| East Grinstead | |
|---|---|
 High Street | |
  East Grinstead Location withinWest Sussex | |
| Area | 24.43 km2 (9.43 sq mi) [1] |
| Population | 26,383 |
| • Density | 980/km2 (2,500/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | TQ395385 |
| • London | 26 mi (42 km)N |
| Civil parish |
|
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | EAST GRINSTEAD |
| Postcode district | RH19 |
| Dialling code | 01342 |
| Police | Sussex |
| Fire | West Sussex |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| UK Parliament | |
| Website | www |
| |
East Grinstead (/ˈɡrɪnstɛd,-stɪd/[2]) is a town inWest Sussex, England, near theEast Sussex,Surrey, andKent borders, 27 miles (43 km) south ofLondon, 21 miles (34 km) northeast ofBrighton, and 38 miles (61 km) northeast of the county town ofChichester. Situated in the northeast corner of the county, borderingSurrey, the civil parish has an area of 2,443.45 hectares (6,037.9 acres). The population at the 2011 Census was 26,383.[3]
Nearby towns includeCrawley andHorley to the west,Tunbridge Wells to the east andRedhill andReigate to the northwest. The town is contiguous with the village ofFelbridge to the northwest. Until 1974 East Grinstead was in East Sussex, before joining with Haywards Heath andBurgess Hill as the Mid-Sussex district of West Sussex.
The town is on theGreenwich Meridian. It has many historic buildings, and theWeald andAshdown Forest lie to the south-east.
The name Grinstead derives from theOld Englishgrēnestede meaning 'green place'.[4]
The High Street contains one of the longest continuous runs of 14th-century timber-framed buildings in England. Other notable buildings in the town includeSackville College, thesandstonealmshouse, built in 1609. In 1853 the warden of Sackville College,John Mason Neale, wrote theChristmas carol "Good King Wenceslas".[5] The college has sweeping views towardsAshdown Forest. The adjacentSt Swithun's Church stands on the highest ground in the town and was rebuilt in the eighteenth century (the tower dating from 1789) to a perpendicular design byJames Wyatt. The imposing structure dominates the surrounding countryside for many miles around. In the churchyard are commemorated the East Grinstead Martyrs, and in the south-east corner is the grave of John Mason Neale.
TheGreenwich Meridian runs through the grounds of the historic 1769 East Court mansion, home of the Town Council,[6] giving the visitor an opportunity to stand with a foot in both the east and west. The mansion stands in a parkland setting. In 1968, the East Grinstead Society[7] was founded as an independent body, both to protect the historically important buildings of East Grinstead (and its environs) and to improve the amenities for future generations.
Three miles (5 km) east of the town, inHammerwood, isHammerwood Park, a country house built byBenjamin Henry Latrobe in 1792, and once owned by therock bandLed Zeppelin. On the outskirts of the town isStanden, acountry house belonging to the National Trust, containing one of the best collections ofArts and Crafts movement furnishings and fabrics. Kidbrooke Park (today Michael Hall School), a home of the Hambro family, was restored by the noted Sussex architect and antiquarian,Walter Godfrey, as was Plawhatch Hall. East Grinstead House is the headquarters of the (UK and Ireland)Caravan Club.
