Streat is a village and parish in the
Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...
district of
East Sussex
East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in Ea ...
, England, south-east of
Burgess Hill
Burgess Hill is a town and civil parish in West Sussex, England, close to the border with East Sussex, on the edge of the South Downs National Park, south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and northeast of the county town, Chichester. ...
and west of
Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...
, within the
South Downs National Park
The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hamp ...
.
The 11th-century parish church has no dedication; the
ecclesiastical parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...
is joined with
Westmeston.
Landmarks
Clayton to Offham Escarpment is a
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle o ...
, which stretches from
Hassocks in the west and passes through many parishes including Streat, to
Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...
in the east. The site is of biological importance due to its rare chalk grassland habitat along with its woodland and scrub.
History
There is a lot of evidence of human activity, such as flint digging, working and cooking during the
Atlantic period
The Atlantic in palaeoclimatology was the warmest and moistest Blytt–Sernander period, pollen zone and chronozone of Holocene northern Europe. The climate was generally warmer than today. It was preceded by the Boreal, with a climate simil ...
around seven thousand years ago. Archaeologists have suggested that forest clearances may have started earlier on the thinner soils of the
Lower Greensand in places such as Streat, where flint tools from the period can be found in abundance.
As is true in most of the Weald, Medieval Streat had much common land for people to graze their animals, make hay and garner other resources. A quarter of the common was ploughed up in 1258. Much later, between 1600 and 1684, the rest of the main commons of Streat were enclosed. Before its nineteenth century enclosure there was a third arm to Streat Green which tracked south through Riddens Wood () down to Riddens Farm, by the railway line. The braided paths can still be made out in the wood. It used to be called "Chinese Wood" because there was a Chinese temple there. The temple is now gone, but its existence explains the presence of
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, b ...
and other exotic plants in the wood, alongside the
sessile oak
''Quercus petraea'', commonly known as the sessile oak, Cornish oak, Irish Oak or durmast oak, is a species of oak tree native to most of Europe and into Anatolia and Iran. The sessile oak is the national tree of Ireland, and an unofficial e ...
,
gean,
hornbeam
Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
Origin of names
The common English name ''hornbeam ...
and a
wild service tree
''Sorbus torminalis'', with common names wild service tree, chequers, and checker tree, is a species of tree in the mountain ash or rowan genus (''Sorbus'') of the rose family (Rosaceae), that is native to Europe, parts of northern Africa and w ...
on the western boundary still bears seasonal fruits.
Now all that is left of the Commons are the two Streat greens, Streat Lane Green and Shergold's Farm Green, only parts of which are registered as common land, but remain open and public areas.
The Lower Greensand ridge is cut deep by the old swine pasture droves. Streat Lane itself is an example of such an ancient droveway, used by villagers to seasonally move their livestock and crops. The partial survival of archaic pasture vegetation on the linear greens gives evidence of this history.
Notable buildings and areas
Streat is a thin parish that stretches from
Wivelsfield
Wivelsfield village and the larger adjacent village of Wivelsfield Green are the core of the civil parish of Wivelsfield in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The villages are north of the city of Brighton and Hove.
Wivelsfield parish ...
parish in the north to
Falmer in the
South Downs
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the e ...
. It is squashed between
Plumpton to the east and
Westmeston to the west. For nearly two miles north of the Downs, Streat Lane is narrow and winding, sufficiently traffic free to make walking possible with care, with tall nutty hedgerows on either side.
Roman roads
It was forgotten for many centuries that Streat owed its name to the presence of a Roman road that cuts through the parish (Anglo-Saxon place names containing "Street", "Streat" or "Stret", usually indicate a
Roman road
Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...
