Place:Crowborough, Sussex, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Crowborough is now a town and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. It is situated in the Weald, at the edge of Ashdown Forest. It is 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Royal Tunbridge Wells and 35 miles (56 km) south of central London. It has road and rail links and is served by a town council. It is the most populous inland village in East Sussex, with over 20,000 people.

In 1734 Sir Henry Fermor, a local benefactor, bequeathed money for a church and charity school for the benefit of the "very ignorant and heathenish people" that lived in the part of Rotherfield "in or near a place called Crowborough and Ashdown Forest". The church, dedicated to All Saints, still survives today.

The railway arrived in 1868, leading to significant growth of the town. By 1880, the town had grown so much that the ecclesiastical parish of All Saints was separated from that of St Denys, Rotherfield.

In the late 19th century Crowborough was promoted as a health resort based on its high elevation, the rolling hills and surrounding forest.

Crowborough became an ecclesiastical parish in 1880: previously it had been part of Rotherfield. A civil parish was established on 6 April 1905; the parish council was renamed as a Town Council on 24 May 1988.

Wikipedia mentions Eridge Green as a "Site of Special Scientific Interest" in the article on Crowborough. Eridge or Eridge Green was formerly part of Rotherfield parish and has been redirected there.

Research Tips

• The East Sussex Record Office, The Keep, Woollards Way, Brighton, BN1 9BP, United Kingdom (email thekeep@eastsussex.gov.uk) holds material for the Archdeaconry of Lewes, present-day East Sussex, and therefore generally holds historical material for East Sussex parishes only. An on-line catalogue for some of the collections held by the East Sussex Record Office (ESRO) is available under the Access to Archives (A2A) project (a nationwide facility housed at The National Archives, Kew).
• The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies' Sussex Collection (PDF). This is a 9-page PDF naming the files relating to Sussex in their collection-a possible first step in a course of research.
• Further resources may be found on GENUKI's main page on Sussex.
• The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.
• GENUKI on Rotherfield (including Crowborough)
• Map of the local area will to be found on the WeRelate page for Pevensey Rape.
• A History of the County of Sussex provided by British History Online does not include articles on parishes that were part of Pevensey Rape.