HERSTMONCEUX PARISH
East Sussex, England
local history and environment
webpage updated on 01 April 2008

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Herstmonceux Parish Records in the East Sussex Record Office

Records about Herstmonceux Parish available in the East Sussex Record Office in Lewes are listed below. Click on underlined words to access the lists.

Herstmonceux Parish (Church of England) - provided 23 February 2007
Herstmonceux Parish Council (Wealden District) - provided 23 February 2007
Herstmonceux CE School - provided March 2007

Around 80% of the East Sussex Record Office lists, including those of Herstmonceux ecclesiastical parish and Herstmonceux Parish Council, are available for searching on www.a2a.org.uk. Those lists were submitted to A2A by ESRO in 2006: accessions added to those and other existing archives do not appear on A2A listings because funding is currently unavailable for the purpose.

Herstmonceux Castle

History of Herstmonceux Castle

Herstmonceux Castle, overlooking the Pevensey Levels, "was built in 1440 by Sir Roger de Fiennes, whose ancestor Sir John had early in the previous century [1327] married the heiress to the estates, Maud de Monceux" and lived in the manor house there. In 1441, "Sir Roger received a license to enclose and crenellate his manor of Herst Monceux". (1)

In its original state, Herstmonceux "castle" was "one of the earliest really ambitious brick structures in England" and "the first building of any size to be built of [brick] since Roman times". Roman skills in brick-making lost under the Saxons were reintroduced to Sussex, "probably under Flemish supervision, for the building of Herstmonceux Castle". Mark Antony Lower says, "when in full repair [it] was considered the largest private house in the kingdom". (2)

Peter Brandon calls the Castle one of the two "speciments of feudal magnificence" in the County - the other is Bodiam Castle - and "one of the stateliest and largest houses in the kingdom": it has "quadrangular shapes with symmetrically placed polygonal towers in each of the corners... be-pinnacled with smaller towers and turrets at intervals along the curtain walls.... embellished with a noble gatehouse as the main front". It is, however, as Nairn and Pevsner remind us, "altogether, in spite of its moat, its battlements, and its turrets, a mansion rather than a castle" (3).

The "site lies very low" (Brandon) - that is, in common with others of its time, it has no "prospect". As Horace Walpole, seeing it as something of a ruin, wrote to Richard Bentley on 5 August 1752, "the building, for convenience of the moat, sees nothing at all" (4).

Roger de Fiennes's son Richard, Sheriff of Sussex in 1452, married Joan, heiress of Thomas, Lord Dacre, and was "in her [sic] right... declared, in

1458, Baron Dacre of the South". Dacre, whom  Charles II made Earl of Sussex, lost the estates "by extravagance and gambling". It passed to George Naylor and the Hare family, "whose members ranged from the eccentric to the downright mad". In 1775, it was considered beyond repair and its interior was demolished, the materials used for an addition to Herstmonceux Place. (5)

In 1794, Robert Marsham wrote to Gilbert White about "the magnificent beeches of Herstmonceux Castle... One beech felled here around 1750 had run 25m to the first branch".  There is a rare black gum tree (Eucalyptus aggregata) east of the moat. (6)

Restoration of the castle was begun in 1913 under Colonel Claude Lowther but "more seriously and indeed exemplarily by Sir Paul Latham in 1933". The architect was W.H. Godfrey of Lewes. The original four courtyards were, however, made into one. (7)