). This road was re-discovered less than a century ago, and came to be known as the
Sussex Greensand Way, though it is difficult to detect as it crosses Streat parish. There is also a north-south Roman or Romanised Celtic road known as the Middleton Track just over the west parish boundary border at Hayleigh Farm sweeping past Middleton Manor which ascends the South Downs
escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esc ...
passing above the
Victoria Jubilee Middleton Plantation
Streat greens
Although most of the Streat greens are no longer registered as common land, their boundaries still exist. The western arm, Streat Lane Green (), is owned by the parish council, but is managed by the residents backing on to each section. Parts are managed sensitively for wildlife, but others are over-mown like suburban lawns, and the flowers and grasses get no chance to set seed or attract butterflies and bees (2016). Some parts are lost to thick thorn scrub, making it difficult to envisage the green as a unitary habitat. Some areas do still have archaic and rare species such as
adder's tongue fern and there is a fine three span oak south of the railway, hidden on the east side boundary bank (). One sensitively managed area has
pepper saxifrage and stone parsley. Where the sward is allowed to flower it is very colourful, with clovers and
vetches,
knapweed
''Centaurea'' () is a genus of over 700 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Members of the genus are found only north of the equator, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere; the Middle East and surrounding re ...
,
fleabane,
oxeye daisy,
bird's foot trefoil,
meadowsweet,
agrimony,
burnet saxifrage and
wild carrot.
The eastern arm, Shergold's Farm Green, () is well-managed for nature and much is owed to the owner of Shergolds Farm who has loved and preserved the farm's conservation features.
David Bangs, a Sussex field naturalist, describes the area as "A green lane that magics you right back to the medieval drovers' roads, meandering between thick hedgerows over uneven, damp or dry ground.
Strawberry clover was the thing that first caught my eye, with its fruits like frosted strawberries. It is common along one length. There's
spiny restharrow too, and scattered
pepper saxifrage and
stone parsley. At its southern end, by the railway, the Green crosses the Bevern Stream with thick thorn on either side. Listen out for nightingales in spring".
Woods
The woods in the parish are lovely and species-rich. Brocks Wood () is a
bluebell wood with a stream. Dean's Wood (around ) is on the western side of Shergold's Farm, and is similarly lovely with
sessile oak
''Quercus petraea'', commonly known as the sessile oak, Cornish oak, Irish Oak or durmast oak, is a species of oak tree native to most of Europe and into Anatolia and Iran. The sessile oak is the national tree of Ireland, and an unofficial e ...
,
gean and
hornbeam
Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
Origin of names
The common English name ''hornbeam ...
. Plumpton Wood is on the parish boundary () the western edge that borders Streat is fine and sunny with big
oaks, a big old
ash, a
gean swarm,
wild service and
pignut.
Streat church
The Streat church () commands grand views from 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 run ...
. It has two cast iron grave slabs, likely mined from the
Wadhurst Clay
The Wadhurst Clay Formation is a geological unit which forms part of the Wealden Group and the middle part of the now unofficial Hastings Beds. These geological units make up the core of the geology of the High Weald in the English counties of W ...
in nearby the mine ore pits, in the church aisle, commemorating an 18th century Wadhurst iron master's family. Nearby north of the church and west of Streat Lane the footpath bisects one of a cluster of unimproved meadows () that has many archaic meadow species including
sneezewort,
pepper saxifrage,
oxeye daisy and in summer lots of
marbled white butterflies (2013). On Streat Lane near the church the ancient forest specialist
Bechstein's and
barbastelle
''Barbastella'' is a genus of vespertilionid bats. There are seven extant species in this genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the h ...
bats can be seen flying at twilight.
Bevern stream
The Bevern Stream's clean and clear waters flow through this parish and support trout,
bullhead,
minnows,
freshwater mussels and
caddisflies
The caddisflies, or order Trichoptera, are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the ...
. Its banks are carpeted with violets, bluebells and ramsons. There are tussocky brook meadows with thick hedgerows and a relict marshy flora that is rich in wildlife.
Old Rectory
There is an Old Rectory, a
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...
, which may indicate the existence of
chancel repair liability to any lay improprietors of land which was once belonged to the church.
Streat Place
Streat Place is a manor house built in the early 17th century, next to the church, by Walter Dobell who died in 1624. It is a huge
Jacobean mansion of flint, with stone details and a Horsham stone roof. In an otherwise modest place such as Streat, this upmarket manor house seems rather incongruous and perhaps it is not surprising that it was let as a farmhouse for a long time.
