__NOTOC__ Felbridge is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the Tandridge district of Surrey with a playing field within its focal area, narrowly in

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

. Felbridge village forms a

contiguous Contiguity or contiguous may refer to: *Contiguous data storage, in computer science *Contiguity (probability theory) *Contiguity (psychology) *Contiguous distribution of species, in biogeography *Geographic contiguity of territorial land *Contigu ...

settlement with East Grinstead and had 829 homes and households at the time of the 2011 census. Domewood is part of Felbridge civil parish, which was created in 1953.

History

Early history

Until shortly after 1911, the area was part of the parish of Horne. No reference appears to a separate settlement being here in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086.

Post Reformation

James son of Edward Evelyn succeeded to the manors of Hedgecourt (and smaller

carucate The carucate or carrucate ( lat-med, carrūcāta or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms ...

of Covelingeley) in the parish of Horne and the estate of Felbridge in 1751. Julia Evelyn Medley, his granddaughter by his first wife, who had married Charles Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool held this estate, after James's Evelyn wife's death, as late as 1841. By 1911, whereabouts it lost much of its land, amid the economic change and social reforms of the age it became the property of the Sayer family. The last resident "lord of the manor" was Charles Henry Gatty FRSE FLS who died in 1903.

Geography

Felbridge is centred south of Oxted, south of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and ESE of Surrey's county town, Guildford.Grid reference Finder measurement tools
/ref> It occupies less than one eighth of its district in the extreme mid-south. The east of the village is often referred to as Felcourt. Hedgecourt lake is immediately northwest of the village centre in the heart of the civil parish, approximately in size. Elevations range between 115m AOB towards the south of the eastern boundary, fields adjoining Chartham Wood and similarly 102m AOB along West Park Road by the Effingham Park Hotel in the southwest, to 53m AOB along Felbridge Water between Felcourt and Newchapel, in the northeast of the parish, a tributary of the River Eden. The soil part of a wide to band south of the

Greensand Ridge The Greensand Ridge, also known as the Wealden Greensand is an extensive, prominent, often wooded, mixed greensand/sandstone escarpment in south-east England. Forming part of the Weald, a former dense forest in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, it r ...

is of "slowly permeable loamy/clayey slightly acid but base-rich soil, however much of the southern half is free-draining slightly acid sandy/loamy soil" as this lies on the remaining gentle upland of Hastings Sand.

Localities

Domewood

Domewood is a western neighbourhood surrounded on two of its four sides by

copse Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeate ...

s; it faces, across its southern boundary road, Snow Hill (B2037) the Effingham Park Hotel and Golf Course, see Landmarks; and Snow Hill, a similarly semi-wooded neighbourhood interspersed with farms which is part of an area administered by

Worth, West Sussex Worth is either a civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, or a distinct but historically related village in Crawley. Civil parish Worth is a civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, a county in southeast England. I ...

. Separating Domewood from the village centre are Hedgecourt Lake and small surrounding copses.

Wire Mill lake and inn

Wire Mill forms a separate area which is focussed on and around a short lane, Wire Mill Lane, which ends with the Wire Mill Inn, Toad Hall and Mill End House all overlooking a small weir which releases the water from the Wire Mill Lake.

Landmarks

Felbridge County Primary School

This listed building marks a tapering triangular intersection between the village centre's longest streets, Copthorne Road and Crawley Down road that several times forms the West Sussex boundary.Map
created by

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

, courtesy of

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

In 1783 James Evelyn (descendant of

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's diary, or ...

, the diarist and famous architectural, landscape and cultural figure in Britain) "chose a large house at Hedgecourt Common – arranging for 1½ acres around it to be enclosed and used as a school". The school opened on 4 November 1783 and was substantially enlarged in 1934.

Effingham Park Hotel and Golf Course

This large, complex, building with part-rounded restaurant in a compact 9 hole golf course forms the southwest outcrop of the parish.

St John the Divine parish church

The only church in the village is the Church of England parish church of St John the Divine, known a
St John's Felbridge
designed by William White and built in 1865. The construction is a fine example of the

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. An adjoining church hall was erected in 1965 and refurbished in 2012. The interior of the church was redesigned in 1972-74 and modernised in 2016. The

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

church is part of the Diocese of Southwark and is a member of th
Sussex Gospel Partnership

Whittington College

The sheltered housing consists of 56 homes, mainly two bedroom bungalows but also large apartments, surrounded by acres of parkland with an orchard, lake and woodland walks. They are managed by one of the Livery Companies of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

, the

Mercers' Company The Worshipful Company of Mercers is the premier Livery Company of the City of London and ranks first in the order of precedence of the Companies. It is the first of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies. Although of even older origin, the c ...

. The college was founded under the will of

Richard Whittington Richard Whittington (c. 1354–1423) of the parish of St Michael Paternoster Royal, City of London, was an English merchant and a politician of the late medieval period. He is also the real-life inspiration for the English folk tale '' D ...

as a college of priests and almshouse next to the church of

St Michael Paternoster Royal St Michael Paternoster Royal is a church in the City of London. The original building, which was first recorded in the 13th century, was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The church was rebuilt under the aegis of Sir Christopher Wr ...

in the City of London.

Transport

Road

Copthorne Road runs through the centre of the village and links onto the A22 near East Grinstead which is about to the southeast.

Rail

Felbridge's nearest railway stations are on the

Oxted Line The Oxted line is a railway in southern England and part of the Southern franchise. The railway splits into two branches towards the south and has direct trains throughout to London termini. It was opened jointly by the London, Brighton and S ...

East Grinstead railway station East Grinstead railway station is one of the two southern termini of the Oxted line in the south of England and serves East Grinstead in West Sussex. It is from , although trains mostly run to and from . The station is managed by Southern. Th ...

is southeast of the main road through the village centre; and north of Wire Mill Lake and the Eden Brook, more than thirty homes are nearer to Lingfield railway station to the northeast, which is two stations closer to

Demography and housing

The area of the parish is . At the

United Kingdom Census 2011 A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National ...

its population had risen from 2,039 (ten years before) to 2,096. Greater than the national and local averages, 52.5% of the population described their health as very good. The civil parish was created in 1953, so the 1951 figure is that of the historic, undivided parish of Horne.Vision of Britain
The University of Portsmouth and others The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%. The proportion of households in the civil parish who owned their home outright compares to the regional average of 35.1%. The proportion who owned their home with a loan compares to the regional average of 32.5%. The remaining % is made up of rented dwellings (plus a negligible % of households living rent-free).

References

External links

Felbridge Village Website
{{Authority control Tandridge Civil parishes in Surrey