NOTES
(1)  Judith Glover, Sussex Place-Names their origins and meanings (Newbury: Countryside Books, 1997), 107; Ann J Winser, Lewes (Sussex Express, 18 August 2006), 6.
(3) Ian Nairn and Niklaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Sussex (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), 50; J.R. Armstrong, A History of Sussex (Chichester: Phillimore, 1961; 4th edition 1995), 75; Kim Leslie and Brian Short, eds, A Historical Atlas of Sussex (Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd, 1999), 106 Mark Antony Lower, A Compendious History of Sussex (Lewes: George P. Bacon, 1870), I. 254.
(3) Peter Brandon, The Sussex Landscape (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974), 134, 135; Nairn and  Pevsner, 534.
(4) Horace Walpole,  reprinted in Thomas Walker Horsfield, The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex (Lewes: Sussex Press, 1835), I.551.
(5) Lower, 255; John Godfrey, Sussex (London: Michael Joseph, 1990), 98.
(6) Owen Johnson, The Sussex Tree Book (Westmeston: the Pomegranate Press, 1998), 59.
(7) Nairn and Pevsner, 534-35.

Lambert watercolours of Herstmonceux Castle saved

14 paintings and two plans of Herstmonceux Castle, commissioned from the James Lamberts of Lewes in 1776 have been saved for the nation.

"The views are not merely examples of topographical art. They represent a conscious attempt to record a building - a National Monuments Record two centuries ahead of its time - on the eve of the demolition of all but the castle’s curtain walls.... It is a "unique record of the vanished interior of Herstmonceux Castle" (Christopher Whittick MA FSA FRHistS, senior archivist, East Sussex Record Office)

£7,000 was raised from donations and £4,500 from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council/Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Lambert paintings and plans can be seen at the East Sussex County Record Office in Lewes.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

The Royal Greenwich Observatory
at Herstmonceux, 1948-1990

The Royal Greenwich Observatory - the RGO - took possession of Herstmonceux Castle in 1948, when it moved from Greenwich in southeast London.

CLICK HERE to read Chas Parker's history of the RGO at Herstmonceux, "Castle in the Sky", reprinted by permission from Patrick Moore's The Yearbook of Astronomy 2000 (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2000). See also Anthony Wilson (ed.), Astonomers at Herstmonceux in their own words (Herstmonceux: Science Projects Publishing, 1999).

The RGO left Herstmonceux Castle for Cambridge University in 1990 and has now been disbanded.

Among the telescopic domes which the RGO had constructed at Herstmonceux were the six comprising the Equatorial Group (Brian O'Rorke, architect), completed in 1958 - a Grade II* listed building - and one for the Isaac Newton Telescope.

The Equatorial Group of telescopes is now a Grade II* Listed Building. CLICK HERE to read the descriptive entry in the register of Listed Buildings (DCMS).

The Equatorial Group is now part of The Observatory Science Centre.

A remnant of the old RGO operation, SLR Herstmonceux (= satellite laser ranges), is still at the Castle as part of the Nautical Almanac Office, from whose website you can see something of what SLR Herstmonceux produces.

 

Chas Parker writes (26 February 2001):

"For many years, The Time Department of the RGO among other things broadcast the BBC "pips" from Herstmonceux Castle.
  "The 'pips' were generated by one of the Herstmonceux atomic clocks and sent by land-line every 15 minutes to the BBC, a few milliseconds in advance to allow for the travel time to Broadcasting House. They were then broadcast as required, usually on the hour. The signal was sent in the form of  a continuous tone with six gaps in it, and inverted at the BBC. In this way it was possible to continually monitor the line in case someone put a pick-axe through it. A second, back-up line existed in case of such an eventuality.
  "The Time Department maintained a national time scale through careful monitoring of the Earth's rotation; periodinc 'leap seconds' being inserted into the time signals in order to keep civil time in step with astronomical time. The service continued until 1989, prior to the RGO's departure to Cambridge, when it was deemed unnecessary for the UK to maintain an independent time scale. Responsibility for broadcasting the six-pips transferred to the BBC while the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington assumed other time-related duties."

Chas Parker "worked at the RGO for 15 years, four of which were spent in the Time Department when one of my responsibilities was to check the accuracy of the pips. It proved a good conversation-stopper at parties: 'What do you do for a living?' 'I send the pips to the BBC!'"

