The Weald () is an area of
South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...
between the parallel
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Cha ...
escarpments of the
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''no ...
and 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 ea ...
. It crosses the counties of
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
,
Surrey,
Sussex and
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. It has three separate parts: the
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
"High Weald" in the centre; the
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay part ...
"Low Weald" periphery; and the
Greensand Ridge, which stretches around the north and west of the Weald and includes its highest points. The Weald once was covered with forest, and its name,
Old English in origin, signifies "woodland". The term is still used today, as scattered farms and villages sometimes refer to the Weald in their names.
Etymology
The name "Weald" is derived from the
Old English ', meaning "forest" (cognate of German ''Wald'', but unrelated to English "wood", which has a different origin). This comes from a Germanic root of the same meaning, and ultimately from
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...
. ''Weald'' is specifically a
West Saxon form; ''
wold
Wold may refer to:
Radio stations
* WOLD-FM, an American radio station licensed to Marion, Virginia
* WOLD-LP, an American radio station licensed to Woodbridge, New Jersey
* WHNK (AM), an American radio station licensed as "WOLD" from 1962 ...
'' is the
Anglian form of the word. The
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
form of the word is ''wēld'', and the modern spelling is a reintroduction of the Old English form attributed to its use by
William Lambarde
William Lambarde (18 October 1536 – 19 August 1601) was an English antiquarian, writer on legal subjects, and politician. He is particularly remembered as the author of ''A Perambulation of Kent'' (1576), the first English county history; ''Ei ...
in his ''A Perambulation of Kent'' of 1576.
In early medieval Britain, the area had the name ''Andredes weald'', meaning "the forest of Andred", the latter derived from ''
Anderida'', the Roman name of present-day
Pevensey. The area is also referred to in early English texts as ''Andredesleage'', where the second element, ''leage,'' is another Old English word for "woodland", represented by the modern '.
The adjective for "Weald" is "wealden".
Geology
The Weald is the eroded remains of a geological structure, an
anticline
In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...
, a dome of layered
Lower Cretaceous rocks cut through by
weathering
Weathering is the deterioration of rocks, soils and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with water, atmospheric gases, and biological organisms. Weathering occurs '' in situ'' (on site, with little or no movemen ...
to expose the layers as
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
ridges and
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay part ...
valleys. The oldest rocks exposed at the centre of the anticline are correlated with the
Purbeck Beds of the
Upper Jurassic. Above these, the Cretaceous rocks, include the
Wealden Group
The Wealden Group, occasionally also referred to as the Wealden Supergroup, is a group (a sequence of rock strata) in the lithostratigraphy of southern England. The Wealden group consists of paralic to continental (freshwater) facies sedimentary ...
of alternating sands and claysthe
Ashdown Sand Formation
The Ashdown Formation is a geological unit, which forms part of the Wealden Group and the lowermost and oldest part of the now unofficial Hastings Beds. These geological units make up the core of the Weald in the English counties of East Sussex a ...
,
Wadhurst Clay Formation
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 We ...
,
Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation
The Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation is a geological unit which forms part of the Wealden Group and the uppermost and youngest part of the unofficial Hastings Beds. These geological units make up the core of the geology of the Weald in the English co ...
(collectively known as the
Hastings Beds) and the
Weald Clay. The
Wealden Group
The Wealden Group, occasionally also referred to as the Wealden Supergroup, is a group (a sequence of rock strata) in the lithostratigraphy of southern England. The Wealden group consists of paralic to continental (freshwater) facies sedimentary ...
is overlain by the
Lower Greensand and the
Gault Formation, consisting of the
Gault and the
Upper Greensand.
The rocks of the central part of the anticline include hard sandstones, and these form hills now called the ''High Weald''. The peripheral areas are mostly of softer sandstones and clays and form a gentler rolling landscape, the ''Low Weald''. The
Weald–Artois Anticline continues some further south-eastwards under the
Straits of Dover, and includes the
Boulonnais of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
.
