Activities

An -outward-looking perspective….

After changing our name from “Local History” to “Heritage and History”, we wanted to engage positively with heritage issues in the town. We started a Facebook page. This web site which has been several months in preparation, is also part of the plan. We hope that the interest it will generate in the town’s history and the high level of research which has gone into many of the included articles will be of use not only to residents and community groups but also to our town councillors, our school children and their history teachers.

…. in need of a banner

The first public event that loomed after the name change was the Summer Fayre in St. John’s Park in 2019, and to take part we felt we needed a banner: but how could we design it so as to represent the duality of our community’s history – both its 1000+ years of farming and rural life centered on St. John’s Common, as well as the 190 years of development of the town which later replaced the common. How could we convey this duality and tie a few images together in a theme?

All our history, both urban and rural, has been defined and shaped by the land on which the town sits, the heavy clay soils of the Low Weald of Sussex. So, we eventually hit upon the symbol of a large oak tree. Not only is it the iconic guardian of the Low Weald but oak trees, ancient and young, are still present in great numbers throughout our residential roads. On the elongated canvas of a pop-up banner, the oak tree could stand centrally and bind our various photos together.

We then asked the question, ‘What was Burgess Hill most celebrated for in the past? What do people fondly recall? What do they like finding out about? Some clear answers immediately emerged – our former brick and tile industry; the old sheep fairs of St. John’s common; – the Victoria Pleasure Gardens with their boating lake and other attractions; railway history, and how the sense of community grew once we had become a proper, self-determining parish. For the header of the banner we chose one of several views that have survived, taken from outside the railway station in the early 1900s, looking down Church Road. Despite the passage of time since then, all the buildings are instantly recognisable today. It is only the means of transport that have changed.

So, nestling in the shade of one of our fine oaks, the collage of old photos represents, on the right, from the bottom upwards, the old sheep fair and sheep droving at Worlds End; our farming past – the old ‘Floods Hatch’ Farm, later called West End, now the Woolpack public house; swing-boats at the Victoria Pleasure Gardens; and haymaking in early 19th century on ‘the Brow’ (now the pedestrianised Town Centre).

At the bottom left is the stately timber-framed house Hammonds, in the London Road, displaying on its east face some of our earliest, mid-16th century, local brick and tile; next, the workers at Gravett’s Potteries in the London Road display their wares; and above them are the old beehive kilns at Meeds Potteries in Station road, at the time of demolition; then the demolished foot bridge over the ‘Lewes Line’ in Junction Road and, a stone’s throw away, the view down Nye Road to the Keymer Brick and Tile works which finally closed in 2014.

The top left image, of St. John the Evangelist church on completion, in circa 1865, brought together as one community the two sorts of locals, the old rural and the newer urban.

Our monthly meetings

– are the main focus of our activities, a chance for members and others to meet up in a friendly environment and enjoy the topic of interest arranged for that evening – perhaps win a raffle prize and have a chat over a cuppa.  They mostly take place on the second Friday of the month at the Cyprus Hall in Cyprus Road, for a small entrance fee.

We very much welcome new faces to these meetings so do come up and talk to one of those who greeted you at the door. Our meetings bring together those who would enjoy an entertaining talk with a history theme on subjects which relate either to the history Burgess Hill or to the wider field of local or national history, ending in an opportunity for us to ask questions and discuss points of interest. Speakers are experts in their field and are usually very happy to answer questions on a one-to-one basis over coffee.

We have at least one outing a year and the occasional fund-raising evening, at which there are usually some of our old maps, photographs and documents on display for people to browse.

As a follow up to a recent talk about Balcombe, we enjoyed a tour of the village centre where we learnt about a number of  thriving trades and shops there, which have since closed down. We then had refreshments in the Victory Hall where Roy Bliss interpreted the murals by artist Neville Lytton relating to Balcombe people in the first World War. The images below are from his book “Remembered” published by Balcombe History Society.

As a follow up to a recent talk about Balcombe, we enjoyed a tour of the village centre where we learnt about a number of  local trades and shops there, which have since closed down.

We then had refreshments in the Victory Hall where Roy Bliss interpreted the murals by artist Neville Lytton relating to Balcombe people in the first World War.

The images  are from his book “Remembered” published by Balcombe History Society.

The first image shows soldiers returning to their families after the war. The second image shows the Victory Hall under construction, this part of the panel shows some of the people involved.

New members are very welcome. The AGM is held in November and a members’ social follows in December, the committee meets regularly throughout the year and is always keen to welcome any members who would like to join in and lend a hand. We publish an annual programme and at least two newsletters a year. These sent to members either by email or are printed copies, hand-delivered to members. A small supply in paper form is delivered to the Town Help Point and the Library.

Our profile in the Town

We help the Town Council out when they need historic information to support their work. This often takes the form of helping them out with road naming -an awful lot of new roads have been built in the town since the 1950s. As a result, many new road names relate to the old field names on which the new development stands, or the names of former land owners or other people or places relating to our history.

Golden Hill

Golden Hill Cants Lane on the east side of town was first developed before the wars. Before that it had been part of a long-distance ‘foot road’ from the windmill on the open common of St. John’s and Wivelsfield Green, via the north part of Ditchling Common. People who remembered the old track told us that the top of Cants Lane and down the other side was called ‘Golden Hill’ because it was always covered in gorse. So, when the housing area was extended down from the top of Cants Lane, the name was taken up by the street naming people.

Gravett Court

Gravett Court and Albion close off London Road,  are built on the site of the old brick and pottery yards of the Gravett family who developed their industry here in the mid 19^th century.

Other pleas for help

May relate to something of historic value that has cropped up. For example, in 2019 they passed on an enquiry from one Lesley Urbach, a London resident whose mother and aunt had fled Nazi Germany as unaccompanied children on a ‘kinder’ transport train. On arriving in the U.K., they were accommodated in Chalets at Wyberlye House in Leylands Road by a Jewish Friendly Society and they lived there with other Jewish refugees from 1939 to 1941. (Wyberlye House was formally owned by the Bridge family). Lesley, the Town Council and ourselves all liaised to record this. She gave us a very moving talk about her mother’s war time experiences, we contributed facts and photos and the Town Council set up a memorial board to this episode in our history in the grounds of Marle Place, which was unveiled on 9^th June 2019.

We also do our best to respond to respond to peoples’ personal enquiries about some point of the Town’s history. Some of these are flagged up through our Facebook page which is managed by our chairman, Stephanie Swaysland.  For example, someone recently contacted her about his surname Capenor as he’d noticed that one of our roads was called the Capenors. We were able to tell him that there had been a field of that name had been recorded nearby on an 18^th century map of the Hammonds Estate. The name was first recorded in there in a deed of 1842, it means “the bank where the capers grow“.

To find out more about our current programme of activities visit our Talks and Events page. You can also view some of our past and present Newsletters.

Our speakers have usually given us an entertaining, illustrated talk on an aspect of Sussex history.