Herstmonceux Castle today

When the RGO left in 1990, Herstmonceux Castle passed into the hands of a property development company, whose plans for it failed. The Castle was then bought by Dr Alfred Bader, an immigrant to Canada, and given to his alma mater Queens University, Ontario, Canada. The University operates the Castle (not including its telescopic domes) as its International Study Centre.

The Isaac Newton Observatory Trust is proposing to turn the dome which housed the RGO's Isaac Newton Telescope into an arts centre to provide: "a touring centre for national and international performing companies... mounting exhibitions, providing working space for local artists, actors and musicians.... [and] providing a restaurant, a café and conference facilities".

Herstmonceux Castle grounds and gardens - a Grade I listed building - are open to the public (tel. 834444/fax 834499 or email). There is a gift shop, a tea room, a nature trail, a children's play area and a visitor centre with a exhibition of the history of the Castle. Guided tours of the Castle building are "subject to availability".

When the Castle was sold, the The Meterological Office (a separate operation from the RGO) which had an outstation based within the grounds of Herstmonceux Castle, moved into Herstmonceux village (West End). This "combined upper air and synoptic observation site" sends up two balloons daily 25-28 kms high to profile the atmosphere, giving temperature, humidity and pressure at various heights. There is also hourly surface weather observation.

The Observatory Science Centre incorporates the Equatorial Group of telescope domes. It is open to the public (tel. 832731). CLICK HERE for its 2008 programme of events.

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Herstmonceux CE Primary School

Herstmonceux Primary School educates boys and girls aged between four and 11 years. There are 202 pupils on roll, which is about average for primary schools. The school has similar numbers of boys and girls altogether, but there are 11 more boys than girls in Year 3. Twenty-three children attend full-time in the Foundation Stage. The school has a waiting list for pupils to enter some classes. There are 43 pupils on the school's register of special educational needs, which is similar to the national average.... There are no pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds.... There are no pupils who speak English as an additional language.... Approximately five per cent of the pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is lower than the national average. ... [There is] a higher than average rate of mobility amongst the pupils. The pupils' attainment on entry to the school is above average, though the pupils who are currently in the Reception class showed average standards when they were tested shortly after starting school.  May 2001 OFSTED Inspection Report © Crown copyright 2001

The School scored among the highest in England in the Government-published  league tables for primary schools in 2000, with a perfect test record (300).

In March 2001 the School received a School Achievement Award for substantially improved results between 1997 and 2000.

The May 2001 OFSTED Inspection Report said, "This is a very good school.... Pupils' very positive attitudes and behaviour help them to get the most out of school and the very good relationships that exist help to create a happy school where learning flourishes". To read excerpts from the OFSTED Summary Inspection Report on the School, CLICK HERE.

David Calvert's Herstmonceux Primary School 150 Years (1990, 38pp+8 pp of photographs) gives the history of the school from 1839 to 1990. The chapter titles are "How it All Started" , "The Reign of Arthur Jones" [1902-15], "War and After" and "Another War".

A few quotations from the first pages:

"In July 1839, the Rector of Herstmonceux, Julius Charles Hare, Bought for £70 half an acre plot out of Danbie's field from James Everest, the local brewer. ... Hare conveyanced the land to the Rector and Churchwardens... 'for ever on trust', free of charge... 'it having been proposed to establish a National School within the said parish of Herstmonceux for the instruction of poor Children in general knowledge and with respect to relgion in connection with the Established Church of England and in the principles and discipline of that Church...'".  (p. 1)

"In the National School Enquiry of 1846/47, Herstmonceux School had one classroom 'legally conveyed' and another 'virtually secured'.... There were 41 boys and 47 girls attending weekdays and Sundays. A further 20 boys attended weekday evenings only...". (p. 2)

"Attendance was the main point of concern throughout the period [from 1888] up to the outbreak of the First World War. In a rural area, pupils often had far to walk to school and bad weather could markedly reduce the numbers...". (p. 3)