Many important fossils have been found in the sandstones and clays of the Weald, including, for example, ''
Baryonyx''. The famous scientific hoax of
Piltdown Man was claimed to have come from a gravel pit at
Piltdown
Piltdown is a series of hamlets in East Sussex, England. It is located south of Ashdown Forest. It is best known for the Piltdown Man hoax where amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed to have discovered evidence of the " missing link" in g ...
near
Uckfield
Uckfield () is a town in the Wealden District of East Sussex in South East England. The town is on the River Uck, one of the tributaries of the River Ouse, on the southern edge of the Weald.
Etymology
'Uckfield', first recorded in writing ...
. The first ''
Iguanodon'' was identified after Mary Mantell unearthed some fossilised teeth by a road in Sussex in 1822. Her husband, the geologist
Gideon Mantell, noticed they were similar to modern iguana teeth but many times larger; this important find led to the discovery of dinosaurs.
The area contains significant reserves of shale oil, totalling 4.4 billion
barrels of oil
A barrel is one of several units of volume applied in various contexts; there are dry barrels, fluid barrels (such as the U.K. beer barrel and U.S. beer barrel), oil barrels, and so forth. For historical reasons the volumes of some barrel units ...
in the Wealden basin according to a 2014 study, which then Business and Energy Minister
Michael Fallon said "will bring jobs and business opportunities" and significantly help with UK energy self-sufficiency.
Fracking in the area would be required to achieve these objectives, which has been opposed by environmental groups.
History
Prehistoric evidence suggests that, following the
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...
hunter-gatherers, the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several part ...
inhabitants had turned to farming, with the resultant clearance of the forest. With the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
came the first use of the Weald as an industrial area. Wealden sandstones contain
ironstone, and with the additional presence of large amounts of timber for making
charcoal for fuel, the area was the centre of the
Wealden iron industry from then, through the
Roman times, until the last forge was closed in 1813.
The index to the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain lists 33 iron mines; and 67% of these are in the Weald.
The entire Weald was originally heavily forested. According to the 9th-century ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of A ...
'', the Weald measured or longer by in the Saxon era, stretching from
Lympne, near
Romney Marsh in Kent, to the
Forest of Bere or even the
New Forest
The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conquero ...
in Hampshire.
['The Kent and Sussex Weald, Peter Brandon, published by Phillimore and Company, 2003 ] The area was sparsely inhabited and inhospitable, being used mainly as a resource by people living on its fringes, much as in other places in Britain such as
Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers .
The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous ...
,
the Fens and the
Forest of Arden.
The Weald was used for centuries, possibly since the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
, for
transhumance
Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower va ...
of animals along
droveways in the summer months.
Over the centuries, deforestation for the shipbuilding, charcoal,
forest glass, and brickmaking industries has left the Low Weald with only remnants of that woodland cover.
While most of the Weald was used for
transhumance
Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower va ...
by communities at the edge of the Weald, several parts of the forest on the higher ridges in the interior seem to have been used for hunting by the
kings of Sussex
The list of monarchs of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Sussex (or South Saxons) contains substantial gaps, as the chronological details relating to Sussex during the heptarchy is generally poorly documented. No authentic South Saxon king list or gen ...
. The pattern of droveways which occurs across the rest of the Weald is absent from these areas.
These areas include
St Leonard's Forest, Worth Forest,
Ashdown Forest and
Dallington Forest
Dallington Forest is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) east of Heathfield in East Sussex. The SSSI is part of the larger Dallington Forest.
The Willingford Stream has cut through forest, creating a steep sided valley with ...
.
The forests of the Weald were often used as a place of refuge and sanctuary. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' relates events during the
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
conquest of
Sussex when the native
Britons (whom the Anglo-Saxons called ''
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
'') were driven from the coastal towns into the recesses of the forest for sanctuary,:
Until the
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Ren ...
the forest was a notorious hiding place for
bandit
Banditry is a type of organized crime committed by outlaws typically involving the threat or use of violence. A person who engages in banditry is known as a bandit and primarily commits crimes such as extortion, robbery, and murder, either as an ...
s,
highwaymen and
outlaw
An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them ...
s.
Settlements on the Weald are widely scattered. Villages evolved from small settlements in the woods, typically apart; close enough to be an easy walk but not so close as to encourage unnecessary intrusion. Few of the settlements are mentioned 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 manusc ...
