Hamsey Place

Hamsey is a civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The parish covers a large area () and consists of the villages of Hamsey, Offham and Cooksbridge. The main centres of population in the parish are now Offham and Cooksbridge. Around the main settlements are enlarged fields, isolated old cottages and farms. The winding and undulating parish lanes between banks, old hedge rows, trees, flowery verges and ditches are rightly popular with cyclists and give good views of the Downs.

Hamsey (village)

Hamsey village itself is located three miles (5 km) north of Lewes on the Prime Meridian. It lies just off the A275 which runs between Lewes and Forest Row, although the road passes through Hamsey parish at Offham and Cooksbridge. The fine medieval ex-parish Church of Old St. Peter's (now a Chapel of Ease) sits on a promontory amongst the meadows of the River Ouse. On the neck of the promontory, by the Hamsey Cut (part of the old Ouse Navigation) the fine old barns of the prosperous farmstead of Hamsey Place have been converted to a number of dwellings, and a large new pond created, with Canada geese. From here there is a lane that ends with Old St. Peter's church. There is a group of fairly large houses on the edge of the floodplain to the north west, including the large country house Hamsey House.

Internal shifts in population and in the central focus of the then largest estate (Coombe Place) drove a decision (1859) to build a new replacement church in the hamlet of Offham (this one was also dedicated to St. Peter).

Offham

Pronounced "Oaf-um", this village is on the A275 just north of Lewes It has a pub, the Blacksmiths Arms and the "new" St. Peter's Church built to replace the Church of Old St. Peter in 1840s. Offham hosts two Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Clayton to Offham Escarpment and Offham Marshes.

To the west Offham has two chalk pits with a new scrub woodland surrounding them. Historically the artisanal chalk pits would have been grazed and past owners have made an effort to manage the area. The managed chalk pits were a place of rich biodiversity with many rare species and were used by local people for recreation and wild camping. More recently the chalk pits appear to have been left unmanaged and much of the grasslands have turned to scrub. Now the scrub is heavily encroaching on the Offham double-bostal on the north west side of the spur, which is extremely biodiverse. The northern chalk pit has signs threatening £20,000 fines to be issued by Natural England for wild camping on the site. They have become a running sore with local people and conservationists, although they are still very beautiful and spotted orchids and glowworms can still be found there.

Cooksbridge

Cooksbridge is centred on its railway station and has a primary school and a pub, the Rainbow. The name Cooksbridge is first recorded in 1590 and is likely to have come from a family of that name who were recorded in Hamsey in 1543. However, in folklore the village got its name from the cooks who fed the soldiers of Simon de Montfort from the bridge on their way to the Battle of Lewes in 1264. The troops came from nearby Fletching where they spent the night in prayer on their way to the defeat of Henry III.

In the 18th and 19th century, the road was under the control of the Offham to Wych Cross Turnpike Trust. With the coming of the railway to Cooksbridge in 1847 the trustees, no doubt concerned by the increase in traffic that the station might generate, agreed to establish a turnpike (toll road) at Cooksbridge at its meeting in Lewes on the 12 Oct 1847. It was erected adjacent to Friendly Hall.

Conyboro Park, Cooksbridge, is actually in the parish of Barcombe.

Notable areas

The parish of Hamsey is large. To its north are the Chailey and Barcombe parishes, to its east is Ringmer, to its south it borders Lewes and St Ann Without and to its west is the St John Without parish.

The farmland is largely owned by the Conyboro Estate. The soil is very rich. Fine crops grow on its superficial deposits of Alluvium, River Terrace Deposits and Chalk Head, over Lower Chalk, Gault, Lower Greensand, or Wealden Clay. Nearly all the meadowland around Hamsey is now improved or cultivated, which is good for growing one crop but not for biodiversity or local species. However, there are still small areas of archaic meadow, such as the banks of the Hamsey Loop, which can host the rare corky-fruited water dropwort (recorded in 2012) and other colourful flowers. More archaic meadows can be found in Offham and Hamsey churchyards, along The Drove north side bank, on the slope beneath Coombe Plantation and between the plantation and Coombe Place.

There are two Sites of Special Scientific Interest that fall within the parish, Clayton to Offham Escarpment and Offham Marshes. Clayton to Offham Escarpment lies on the South Downs and stretches across many parishes. Its chalk grassland, woodland and scrub supporting a wide variety of breeding birds. Offham Marshes, fully contained within the parish, is an area of alluvial grazed marsh. Its biological interest is due to its large amphibian population and several other scarce insect life.

The Wealden Line railway from to via Hamsey along the west bank of the River Ouse intended to use the Hamsey Loop but work was abandoned and the loop never opened. A proposal to reinstate services between the two stations intends to use the Hamsey Loop, but much of the natural beauty of the water land corridor created by the Ouse would be under threat from such a development. A main line railway from Lewes to Uckfield is also obstructed by the Phoenix Causeway road and development.