"Up until this time [1891] the school was partly supported by grants and subscription but some direct payment in the form of Pupils' Pence was also required. However: '1891, August 31st - September 4th. This week the children were admitted free as "Free Education Act" came into force on Tuesday'". (pp. 4-5)

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All Saints Church

All Saints Church (Church of England) is about two miles east of Herstmonceux village centre, and is approached from the north down Chapel and Church Road through Flowers Green.
  All Saints "stands on a gentle slope that looks south and west for miles across the Pevensey levels.... The church, most of it, preceded the castle by well over a hundred years. The oldest parts are the 12th century west tower [perhaps the only Sussex church tower which forms part of the west end of the nave] and the west wall of the nave.... The rest of the church consists of a 13th/14th century nave, chancel and north and south aisles with a 15th century north [Dacre] chapel of red Flemish bricks added by the builders of the Castle.... It is not a church with which egalitarians may easily empathise. We may all be equal in the pews nowadays but there is no concession to egalitarianism in the memorials here (1).
  "On 3 July 1944 an enemy bomb demolished three and damaged ten of the windows, the roof and the shingles of the spire" (2). The Domesday Book mentions a church in the Manor of Heste, but it's not visible in All Saints.

For www.herstmonceux-village.org's extensive history of All Saints, CLICK HERE.

Richard Morris's tombstone in the churchyard says that he "himself desired it might be remembered that he owed his Bread to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle his great benefactor". Arscott cites the sentiment as "strikingly express[ing]" a "chronic culture of deference" (3).

The church has the 12th most senior churchyard yew in Sussex (4). In 1998 the diameter was reckoned as 243cm at the base (1835: 218cm).

Don Styles writes: "There was a notice I found in the parish church, which stated that my Grandfather William Styles was responsible for maintaining so many post-and-rail sections of the churchyard. It seemed that every farmer in the parish had a section to look after."

NOTES
(1) James Antony Syms, East Sussex Country Churches (Seaford: S.B. Publications, 1994), 58.
(2) Revd Rosslyn Bruce and others, All Saints Church Herstmonceux, 1985 ed., 12.
(3) David Arscott, Tales from the Parish Pump (Seaford: S.B. Publications, 1994), 10-11.
(4) Owen Johnson, The Sussex Tree Book (Westmeston: the Pomegranate Press, 1998), 80.

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other features

Memories of Herstmonceux by Margaret Pollard (neé Peggy Green), published in 2005 (©Doreen Bourne 2005) is also available from the Herstmonceux Information Centre, Gardner Street, for £1.

the name

Gardner Street

The name Herstmonceux "owes its history and its Gallic appearance to the intermarriage of two families. When the site was originally settled, it was known simply as the hurst, or wooded hill. The Domesday Book gives it as Herst. Late in the 13th century it's mentioned as Herthurste and Esthurst - 'East' to avoid confusion with... Hurstpierpoint [now in West Sussex]. Then in 1304 there appears the first record of it being called Hurst Munceus, a double-barrelled name that produced the alternative forms Herst Mounceux alias Hurstmonceux alias Esthurst in 1390. The Norman-French family of de Munceus, originating from Monceux in Calvados, were granted the lands and manor here at the end of the 12th century, and subsequently married into the local family of de Herst" (Judith Glover, Sussex Place-Names their origins and meanings [Newbury: Countryside Books, 1997], 107). Did this de Herst family take its name from the pre-existing "hurst, or wooded hill"? In "A History of Britain" (the BBC TV series), Simon Schama recently noted how Norman families took their names from places e.g. Beaumont.