; however Goudhurst's church dates from the early 12th century or before and Wadhurst was big enough by the mid-13th century to be granted a royal charter permitting a market to be held. Before then, the Weald was used as summer grazing land, particularly for
pannage by inhabitants of the surrounding areas. Many places within the Weald have retained names from this time, linking them to the original communities by the addition of the suffix "''-den''": for example,
Tenterden was the area used by the people of
Thanet Thanet may refer to:
*Isle of Thanet, a former island, now a peninsula, at the most easterly point of Kent, England
*Thanet District, a local government district containing the island
*Thanet College, former name of East Kent College
*Thanet Canal, ...
. Permanent settlements in much of the Weald developed much later than in other parts of lowland Britain, although there were as many as one hundred furnaces and forges operating by the later 16th century, employing large numbers of people.
In the 12th century, the Weald still extended so far that citizens of London could hunt wild bull and the boar in
Hampstead.
In 1216 during the
First Barons' War
The First Barons' War (1215–1217) was a civil war in the Kingdom of England in which a group of rebellious major landowners (commonly referred to as barons) led by Robert Fitzwalter waged war against King John of England. The conflict resu ...
, a guerilla force of archers from the Weald, led by
William of Cassingham (nicknamed Willikin of the Weald), ambushed the French occupying army led by
Prince Louis near
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 ...
and drove them to the coast at
Winchelsea. The timely arrival of a French fleet allowed the French forces to narrowly escape starvation. William was later granted a pension from the crown and made warden of the Weald in reward for his services.
The inhabitants of the Weald remained largely independent and hostile to outsiders during the next decades. In 1264 during the
Second Barons' War
The Second Barons' War (1264–1267) was a civil war in Kingdom of England, England between the forces of a number of barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort against the royalist forces of Henry III of Engla ...
, the royalist army of King
Henry III of England
Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry as ...
marched through the Weald in order to force the submission of the
Cinque Ports
The Confederation of Cinque Ports () is a historic group of coastal towns in south-east England – predominantly in Kent and Sussex, with one outlier ( Brightlingsea) in Essex. The name is Old French, meaning "five harbours", and alludes to ...
. Even though they were not aligned with the rebellious barons, the Weald's natives – mostly operating as archers – opposed the royalist advance, using
guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run ...
. Even though they were unable to stop the army, their attacks inflicted substantial losses on the royalists. In retribution, King Henry ordered the execution of any Weald archers who were captured alive, for instance beheading 300 after a local shot his cook. The king also fined the
Battle Abbey
Battle Abbey is a partially ruined Benedictine abbey in Battle, East Sussex, England. The abbey was built on the site of the Battle of Hastings and dedicated to St Martin of Tours. It is a Scheduled Monument.
The Grade I listed site is no ...
for the disloyalty of its tenants.
In the first edition of ''
On The Origin of Species
''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'',
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
used an estimate for the erosion of the chalk,
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
and clay strata of the Weald in his
theory of natural selection. Charles Darwin was a follower of Lyell's theory of
uniformitarianism and decided to expand upon Lyell's theory with a quantitative estimate to determine if there was enough time in the history of the Earth to uphold his principles of evolution. He assumed the rate of erosion was around one inch per century and calculated the age of the Weald at around 300 million years. Were that true, he reasoned, the Earth itself must be much older. In 1862,
William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) published a paper "On the age of the sun's heat", in which – unaware of the process of solar fusion – he calculated the Sun had been burning for less than a million years, and put the outside limit of the
age of the Earth at 200 million years. Based on these estimates he denounced Darwin's geological estimates as imprecise. Darwin saw Lord Kelvin's calculation as one of the most serious criticisms to his theory and removed his calculations on the Weald from the third edition of ''On the Origin of Species''.
Modern chronostratigraphy shows that the Weald Clays were laid down around 130 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous.
Geography
The Weald begins north-east of
Petersfield in
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
and extends across
Surrey and
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
in the north, and Sussex in the south. The western parts in Hampshire and West Sussex, known as the
Western Weald, are included in the
South Downs National Park. Other protected parts of the Weald are included in the
Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the
High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In extent it covers about from west to east, and about from north to south, covering an area of some . The eastern end of the High Weald, the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or (Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kan ...
coast, is marked in the centre by the high sandstone cliffs from
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west a ...
to
Pett Level; and by former sea cliffs now fronted by the Pevensey and Romney Marshes on either side.
