Place:Lindfield, Sussex, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

Wikipedia states:

Lindfield is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The parish lies to the northeast of Haywards Heath, of which the village is a part of the built-up area. It stands on the upper reaches of the River Ouse. The name 'Lindfield' means 'open land with lime trees.'

Lindfield was transferred from East Sussex to West Sussex in 1974 as part of the creation of the Mid Sussex District.

In the 21st century the population was 5,394 in the 2001 UK Census and 5,836 in the 2011 UK Census. The area of the parish is 2.24 km2 (0.86 sq mi).

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"LINDFIELD, a village, a parish, and a [registration] sub-district, in Cuckfield [registration] district, Sussex. The village stands on a hill, adjacent to the river Ouse, 1½ mile NE of Haywards Heath [railway] station, and 3 ½ ENE of Cuckfield: is surrounded by a highly picturesque country; consists chiefly of one wide street, containing several well built houses; and has a post office,‡ under Cuckfield, three good inns, gasworks, a fair for sheep on 1 April, and a fair for lambs and cattle on 5 August.

"The parish contains also Scaynes Hill, Scrace Bridge, Townsland, Walsted, Lunt, Buxshalls, Beadle Hill, Gravelys, and Wickham. Acres: 5,776. Real property: £6,060. Population in 1851: 1,814; in 1861: 1,917. Houses: 361. Manor House is the seat of Sharood; Lindfield House, of R. Candle, Esq.; Walsted House, of T. R. Davis, Esq.; Gravely House, of J. R.Brown, Esq.; Hollybank, of J. H. Bull, Esq.; Oat Hall, of G. F. Bent, Esq.; and there are some very handsome villas. Kenwards was once the seat of the Challoners; Lunt was the seat of the Hamlyns; East Mascalls was the seat of the Newtons; and all three are now farm-houses. Paxhill is a recently restored Tudor mansion, the seat of P. N. Laurie, Esq.

"Lindfield Common, noted for growth of camomile, and called Camomile Common, is at the S of the village. Piano-forte-making employs many hands in a large establishment; and the making of bricks and tiles is carried on. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Chichester. Value: not reported. Patron: W. M. Kearns, Esq. The church is chiefly later English; has a tower which possibly is early English; comprises nave, aisles, transepts, and chancel; and contains a carved stone font, and monuments of the Board, Covert, Brett, and Crawfurd family. A church was anciently at Scaynes-Hill; and a suite of schools there, built in 1859, is used as a chapel of ease. There are an Independent chapel, with 500 sittings; a Baptist chapel, at Scaynes Hill; a church school, a neat edifice in the pointed style, at the N end of the village; and extensive British schools, built in 1825, by the philanthropic William Allen for giving instruction, not only in the ordinary branches of education, but also in gardening, agriculture, clothmaking, and other industrial arts."

Lindfield parish became Lindfield Rural parish in 1934, but small sections were transferred to Haywards Heath and to Cuckfield Rural (parish) at the same time. Lindfield Rural is redirected to Lindfield.

Research Tips

• The East Sussex Record Office, The Keep, Woollards Way, Brighton, BN1 9BP, United Kingdom (email thekeep@eastsussex.gov.uk) holds material for the Archdeaconry of Lewes, present-day East Sussex, and therefore generally holds historical material for East Sussex parishes only. An on-line catalogue for some of the collections held by the East Sussex Record Office (ESRO) is available under the Access to Archives (A2A) project (a nationwide facility housed at The National Archives, Kew).
• The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies' Sussex Collection (PDF). This is a 9-page PDF naming the files relating to Sussex in their collection-a possible first step in a course of research.
• Further resources may be found on GENUKI's main page on Sussex.
• The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.
• GENUKI on Lindfield
• A History of the County of Sussex provided by British History Online does not include articles on parishes that were part of Pevensey Rape.