1163. Inter Johem. de Munceus et Olimpiadem ux' ejus quer' per Willm. de Boiz pos' loco eorum et Willm. de Echyngham deforc' per Johem. de Skelton pos' loco suo:—De manerio de Herst Munceus et de advocacione ecclesie ejusdem manerii; unde placitum convencionis sum' fuit inter eos:—Johes. recognovit &c.:—Pro hoc fine Wills. concessit Johi. et Olimpiadi predicta manerium et advocacionem tenenda eis et hbs. Johis. de corpore suo procreatis de capitalibus dominis &c., Et si contingat quod Johes. obierit sine herede de corpore suo procreato tunc post decessum utriusque ipsorum Johis. et Olimpiadis manerium et advocacio integre remanebunt Walerando fratri Johis. et hbs. de corpore suo, Et si contingat quod Walerandus obierit sine herede de corpore suo procreato tunc remanebunt Margarete sorori Walerandi et hbs. de corpore suo, Et si contingat quod Margareta obierit sine herede de corpore suo procreato tunc remanebunt rectis hbs. Johannis.
[Dorso] Johes. de Munceus apponit clamium suum.  [32° Edward I. Ebor' Cras' Sci. Martini. (File 37. No. 34).] From: 'Sussex Fines: 31-35 Edward I (nos. 1143-1228)', An abstract of Feet of Fines for the County of Sussex: vol. 2: 1249-1307 (1908), pp. 175-198. from British History Online accessed 30 March 2008. Thanks to Derek Muncey for sending this to us.

*

Until relatively recently, what is currently referred to as Herstmonceux village - as distinct from the larger Wealden District Council administrative area of Herstmonceux Parish - was known as Gardner Street - earlier Gardener's-street, possibly from Garner Street, the street of granaries (Thomas Walker Horsfield, The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex [Lewes: Sussex Press, 1835], I.550.) Compare Boreham Street, further along the A271 towards Battle/Bexhill, and Bodle Street, north of Windmill Hill.

The village was still Gardner Street in 1937 (Victoria History of the Counties of England - Sussex, Vol IX, ed. L.F. Salzman [London: OUP, 1937], 131-37).

In 1990 Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, who lived in Carter's Corner Place until 1964, wrote, "the present centre of population was always referred to in my youth as Gardner Street" ("Foreword", in David Calvert, Herstmonceux Primary School 150 Years [1990]).

*

Herstmonceux was historically a parish in the Hundred of Foxearle - earlier Folsarle - in the Rape of Hastings.

*

The local pronunciation of Herstmonceux is Herss(t)'-mn-zoo - with the accent on the first syllable, and zoo not soo.

Herstmonceux Parish - vignettes from Parish Council minutes

The Steam House,
Lime Park

David Arscott's centenary monograph about East Sussex parish councils, Tales from the Parish Pump (Seaford: S.B. Publications, 1994), cites some Herstmonceux Parish Council deliberations, including:

July 19, 1915: The chairman read a circular from the emergency committee suggesting that farmers should not crowd their stacks round farm buildings, and that the parish councils might be asked to organise this and salvage parties to act in case of air raids. Having a fire brigade in the district, it was not thought necessary to do anything in the matter. (13)

December 5, 1939: Chairman read a letter from the rural district council on the subject of National Savings, asking for the support of the council in the way of propaganda and formation of savings groups. (35)

July 16, 1940: German gun. The chairman referred to the above and gave a brief outline of its history since being in the parish. He considered that it should now be made use of as scrap. (36)

March 24, 1942: "We, the parish council of Herstmonceux, view with great concern the complete absence of emergency food in the parish at the present time, and consider that the food organiser should give the matter his immediate attention." (40)

March 23, 1943: "That the Herstmonceux parish council is seriously concerned to find that the central pharmaceutical war committee is contemplating closing the only chemist's shop at Herstmonceux by transferring the proprietor to another district. As this shop serves a number of villages in the vicinity and no other chemist's shops are nearer than Hailsham, Sidley, Heathfield or Horam Road, the parish council wishes to bring this fact most forcibly to the committee." (40)

Nelson Kruschandl writes (02/10/00):