Much of the ''High Weald'', the central part, is designated as the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its landscape is described as one of
Ashdown Forest, an extensive area of heathland and woodland occupying the highest sandy ridge-top at the centre of the High Weald, is a former royal deer-hunting forest created by the Normans and said to be the largest remaining part of ''Andredesweald''.
There are centres of settlement, the largest of which are
Horsham,
Burgess Hill,
East Grinstead
East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...
,
Haywards Heath,
Tonbridge,
Tunbridge Wells,
Crowborough; and the area along the coast from Hastings and
Bexhill-on-Sea to
Rye
Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...
and
Hythe.
The geological map shows the High Weald in lime green (9a).
The ''Low Weald'', the periphery of the Weald, is shown as darker green on the map (9), and has an entirely different character. It is in effect the eroded outer edges of the High Weald, revealing a mixture of sandstone outcrops within the underlying clay. As a result, the landscape is of wide and low-lying clay vales with small woodlands (
“shaws”) and fields. There is a great deal of surface water: ponds and many meandering streams.
Some areas, such as the flat plain around
Crawley, have been utilised for urban use: here are
Gatwick Airport
Gatwick Airport (), also known as London Gatwick , is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, south of Central London. In 2021, Gatwick was the third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after ...
and its related developments and the
Horley-Crawley commuter settlements. Otherwise the Low Weald retains its historic settlement pattern, where the villages and small towns occupy harder outcrops of rocks. There are no large towns on the Low Weald, although
Ashford Ashford may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Ashford, New South Wales
*Ashford, South Australia
*Electoral district of Ashford, South Australia
Ireland
*Ashford, County Wicklow
*Ashford Castle, County Galway
United Kingdom
* Ashford, Kent, a town
** ...
,
Sevenoaks and
Reigate
Reigate ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, around south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as ''Cherchefelle'' and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earliest archaeological evidence for huma ...
lie immediately on the northern edge. Settlements tend to be small and linear, because of its original wooded nature and heavy clay soils.
The Weald is drained by the many streams radiating from it, the majority being tributaries of the surrounding major rivers: particularly the
Mole,
Medway,
Stour,
Rother,
Cuckmere,
Ouse,
Adur and
Arun. Many of these streams provided the power for the
watermills,
blast furnaces and hammers of the iron industry and the cloth mills.
Transport infrastructure
The
M25,
M26 and
M20 motorways all use the
Vale of Holmesdale to the north, and therefore run along or near the northern edge of the Weald. The
M23/
A23 road to
Brighton, uses the western, narrower, part of the Weald where there are stream headwaters, crossing it from north to south. Other roads take similar routes, although they often have long hills and many bends: the more sedate, but busy
A21 trunk road to Hastings is still beset with traffic delays, despite having had some new sections.
Five railways once crossed the Weald, now reduced to three. Building them provided the engineers with difficulties in crossing the terrain, with the hard sandstone adding to their problems. The
Brighton Main Line
The Brighton Main Line (also known as the South Central Main Line) is a major railway line in the United Kingdom that links Brighton, on the south coast of England, with central London. In London the line has two branches, out of and station ...
followed the same route as its road predecessors: although it necessitated the
long tunnel near Balcombe and the
Ouse Valley Viaduct. Tributaries of the River Ouse provided some assistance in the building of now-closed
East Grinstead
East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...
-
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 ...
and the
Uckfield
Uckfield () is a town in the Wealden District of East Sussex in South East England. The town is on the River Uck, one of the tributaries of the River Ouse, on the southern edge of the Weald.
Etymology
'Uckfield', first recorded in writing ...
-Lewes lines. The principal
main-line railway to Hastings had to negotiate difficult terrain when it was first built, necessitating many sharp curves and tunnels; and similar problems had to be faced with the Ashford-Hastings line.
