8
Local History Notes: E&F Dorothy Hatswell of the East Grinstead Museum, brings us the next installation, E&F, of her A through Z of local history. married men five shillings and his wife sent meals to the older women who could not get to the main celebrations.
Forest Row, lying just four miles to the east of East Grinstead, is an independent parish now, but a century ago it was considered to be part of the town. It is also another manifestation of our geographical ambiguities, in that it is now in a different county, namely East Sussex. However, on a personal note, I do not put East Sussex or West Sussex on anything but the most legal of documents, to have a small personal victory over the 1974 act which transferred the town and some villages, from East to West Sussex at the stroke of a pen on a map. The Freshfield family were great patrons of Forest Row in the C19th and early C20th. Henry Freshfield built the village hall in memory of his oldest son, also Henry. In 1895 the day Henry Freshfield senior was buried, the hall burnt down. His widow had it rebuilt and it was given to the residents in 1914. On the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, Mr Freshfield gave all the
The other village which falls into the museum’s area, is, of course, Felbridge. It is now contiguous with the town, as you travel east on the concurrent A22 and A264, you cannot see the join, except by the signage. It does, however, have a very disparate identity, encouraged by the sterling work of the Felbridge Local History Group, whose meticulously researched publications are a revelation. Please look them up, online. The titles alone will give you feeling for the richness of its past. One of them will give you a fuller history of the Evelyn Chestnuts and the monument, which was given a new life in Northumberland, than I can here. James Evelyn, who erected the monument in honour of his father, left money in his will for a “Beef and Faggot” charity. Four stones of beef must be made into soup every Thursday from November to April and a similar weight of beef be provided every Sunday in the year. The schoolmistress was given the task of serving this together with faggots and bread. For this she was paid sixpence and one penny for beer to go with it. This largesse was available to anyone within two and a half miles of the school. East Grinstead received its first Royal Charter from King John’s son, Henry III, to hold fairs in the High Street, in 1247. These annual events were supported by weekly markets which allowed people over a six-mile radius to come into the town to trade, and was the prime source for food and other goods for the residents, to supplement those they could not provide for themselves. Prior to 1895, the main way of extinguishing serious fires was by means of the rudimentary equipment kept in the vestry of St Swithuns Church. This included the grappling irons, now in the entrance to the museum. In 1902 the town’s first fire station was built at 108,
