Withyham

Withyham is a village and  large civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. The village is situated 10 miles (16 km) south west of Tunbridge Wells and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from Crowborough; the parish covers approximately 7500 acre.

Geography
Withyham parish lies on the edge of Weald, in the valley of the River Medway, where a group of tributaries enter from the south, and to the north of Ashdown Forest. The B2110 road passes through the village, between Groombridge and Forest Row. Much of the area is rural; the hamlet of Buckhurst, part of the parish, contains ‘’Buckhurst Park‘’, where Earl De La Warr lives. New Groombridge is also within the parish, Old Groombridge is in the Speldhurst District of Kent.

Withyham village itself is very small, containing a few houses, the church, a bed and breakfast and the village pub, the Dorset Arms, which was once a farmhouse.

History
There is good deal of available local history available: See the website The Weald of Kent, Sussex and Surrey; much of that information is, however, concerned with the parish church

Withyham is not included in the Domesday Book, although the manor of Buckhurst is, as ‘’Biochest’’ (probably from the Saxon ‘’boc hyrst’’ or beech wood. There have been two houses at Buckhurst for many centuries: the older Buckhurst House, now no more, and the present day ‘’Buckhurst Park’’: both have been in the hands of the Sackville family for generations; today Earl De La Warr, a member of the family, lives there. Many of the other houses in the village were probably built to contain estate workers. A significant number of council houses were built in the post war period at Balls Green near the, now closed, station.

Withyham was home to the Gildredge family, who later moved to Eastbourne, acquiring a large share of the town's land by purchase and by marriage. "Gildredge House and estate was formerly the property and residence of the family of the same name," says Thomas Walker Horsfield in his history of Sussex, "who afterwards (temp. Henry VIII) removed to and became lords of the manor of Eastbourne." Today's Gildredge Park in Eastbourne is named for the family. The Gildredge family was related to the Eversfield family, who eventually owned much of St. Leonards-on-Sea, as well as to the Levetts.

"Gildredge, an ancient house and estate," says Sussex historian Mark Antony Lower, "gave name to a family of considerable antiquity, who subsequently had their chief residence at Eastbourne, and gave their name to the manor of Eastbourne-Gildredge." Later the Gildredge lands were carried by marriage into the Gilbert family (today's Davies-Gilbert family), who continue to own much of Eastbourne.

Withyham parish is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Withyham church
The village church is dedicated to St Michael and All Angels; the present incumbent is the Reverend Adrian Leak. An early record of it is in the late thirteenth century; it was almost completely rebuilt in the 14th century to contain a Sackville chapel.

On 16 June 1663 the church was struck by lightning, melting the bells, and causing a great deal of damage; few parts of the building survived. The rebuilding of the church does not seem to have been finished until 1672 and the Sackville Chapel was not completed for another eight years. Of the old church only the lower part of the tower, the west wall from the belfry door to the north-west corner and the north and south east walls remained to be incorporated into the new building. It was also around this time that the Rectory was built.

Later important alterations were carried out in the 19th century, including a new south aisle, the removal of the low ceiling and a new south porch. In 1849 a set of four paintings was donated to the church: it is thought they are the work of Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (c1340–1414). These paintings were sold at Sotheby's,London in 2012

There are eight bells in the tower: five recast after the rebuilding in 1674; and a sixth (treble) bell added in 1715. These bells remained until 1908 when they were recast and a further two added.

Governance
Withyham is a large parish, and is therefore divided into three electoral wards: Groombridge; Withyham, including Blackham; and St Johns (Withyham).

Landmarks
Penn's Rocks is a Site of Special Scientific Interest within the parish. This is a site of biological interest. Its sandstone outcrops providing a rare habitat for many ferns and bryophytes. Buckhurst Park historic seat of the Earls De La Warr, head of the Sackville family, Lutyens/Jekyll garden with Repton Park. 100 Acre wood of Winnie the Pooh fame is a part of the Buckhurst Estate

The millennium in Withyham
To celebrate the millennium in Withyham, the 11th Earl De La Warr planted a yew sapling taken from a tree said to be 2000 years old &mdash; i.e. from the time of Christ. Sadly, the sapling was uprooted by vandals but was replanted by Earl De La Warr. A millennium map was also commissioned by the Church to commemorate almost 1000 years of Withyham.

Literary links
The village of Withyham features in Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "The Horror of the Heights" as the finding place of the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment, a supposedly real fragment of a diary detailing the airborne adventures of the author of the diary.