Buxted

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Buxted is a small village in the Wealden District of East Sussex in England. It is situated on the A272 road north-east of the town of Uckfield. Northern parts of the parish lie within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, although the village itself is outside of this area. The parish of Buxted includes the smaller villages of Five Ash Down, Heron's Ghyll and High Hurstwood.

Coordinates 50°59′23″N, 00°07′57″E

The first standard blast furnace was called Queenstock and was built in Buxted parish in about 1491.^[1] The cannon making industry in the Weald started at a furnace on the stream at Hoggets Farm lying to the north between Buxted and Hadlow Down. The first cast iron cannon made in England was cast in 1543 by Ralf Hogge, an employee of Parson William Levett, a Sussex rector with broad interests in the emerging English armaments industry. Levett, who lost his position as the village rector due to ongoing religious strife, later regained it, and died a very wealthy man, thanks to his iron mining and smelting operations, originally founded by his brother John Levett, one of the founders of the Sussex iron industry and one of the wealthiest men in Sussex, who controlled 20 Sussex manors at his death in December 1554. (The family is of Norman descent and one of the oldest in Sussex. William and John Levett were the sons of a large landowner in the Hollington area of Hastings, Sussex.)^[2]

Buxted Chickens had a factory in Buxted as well as one in Five Ash Down, Buxted Chickens was the idea of Antony Fisher, who went on to found the Institute of Economic Affairs. The Buxted brand is now owned by Grampian Country Food Group. The Buxted site closed down in the 1980s.

The centre of the village was originally the mansion known as Buxted Park. Buxted Park was the home of the family of Prime Minister the Earl of Liverpool. The village (although not the church of St Margaret) was cleared away in the 19th century in order to provide more parkland for the mansion, and the village then moved to its present location along the High Street. However, some of the village houses pre-date this move, such as Britts, a 17th century farmhouse which still stands, although it original farmland is now largely covered by modern houses along Britts Farm Road, constructed in the 1980s.

Buxted Park is now a country house hotel. The original manor house was built further down the hill next to the railway where Queen Victoria and Lord Liverpool once visited - the house being the Chequers of its day. The original house burnt down in the latter part of the 19th century and was rebuilt in its present location.

Buxted retains a railway station. The railway formerly linked London and Brighton but now only extends from London to Uckfield.

[edit] Rail Transport

Buxted railway station lies on the Oxted Line north of Uckfield railway station and south of Crowborough railway station. This line used to carry onto Lewes and the South Coast with intermediate stations at Isfield and Barcombe Mills until British Rail's Beeching Report forced it to terminate at Uckfield. The line carries on up to London (London Bridge railway station) via East Croydon.

[edit] References

^ B. Awty & Chris Whittick (with Pam Combes), 'The Lordship of Canterbury, iron-founding at Buxted, and the continental antecedents of cannon-founding in the Weald' Sussex Archaeological Collections 140 (2004 for 2002), 71-81
^ B. Awty, 'Parson Levett and English cannon founding' Sussex Archaeological Collections 127 (1989), 133-45.