The building has an E shaped plan with central porch and projecting wings. Its national listing gives it as Grade II* and reveals its
architectural
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...
merit as including its entire facing of knapped flints with long and short
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vit ...
quoin
Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, ...
s to each window bay.
Blackberry Wood Campsite
The Blackberry Wood Campsite () has been described as "enchanted and eccentric". It has an American diner, a gipsy caravan, a London bus, and there is a stream side with fallen trees across and tree swings.
Streat Hill
The parish reaches its highest point at the top of Streat Hill where it rises to 224m above sea level. There are two ''
tumuli
A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built ...
'' or bowl barrows, though they are scarcely visible. They have been termed by
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
s the Western Brow round barrow cemetery.
In past centuries much traffic traversed the hill between the coast and the deep
Weald
The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It has three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the ...
. The herds of swine, cattle and sheep that have walked up and down Streat Hill over the centuries have created a deep and steep, zig-zagging bostal track.
Wayfaring Tree can be found across the steep slopes. This tree is host to the scarce and jewel-like
orange-tailed clearwing moth, whose caterpillars burrow into the branches. Streat Hill bostal and scarp slope () has long been ungrazed, and as a consequence has sadly lost most of its ancient species-rich chalk grassland to invasive scrub. Only islands of that very rich turf remain on the bostal's deep cut sides, though it is still a lovely place. It has
green hairstreak,
dingy skipper and
wall brown butterflies. There are
purple bar, black
pyrausta and
burnet companion day flying moths. The soft turf has the characteristic chalk grassland moss species Bubble Wrap Moss,
Neckera crispa, Slender Comb Moss,
Ctenidium molluscum, and Broom Fork Moss,
Dicranum scoparium
''Dicranum scoparium'', the broom forkmoss, is a species of dicranid moss, native to most of the northern hemisphere as well as Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polyn ...
.
Jubilee plantation
To the west of the Streat Hill bostal there is the Queen Victoria Jubilee plantation (), which forms the sign of a V on the middle of the bare scarp slope. Six species were planted in 1887 to mark Queen Victoria's Silver Jubilee, including pine.
Governance
Streat lies within the Chailey ward for the
East Sussex County Council
East Sussex County Council is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of East Sussex.
East Sussex is divided into five local government districts. Three are larger, rural, districts (from west to east: Lewes; Wealden; and Rother). ...
tier of government. The ward also includes
Chailey
Chailey is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located 7 miles north of Lewes, on the A272 road from Winchester to Canterbury. The Prime Meridian passes just to the east of Chailey.
The parish consists ...
itself,
Ditchling
Ditchling is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is contained within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park; the order confirming the establishment of the park was signed in Ditchling.
...
,
East Chiltington
East Chiltington is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is centred four miles (5.9 km) south-east of Burgess Hill and five miles (8 km) north-west of Lewes. It is a strip parish of , stretching n ...
,
Newick,
St John Without
St John Without is a small civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England, covering an area to the north-west of the town of Lewes.
Much like its sister parish, St Ann Without, the parish was formed in 1894 as Lewes St John Without ...
,
Plumpton,
Westmeston and
Wivelsfield
Wivelsfield village and the larger adjacent village of Wivelsfield Green are the core of the civil parish of Wivelsfield in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The villages are north of the city of Brighton and Hove.
Wivelsfield parish ...
.
Streat is served by
Lewes District Council and is covered by
Plumpton, Streat,
East Chiltington
East Chiltington is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is centred four miles (5.9 km) south-east of Burgess Hill and five miles (8 km) north-west of Lewes. It is a strip parish of , stretching n ...
and
St John Without
St John Without is a small civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England, covering an area to the north-west of the town of Lewes.
Much like its sister parish, St Ann Without, the parish was formed in 1894 as Lewes St John Without ...
ward which returns a single seat. At the 2011 census the population for this area was ''only'' 2,276.
The UK Parliament constituency for Streat is Lewes.
References
External links
{{authority control
Civil parishes in East Sussex
Villages in East Sussex