Several
long-distance footpaths
A long-distance trail (or long-distance footpath, track, way, greenway) is a longer recreational trail mainly through rural areas used for hiking, backpacking, cycling, horse riding or cross-country skiing. They exist on all continents ...
criss-cross the Weald, and it is well-mapped recreationally, covered by routes from:
* The
Ramblers' Associations and most District Councils for walkers
*
Sustrans and local county councils for
cyclists
Farming
Neither the thin infertile sands of the High Weald or the wet sticky clays of the Low Weald are suited to intensive arable farming and the
topography
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary s ...
of the area often increases the difficulties. There are limited areas of fertile greensand which can be used for intensive vegetable growing, as in the valley of the
Western Rother. Historically the area of cereals grown has varied greatly with changes in prices, increasing during the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
and during and since
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
About 60% of the High Weald farmed land is grassland, with about 20% being arable
The Weald has its own breed of cattle, called the
Sussex, although it has been as numerous in Kent and parts of Surrey. Bred from the strong hardy oxen, which continued to be used to plough the clay soils of the Low Weald longer than in most places, these red beef cattle were highly praised by
Arthur Young in his book ''Agriculture of Sussex'' when visiting Sussex in the 1790s.
William Cobbett commented on finding some of the finest cattle on some of the region's poorest subsistence farms on the High Weald. Pigs, which were kept by most households in the past, were able to be fattened in autumn on acorns in the extensive oak woods. In his novel ''Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man'', the poet and novelist
Siegfried Sassoon refers to "the agricultural serenity of the Weald widespread in the delicate hazy sunshine".
Viticulture
Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...
has expanded quite rapidly across the Weald, where the climate and soil is well suited to the growing of grapes, with over 20 vineyards now in the Wealden district alone
Wildlife
The Weald has largely maintained its wooded character, with woodland still covering 23% of the overall area (one of the highest levels in England) and the proportion is considerably higher in some central parts. The sandstones of the Wealden rocks are usually acidic, often leading to the development of acidic habitats such as
heathland, the largest remaining areas of which are in
Ashdown Forest and near
Thursley
Thursley is a village and civil parish in southwest Surrey, west of the A3 between Milford and Hindhead. An associated hamlet is Bowlhead Green. To the east is Brook. In the south of the parish rises the Greensand Ridge, in this section re ...
.
Although common in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
, the wild
boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...
became extinct in
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
by the 17th century, but wild breeding populations have recently returned in the Weald, following escapes from boar farms.
Culture
The Weald has been associated with many writers, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These include
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962),
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much o ...
(1865–1936). The setting for
A.A. Milne's ''
Winnie-the-Pooh'' stories was inspired by
Ashdown Forest, near Milne's country home at
Hartfield.
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 ...
(1620–1706), whose family estate was
Wotton House on the
River Tillingbourne near
Dorking
Dorking () is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp ...
, Surrey, was an essayist, diarist, and early author of botany, gardening and geography. The second half of
E. M. Forster's ''
A Room with a View'' takes place at the protagonist's family home, "Windy Corner", in the Weald.
Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman and a prolific writer himself, did much of his writing at his country house,
Chartwell, near
Westerham, which has extensive views over the Weald. The view from the house was of crucial importance to Churchill; he once remarked, "I bought Chartwell for that view."
In the early 21st century, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council promoted "Seven Wonders of the Weald":
*
Bayham Old Abbey
*
Bedgebury Pinetum
*
Bewl Water
*
Finchcocks
* Lamberhurst Vineyard
* Marle Place
*
Scotney Castle
Sport
The game of
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
may have originated prior to the 13th century in the Weald . The related game of
stoolball is still popular in the Weald, it was originally played mainly by women's teams, but since the formation of the Sussex league at the beginning of the 20th century it has been played by both men and women.
Other English wealds and wolds
Several other areas in southern England have the name "Weald", including
North Weald in
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
, and
Harrow Weald in north-west
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 ...
.
"Wold" is used as the name for various open rolling upland areas in the North of England, including the
Yorkshire Wolds and the
Lincolnshire Wolds, although these are, by contrast, chalk uplands.
The
Cotswolds are a major geographical feature of central England, forming a south-west to north-east line across the country.
See also
*
Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
*
Recreational walks in Kent
*
History of Sussex
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
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*
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Further reading
*
{{Coord, 51, N, 0.4, E, region:GB, display=title
Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England
Hills of East Sussex
Hills of Kent
Hills of Surrey
Hills of West Sussex
Wealden District
Forests and woodlands of Kent
Forests and woodlands of East Sussex
Forests and woodlands of Surrey