Place:Polegate, Sussex, England

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

Polegate is a town and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located five miles (8 km) north of the seaside resort of Eastbourne and is considered part of the greater area of that town. Although once a railway settlement with a junction of east-west and north-south lines, its rail links were closed as part of the cuts to the UK railway network of the early 1960s. The 2011 UK census recorded the population of Polegate at 8,586.

Until the coming of the railways in the 1840s, Polegate was a small settlement within the parish of Hailsham. The Roman road from Pevensey to Lewes passed through here, and the turnpike between London and Eastbourne was developed in the 18th century; but it was the opening of the railway between Lewes and Hastings, with later branches to Eastbourne and Hailsham, that meant growth for Polegate. It became a significant junction, with a freight terminal serving both the nearby market town of Hailsham and the local brick making industry. The town grew partly to accommodate the railway employees. In the 21st century, with the closure of the line to Hailsham and the once direct route to Hastings, its importance as a railway hub has gone. It remains a road junction, with the erstwhile turnpike now being the A22 road; the junction with the A27 major road lies within the town boundary.

Polegate was established as a civil parish in 1939, taking in portions of the parishes of Hailsham, Jevington, Westham and Willingdon.

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 Hailsham, GENUKI on Jevington, GENUKI on Westham and GENUKI on Willingdon may all provide details on pre-1939 Polegate.
• Maps of the local area are to be found on the WeRelate page for Pevensey Rape and on that for Hailsham Rural District or Eastbourne Rural District. Polegate (not marked) is located at the south end of Hailsham parish where it is surrounded by Jevington, Westham and Willingdon.
• A History of the County of Sussex provided by British History Online does not include articles on parishes that were part of Pevensey Rape.