Woodland

The extent of the modern Hamsey meadows is similar to that of the manor's 200 acre meadow recorded in the Domesday book but much of its wildness has been lost. In the south of the parish is very little woodland left, although the parish had a relic common at Hamsey until modern times. Despite hedge clearances, some of which are now being put back, there are a number of notable Oaks to the east of Tulleys Wells farm.

The area north of Cooksbridge, although nearer South Chailey, is still in the Hamsey parish. It has four ancient woods which is rare in the southern part of the parish. These woodland have many ancient woodland indicator species. Beachy Wood () is the best of them. It is a gill wood along the western-side of the Bevern stream with wild service, sessile oak and crab apple trees. The wood has been described as "dignified, shady, and silent but for the tops of the tall oaks sighing in the breeze". Folly Wood () has many Bluebells under hazel coppice, with some Hornbeam and much scots pine at the east and west end. River Wood () is on the southern bank of the Bevern stream and is sprawling with Ramsons (wild garlic) and Kiln Wood () is to the east of Hamsey Brickworks and has a magnificent bluebell display in Spring.

Rivers and stream

Running along the eastern boundary of the county is the River Ouse. The river was used extensively in the 19th century to import chalk from the Offham Chalk pits. The Upper Ouse Navigation was opened in 1812 and the Chalkpit Cut took barges from Offham chalk pit to the River Ouse, and two railway lines were built across the brooks. Up until that point wild Salmon and Sea Trout were plentiful in the river but the canalisation seems to have impacted the young Salmons' ability to use the river. After the collapse of the navigation in 1870 Salmon recolonised the Ouse until the hot summer of 1976 and the new weir at Buxted eliminated the last breeding group.

The Northend Stream is on the north-south border of the Hamsey and Barcombe parishes and the Bevern Stream is on the north-south border of the Hamsey and Chailey parishes.

Offham Marshes

Between the Ouse and Offham Hill is the Offham Marsh (), also known as the Pells. It is a 39.1-hectare (97-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest to the west of the Ouse. It includes the Pellbrook Cut, an area to the north of it called The Pells and the marshland to the south of the Cut and east of the railway track. It was designated SSSI status in 1989 because of its huge Common Toad population. The toads migrated in huge numbers every spring from the overhanging woods.

Scarp and downland

To the south of the parish, the land rises into the Sussex Downs. It is last parish (or first) of the Clayton to Offham Escarpment which is a ten kilometre stretch of north-facing scarp that has been designed a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Offham Hill

There is a chain of disused chalk pits along the Ouse river cliff and around the spur of Offham Hill (). The areas is prized by mountain bikers, picnickers, walkers and all those who like flowers, sun and peace.

Most of the chalk pits are pre-industrial in origin and fine sheep fescue sward has grown over them, giving them distinct qualities and richness. In contrast, the pit above the Chalk Pit Inn was active in the nineteenth century. The Offham Road, outside the Inn, goes over a steep chute which took chalk from the Pit down to barges moored on the Chalkpit Cut. This late Georgian pit is very different in character to the older quarries. Unlike the alpine cragginess of this pit the older pits meld into the adjacent Downland at their northern end. In the past they were grazed as part of those Down pastures and bee, pyramidal, spotted and even musk orchids can be found there, with viper’s bugloss, devil’s-bit and small-flowered sweet-briar. The turf is very mossy and scarce mosses and lichen such as Pleurochaete squarrosa and Cladonia pocillum can be found.

The southern-most of these older quarries () south of the Chalk Pit Inn pit, may be one of the oldest, for it has the indicator species bastard toadflax, horseshoe vetch and rockrose. The thin open sward enables blue fleabane and autumn gentian to thrive and many chalkland butterflies benefit.

Despite the biodiverse richness of the chalk pits, the lack of grazing means that that richness is year by year disappearing. Seas of cotoneaster, privet, sycamore, ash, and other scrub species are already over the whole of the river cliffs and the brow of Offham Hill, which were open turf before the second world war. When this process finishes this area that is enjoyed by so many for its beautiful views over the Ouse valley and special wildlife will be gone, yet if it were just grazed, it could be saved.

There is half of a Neolithic causewayed camp () on the spur of Offham Hill, although there is no sign of it above ground now. The chalk pit dug away the rest. There are also three surviving barrows between the camp and the covered reservoir, but they are becoming difficult to see under tangled vegetation. The covered reservoir, like so many, had a good Down pasture flora with rockrose, cistus forester moth, and old anthills.

Offham Down

Offham Down () is a special place known locally as "Happy Valley" at the east side of the Clayton to Offham Escarpment SSSI. The valley sides are rich in biodiversity in all seasons. In spring they have milkwort

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