East Grinstead

Charles Everard, the son of Rev. E. B. Everard, was born on 24th November, 1846. Everard was educated at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge. After obtaining a Ist Class Honours degree in 1872, Everard obtained employment as a master at Eton College. In 1883 Charles Everard married Maria Rogers from Penrose in Cornwall.
Everard taught at […]

Charles Payne Crawfurd was born at Saint Hill on 14th March 1826. Charles was the son of Robert Payne Crawfurd (1801-1883). Charles entered the Anglican Church and was ordained in 1850.
The Rev. Charles Crawfurd married Mary Ogle and the couple had eleven children including Gibbs (1854), Arabella (1855), Caroline (1856), Robert (1857), Georgina […]

The name Ashurst Wood (Aesehyrst Wilde) dates back to medieval times (1164) when it referred to an area of common or waste land at the top of Wall Hill. There was no village then.
The Manors of Shovelstrode to the north and Brambletye to the south are recorded in the Domesday Book (1086). They were linked […]

The Bluebell Railway is a heritage line running for nine miles along the border between East Sussex and West Sussex, England. Steam trains are operated between Sheffield Park and Kingscote, with an intermediate station at Horsted Keynes.
The railway is managed and run largely by volunteers, and has the largest collection of steam locomotives after the […]

Sackville College is a Jacobean almshouse in town of East Grinstead, England. It was founded in 1609 with money left by Robert Sackville, the Earl of Dorset. Throughout its history has provided sheltered accommodation for the elderly. The College is a run as a charity and operates under an Act of Parliament from 1624 and […]

Pre-History
The earliest fact known about Ashurst Wood is that Lewes Road - Hammerwood Road -Cansiron Lane has been a ridgeway track for animals and man for at least 5000 years.
Romans
The Romans left no visible remains in Ashurst Wood village, but there are many signs of the iron factory and tile works at […]

On 9th July 1943, ten German aircraft crossed the Sussex coast at Hastings and headed for London. At 5.05 pm the air raid sirens sounded in East Grinstead. At the time 184 people were watching a film featuring Hopalong Cassidy in the Whitehall Cinema. A warning appeared on the screen that a German air raid […]

Lord Kitchener was appointed Secretary for War in August 1914. His main task was to persuade men to join the British Army. At a meeting on the 19th August it was suggested by Sir Henry Rawlinson that men would be more willing to enlist if they knew they would serve with people they knew. Lord […]

In February 1919 a German machine-gun was sent to East Grinstead in recognition of the town’s success in raising War Loans on behalf of the British government. At a meeting of the East Grinstead Urban Council, Joseph Rice and Alfred Burt complained that the town deserved something that could be placed on public exhibition in […]

After men joined the army they were sent to local army camps to be turned into soldiers. As experienced officers were needed in France to organise the war against the Germans, elderly people were bought out of retirement to train the men. These men were often over the age of sixty. One sixty five year […]