About 1908 the Baron de Roemer installed his first [electricity] generating plant in Lime Park, Church Road.... By 1911 an underground DC supply had been established to the Woolpack and other shops and houses in the village to include for street lighting. A battery storage facility was added. In 1913 electric cooking demonstrations were held in the village hall. The system was very advanced for its day and age.... Generation continued up until 1932 when the Weald Supply Company took over....
  It appears that the electricity generating industry grew so rapidly that few early examples survive.... In 1995 English Heritage commissioned a Monument Protection Programme (MPP) to seek to identify and preserve fast disappearing evidence of the development of this industry. By 1998 the MPP had concluded that there were no complete installations to represent private rural supply. Finally, that there were no extant buildings. [But,] according to the Department of Culture Media and Sport, this building may be the only surviving example of a small (non-statutory) privately owned public supply system.
  The ‘Steam House’ is in a dreadfully run down condition – leaky roofs and lacking gutters or downpipes.... Our Generating Works Restoration Association was formed of the need to restore this building.... [I]t was encased in corrugated tin some time after 1936, as a fire precaution.... Most of the original timbers survive underneath the cladding. In 1999, East Sussex County Council commissioned Archaeology South East to undertake an archaeological survey of the site.

houses and cottages

"Many of the small houses and cottages [in Herstmonceux village] date back to the 16th and 17th centuries, among them Cleaver's Lyng on the road leading to the church... and The Sundial in the main street. In 1774 two houses, Higham House and Higham Cottage were the old Poor House.... At the other end of the village in Bedlam Lane is a house (Bedlam Cottage) which was the old lunatic asylum.... The Woolpack in the centre of [Herstmonceux] village was a coaching inn, where local farmers took their wool after sheep shearing... (All Saints Church Herstmonceux, 16).

Praise the Lord cottage
Dianne Town writes (28/06/04):

"Gardner Street once sported the very recognisable Praise the Lord cottage. Recognisable because of the amazing cotoneaster creeper which grew up the front of the cottage, which the owners had carefully and very skilfully clipped into the words  'PRAISE THE LORD'. With the help of Jim Crouch, one-time owner of the cottage, we pieced together its recent history.  /continued next column

   'Young' Jim’s dad, 'Big Jim' Crouch bought the house in Herstmonceux with this extraordinary creeper in about 1957. The previous owners  had planted the cotoneaster and clipped it into the shape of Praise the Lord in defiance of the building opposite being turned into a public house, the current Brewer’s Arms. The family were extremely anti-alcohol and took great exception to a public house being opened opposite their cottage.
   "Big Jim decided that the shrub, which had actually died, had to come down; so down it came within six months of the family moving in. (The cottage was then re-named Cotoneaster Cottage after its one-time famous shrub.) When Big Jim cut the creeper down, the granddaughter of the previous owners found out and put a curse on him - the Curse of the Cotoneaster. This didn’t seem to bother Big Jim overmuch, and the Crouch family lived in the cottage until about 1984 and subsequently Young Jim continued living there for a number of years.
   "Cotoneaster Cottage still stands today but has been re-named Winslow House. In its time it has been a bakery and tea rooms, an estate agent's and a home interiors shop."

Philip Horton of Glasgow wrote to the Sussex Express (9 July 2004): "My great-great-grandfather... Levi George Baker took up the Wesleyan religion and planted the cotoneaster and trained it.... From my earliest childhood I knew of the curse should anyone let it die."

Bimsells, Cowbeech - Bimsells is for sale

Trug baskets

"Trug baskets made from [split cricket bat] willow boards set in an ash [?] or [sweet] chestnut frame" (Official Guide to the Wealden District [Gloucester: British Publishing Co. Ltd, n.d.], p. 30) have been sold in the parish since the 1820s, notably by the family of Thomas Smith. The term "trug" is said to be derived from the Old English trog, meaning boat-like or boat-shaped. Thomas Smith Royal Sussex Trugs (which moved to Chiddingly in 2003) says that the "trog" was "an Anglo-Saxon measure hewn from solid wood in the shape of a coracle boat" (see A Short History of the Sussex Trug Basket). Rev. W.D. Parish, Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect, expanded by Helena Hall (Bexhill: Gardner's, 1957), 145, says the word meant "trough".

