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A family run practice, with over 30 years experience in the optical profession.

We have built our business on personal recommendation and referrals.

Being independent allows us the professional freedom to provide you with the very best in eye care.

You can feel confident that your visual needs will be professionally managed and cared for.

We only provide quality optical products, sourced from leading design studios and international manufacturers.

Come in-store for a warm welcome and impeccible service!

www.alexander-opticians.com

Alexander Opticians
97 London Road
East Grinstead
West Sussex
RH19 1EQ

Tel: 01342 323 115
Fax: 01342 326 797
Email: alexmarcou@btconnect.com

Originally a deer hunting forest in Norman times, Ashdown Forest is now the largest free public access space in the South East. It is a great place for walking and enjoying spectacular views over the Sussex countryside and is known the world over as the ‘home’ of Winnie-the-Pooh.

The Forest is at the heart of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and has national and international protection because of its wildlife. Nearly two thirds of its 6500 acres (2500 hectares) are heathland, amounting to 2.5% of the UK’s extent of this rare habitat. The Forest Centre is the headquarters of the Conservators of Ashdown Forest who are responsible for the managing the Forest.

www.ashdownforest.org

Here is an excerpt:

“By the mid-C16 the parish of East Grinstead (modern East Grinstead, Ashurst Wood and Forest Row) contained about 1,000 people, of whom some 300 lived in the borough, which in 1564 consisted of 48 burgages (houses carrying votes for the town’s two M.P.s), 24 cottages, blacksmith’s forge, currying house (for dressing leather), slaughter house, windmill, etc. In 1600 it was described as ‘a very good towne’. It continued to thrive till towards the end of the C18…”

It mentions for example that there where 10 inns in EG in 1850 and 16 in 1900! The people must have been a rather jolly lot back then.

http://www.localauthoritypublishing.co.uk/councils/eastgrinstead/history.html

Atrium Building
King Street
East Grinstead
West Sussex
RH19 3DJ

01342 321666

Ælle was the first king of the South Saxons from 477 to perhaps as late as 514, and was the first king recorded by Bede to have held imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the late 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (around 400 years after his time) Ælle is recorded as being the first Bretwalda, though there is no evidence that this was a contemporary title…

Legend of Ælle
The story of Ælle is a heroic Old English legend which explains the acquisition of Sussex. The main source for the events of Ælle’s life (besides the short mention in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History) is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, compiled in 891. It states that he landed in Britain in 477 with three ships and his three sons Cymen, Wlencing, and Cissa at Cymenes ora, where “they killed many of the Welsh, and drove the rest into the wood that is called Anredsleage.” For the year 485, the Chronicle records that he again fought the “Welsh” at the stream of Mearcread. Then in 491, Ælle with the help of Cissa successfully besieged Anderitum (Pevensey Castle), and slew all of the inhabitants. The Chronicle contains no further records of this warchief; there is have neither a record of the time that he died, nor the means, nor the events in the kingdom of the South Saxons that succeeded his death until the baptism of its king Æthelwalh around 675.From this point the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle begins narrating the events of the founding of the West Saxon kingdom, or Wessex. It is possible that the scribe assembling this chronicle forgot to return to the events of Ælle’s life. Alistair Campbell, in examining the chronology of this part of the Chronicle, notes that at several places events are duplicated at 28 year intervals, suggesting that the sources from which the composing scribe assembled the Chronicle were based on 28-year Easter Tables, and that the annal that mentioned the later events of Ælle’s life were mislaid.

Historical background
The colonization of South East England by Germanic migrants was a gradual process. It is probable that Saxon migrants had been colonizing the area for decades, and thus Saxons already heavily populated the region before the recorded dates of Hengist and Ælle. In late Roman times, the coast was already known as the Saxon Shore: “The Saxon Shore Forts were built by the Romans in the late 3rd century AD along the southeast coast of Britain to guard against increasing invasion and piracy by Germanic tribes including the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes”.

The German king Fraomar and his people were settled in Britain by the Emperor Valentinian a century before the supposed arrival of Ælle: “Another point of view which has grown up from unfortunately reading only the Saxon Chronicle, is that Continental immigration began suddenly with ‘the three keels’. The evidence of tradition, and of tribal names, shows that there had been a continual flow of population into Britain before the Roman age. The Atrebates, the Belgae, the Parisii, the Brigantes, and others, are equally familiar names on both sides of the channel. Nor was this process stopped even by Rome: it was only regulated. Rome brought over masses of troops largely recruited from the Continent, even to the Huns on the Wall. Aurelius brought multitudes of the Marcomanni to settle in Britain. Similarly did Probus, with the colonies of Vandals and Burgundians. The Franks raided the south and occupied London under Allectus. Constantine was accompanied by the king of the Alamanni - and doubtless a good following - when he came over to Britain. Valentinian removed Fraomar and his tribe of Alamanni into Britain.” However, once independent Germanic (English) kingdoms were established, there was a large immigration of their tribespeople to the island of Britain.

Fact or fiction
Ælle’s career may be fictional. He is said to have arrived in three ships, with three sons, and fought three battles. The three ships motif occurs in other myths: “According to their own legend, reported by the mid-6th-century Gothic historian Jordanes, the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia and crossed in three ships under their king Berig to the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, where they settled…”.

An entirely different and equally implausible British (Welsh) story was preserved by Nennius. He stated that Hengist treacherously seized the British king Vortigern and demanded the cession of Essex and Sussex as ransom for the king: Hengistus sicut dixerat, vociferatus est et omnes seniores trecenti Guorthigirni regis iugulati sunt et ipse solus captus et catenatus est et regiones plurimas pro redemptione enimae suae illis tribuit, id est Estsaxum, Sutsaxum.

The British (Welsh) myths assume that the provinces were lost due to foul trickery by wicked rebel mercenaries, while the English myths revolve around heroic deeds by noble warriors. However, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were written in a dry, terse style for the purpose of informing rather than for entertaining, in contrast to the Arthurian stories or the story of Beowulf. Although the Chronicle entry describing Ælle were written many years later, it could be a mistake to assume that the story is entirely fictional.

Aelle is also the most powerful Saxon King in Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord’s Trilogy, and the Bretwalda.

The first meeting was held at Queens Hall, East Grinstead, on 8th July 1911. The main speaker was Lady Frances Balfour, President of the London Society of the NUWSS. It was decided that Muriel, Countess de la Warr should become President of the East Grinstead Suffrage Society. Other supporters of the society included Countess de la Warr’s sister, Helen Brassey, Idina Sackville, Margery Corbett-Ashby, Cicely Corbett-Fisher, Edith Fox Pitt, Jane Buckley, Florence Buckley and Helen Hoare.

I was deeply interested in the work of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and so I decided to take a job with the organisation. I became editor of the NUWSS’s newspaper, The Women’s Franchise, and I learned by experience how to select, produce and edit material… I also organised petitions, deputations and processions.

(2) In 8^th September 1912 The East Grinstead Observer reported a meeting of the local suffrage society.

Lady Helen Brassey and Lady Idina Sackville were the hostesses. Mrs. Uniacke said that surely no one can be satisfied with the world around us today. A great deal wants doing. Women want the right to influence public morals. They understand the difficulty of rearing children with healthy minds and bodies. Men now decide at what trades women shall work. Why cannot women decide?