4] to meet the postman, who came from the Forest Row direction, when he didn't come apparently I just kept on walking. I remember feeling sleepy and lying down by a bridge to sleep, and being woken by the search party, probably Dad [Tom Townsend], Mr Card and Mr Everest. I wasn't at all bothered, just loved the attention. Everybody knew everyone in those days, and houses weren't generally locked up. If you went to see anyone and they weren't in, you just went in... Read more
Sweet Memories
Living at Forest House - just up the road from the post office. The school coach would drop us off at the bus stop, and on our way home we would stop in to what our family called "the little shop" to stash up on sweets. The shop was run by Barbara and Len Waghorn.
