Chiddingly (/ˈtʃɪdɪŋlaɪ/CHID-ing-lye) is an English village and civil parish in the Wealden District of the administrative county of East Sussex, within historic Sussex, some five miles (8 km) northwest of Hailsham.
The parish is rural in character: it includes the village of Chiddingly and a collection of hamlets: the largest of these being Muddles Green and Thunder's Hill; others being Gun Hill, Whitesmith, Holmes Hill, Golden Cross, Broomham and Upper Dicker.[3] It covers 7 square miles (18 km2) of countryside. Of the more than 340 dwellings in the parish, over fifty have the word "Farm" in their postal address.
Geography
The parish is in the Low Weald. Like Rome and Sheffield, it is situated over seven hills: Thunders Hill; Gun Hill; Pick Hill; Stone Hill; Scrapers Hill; Burgh Hill, and Holmes Hill,[4] which is on the A22 road in the south of the parish. Tributaries of the River Cuckmere flow both north and south of the village.
The parish is situated in the Hundred of Shiplake, and within Pevensey Rape.
Governance
Chiddingly is part of the electoral ward called Chiddingly and East Hoathly. The population of this ward taken at the 2011 Census was 3,220.[5]
The Domesday Book of 1086 refers to Cetelingei: the final -ly of the name shows it to have had Saxon origins. The 'Chiddingly Boar', found in 1999, was a gilt-silver hat badge likely to have belonged to a supporter of Richard III during the Wars of the Roses, and probably lost or discarded in the 1480s; it is now in the British Museum and has been adopted as the emblem of the parish Bonfire Society who process through the streets of Sussex each autumn bearing a taxidermy wild boar's head (called Sue) by way of a standard. Many contemporary badges of a similar design were made of pewter, but the Chiddingly example is one of only three known pieces fashioned from precious metals - another having been found on the site of Richard's denouement at the Battle of Bosworth, and the third on the foreshore of the River Thames.[6]
There are a large number of manorial buildings in the parish, including Chiddingly Place, rebuilt c. 1574[7] by Sir John Jefferay, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1577; scattered remnants of its E-shaped wings remain, such as the east wing, later called "The Chapel/Chapel Barn" and now known as 'Jefferay House', and sections of the main range west of the demolished Great Hall.[8]
Points of interest
The Granary, the Farm and Chapel-Barn of Chiddingly Place
The annual Chiddingly Festival includes various entertainments around the village.[12] Chiddingly had four public houses: The Six Bells Inn in the village and The Gun Inn - both of which are still open - The Golden Cross Inn (which closed in 2015 and has now been converted to flats) and The Bat & Ball at Holmes Hill, closed for many years and now a private residence. Chiddingly has a village hall.
Chiddingly also has a museum and archive.[13] The Farley Farm House gallery features the lives and work of Roland Penrose and Lee Miller and is open for guided tours on pre-determined days.
Stone Hill is a well preserved medieval hall house dating from the 15th century, with a large park garden.[14] In the early 20th century, the house was owned by J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, who lived here until 1934. In the 1970s/1980s the property was owned by composer and pianist Keith Emerson (founder of The Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer), who lived here with his family. At his Steinway piano in the barn he composed famous music pieces, such as Karn Evil 9 and Piano Concerto No.1.
Chiddingly Parish Bonfire Society
There is a thriving bonfire society which represents the Parish during the Sussex Bonfire season, and hosts its own event in late November. Given the importance to the village of the iron industry since its first manifestation under the Romans, these celebrations also include reference to Old Clem's Night - traditional festivities intended to venerate St Clement, patron saint of blacksmiths. At other locations where the same folk ritual is observed - and attended by genuine blacksmiths - a high point is 'the firing of the anvil' where a charge of black powder is placed in the hardy or pritchel hole of a real anvil, and ignited to general acclaim. The bonfire society instead fabricate an enormous anvil from heavy-duty cardboard, stuff it with pyrotechnics and blow the thing to pieces as a precursor to their main firework display.