Population
the Parish boundaries have altered between (some) censuses

date 1801

  961 residents

1851

1292

1901

1268

1951

1856

1981

2296

2001

2532

Protected trees in the Parish

There are tree preservation orders in the Parish as follows
(revised March 2004, as notified by Wealden District Council 9 March 2004)

SITE ADDRESS	TPO NUMBER	TM FILE
Chestnut Lodge (7-8 Westend), Gardner Street	HRDC 1971 (2)
Land at Chestnut Lodge (Chestnut Close), West End	HRDC 1971 (7)
The Chestnuts, Gardner Street	29, 1982
The Barn House, Lime Park, Flowers Green	34, 1983
A271, Gardner Street near Higham Farm Barn	15,1985
Braemar, Bagham Lane	48,1986	TM/141/86/HX
Adjacent The Old Windmill, Windmill Hill	42,1988	TM/193/88/HX
Millers House & Allfree Wood, Windmill Hill	42,1989	TM/78/89/HX
Higham House, Gardner Street	23,1990	TM/26/90/HX
Sunny Acre, Carters Corner	28.1990	TM/56/90/HX
Gardens of 14-19, Fairfield	73,1990	TM/93/90/HX
Peckwater, Chapel Row	103,1990	TM/115/90/HX
Herstmonceux Castle	2,1991	TM/189/90/HX
The Keys & Keys Cottage, Gardner Street	6,1991	TM/7/91/HX
Little Highams, Gardner Street	16,1991	TM/141/90/HX
Land to the north east of Herstmonceux Village Hall	37,2003 (awaiting confirmation)	TPO/37/03/HMX

 

19th Century Photographs

Mr John Cooper presents the album of photographs to
Jim Bingham, then Chairman of the Parish Council

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more about Herstmonceux history and environment

in www.herstmonceux-village.org - the Herstmonceux village site

   Items on local history on VillageNet's Herstmonceux webpage

www.sussex-opc.org - the Sussex "On Line Parish Clerks'" website - especially for genealogy and family history. Go to the Herstmonceux page.

"An Online Parish Clerk (OPC) researches all the available historical data they can find on a parish, and transcribes records. They may also offer a look up service in response to an email or postal request. In order to promote further private research, information is made FREELY available to any researcher. This will include census returns, Church register transcripts, bishop's transcripts, churchwardens accounts, overseers accounts, land tax records, postal directory extracts, church & village histories, in fact anything our volunteers can find which other researchers may find interesting." (sussex-opc)

Herstmonceux & Wartling Research Group - will research local surnames (for a small charge)

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Varengeville-sur-Mer (Normandy)

Herstmonceux is twinned with Varengeville-sur-Mer (Normandy), 8 km/5mi. west of Dieppe along the Normandy coast. Varengeville is a "resort [which] consists of a series of hamlets linked by deep roads in a charming and typically Norman landscape of hedges and half-timbered houses".

To contact the "Varengeville Link" tel. Alan McInnes at 01323 833306.

L'Église Saint-Valéry "is built on an attractive site overlooking the sea. The stained-glass window... in the south aisle depict[s] the Tree of Jesse by [the artist] Georges Braque, who is buried in the graveyard".

Le Parc Floral du Bois des Moutiers is "an ornamental and botanic garden... laid out in the English style, with rare species, a profusion of flowering plants and giant rhododendrons.... The house (1898) was designed by Sir Edwin Luytens..." and the gardens by Gertrude Jekyll. The garden is open from 15 March to 15 November between 1000 and 1930 (no entrance between 1200 and 1400). Prices range from 2€50 to 7€00 depending on age, month, groups of 20. Tel. +33 (0)2 35 85 10 02. To see another website for the Parc, CLICK HERE.

All quotations are from Michelin Normandy, 1996, p. 114.

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