During theSecond World War, theQueen Victoria Hospital developed a specialist burns unit led by SirArchibald McIndoe. It became world-famous for pioneering treatment of RAF and allied aircrew who were badly burned or crushed, and required reconstructive plastic surgery. In 1941 patients of McIndoe who had undergone experimental reconstructive plastic surgery formed theGuinea Pig Club, which then became a support network for the aircrew and their family members. The club remained active after the end of the war, and its annual reunion meetings at East Grinstead continued until 2007, when the club was wound down in view of the increasing frailty of its surviving members.[8] As such, the townspeople became very supportive of the patients at the Queen Victoria Hospital.[9] Even though many of the victims were horribly disfigured (often missing limbs, and in the worst cases faces, their faces made up of burn tissue), the townspeople would go out of their way to make the men feel normal.[9] Families invited the men to dinner, and girls asked them to go on dates. Patients of the burn units remember, and cherish, the charity received from the townspeople of East Grinstead.[9]
During the same War, the town became a secondary target forGerman bombers which failed to make their primary target elsewhere. On the afternoon of Friday 9 July 1943, aLuftwaffe bomber became separated from its squadron, followed the main railway line and circled the town twice, then dropped eight bombs. Two bombs, one with a delayed-action fuse, fell on the Whitehall Theatre, a cinema on the London Road, where 184 people at the matinée show were watching aHopalong Cassidy film before the main feature. A total of 108 people were killed in the raid, including children in the cinema, many of whom were evacuees; and some twenty Canadian servicemen stationed locally, who were either in the cinema when it was hit, or arrived minutes later to help with rescuing survivors. A further 235 were injured. This was the largest loss of life of any singleair raid inSussex.[10]
In the winter of 2010, Claque Theatre produced the East Grinstead Community Play, which focussed on the bombing of the town in 1943, the work ofArchibald McIndoe and his team at the hospital, and the Guinea Pig Club and its members. It was performed by local residents.[11] On 9 June 2014The Princess Royal unveiled a monument to Sir Archibald McIndoe and the Guinea Pigs. It stands in front ofSackville College at the east end of the High Street. It was funded by a public appeal and sculpted byMartin Jennings, whose own father was aGuinea Pig. It depicts a burned airman looking to the sky, with McIndoe placing reassuring hands on his shoulders. The stone ring around the statue is for visitors to sit and reflect and in doing so become part of the story representing "The town that did not stare".[12]
In 2006, the East Grinstead Town Museum[13] was moved to new custom-built premises in the historic centre of the town, and successfully re-opened to the public as theEast Grinstead Museum. Chequer Mead Theatre[14] includes a modern 336-seat[15]] purpose-built auditorium, which stages professional and amateur plays/musicals and music (localrock groups tochamber music orchestras),opera,ballet,folk music,tribute bands, film, event cinema and talks. The venue also has a popular spacious cafe with outdoor seating.
In addition to the nearbyAshdown Forest, East Grinstead is served by theForest Way andWorth Way linear Country Parks which follow the disused railway line fromThree Bridges all the way through toGroombridge and which are part of theSustrans national cycle network.
East Grinstead has an unusually diverse range of religious and spiritual organisations for a town of its size.[16][17][18]
A broad range of mainstreamChristian denominations have places of worship in the town.ProtestantNonconformism has featured especially prominently for the last two centuries, in common with other parts of northern Sussex.[19] Several other religious groups have connections with the town, from merely owning property to having national headquarters there.[18]
TheChurch of England has four places of worship in the town.St Swithun's Church was founded in the 11th century. ArchitectJames Wyatt rebuilt it in local stone in 1789 after it became derelict and collapsed.[20][21] Near the entrance to the church, three stones mark the supposed ashes of Anne Tree, Thomas Dunngate andJohn Forman who were burned asmartyrs on 18 July 1556 because they would not renounce theProtestant faith.John Foxe wrote about them in his 1,800-pageFoxe's Book of Martyrs.[22] Two other churches are in St Swithun's parish.[23]
St Luke's Church, in Holtye Avenue on the Stone Quarry estate, was built in 1954 to serve the northeast of the town.[24] The church was demolished around 2014 and flats have been built at the location. St Barnabas' Church in Dunnings Road serves the south of the town. The present wooden structure of 1975 replaced an older church built in 1912.[25] The fourth church, in the northwest of the town, is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. Built by W.T. Lowdell over a 21-year period beginning in 1891, theDecoratedGothic Revival church was consecrated in 1905 and has its own parish. It was established by adherents of theOxford Movement, and services still follow a moreAnglo-Catholic style than East Grinstead's other Anglican churches.[20][26][27]
East Grinstead's firstNonconformist church was the Zion Chapel, built in 1810 for theCountess of Huntingdon's Connexion. The small evangelicalCalvinistic group owned the church until 1980; it is now used byBaptists and is calledWest Street Baptist Church.[27][28] Trinity Methodist Church is the much-expanded successor to older places ofMethodist worship in the town; the community dates back to 1868.[20][27][29] TheUnited Reformed Church community meets in the Moat Church, a formerCongregational chapel built in theEarly EnglishGothic Revival style in 1870.[20][27]
A 2007 book also noted the New Life Church—aNewfrontiersevangelical charismatic church—the Kingdom Faith Church, another independent charismatic congregation, and the Full Gospel Church.[18]
Roman Catholics worship at theChurch of Our Lady and St Peter, founded in 1898 by Edward Blount of theBlount baronetcy, a resident of nearbyWorth.[30]Opus Dei has a conference centre at Wickenden Manor near the town,[31] andRosicrucians also have a presence in nearby Greenwood Gate.[32]
Jehovah's Witnesses worship at a modernKingdom Hall. The community, established in 1967, previously used a formerSalvation Army building.[29]
Themeetinghouse of theLDS Church on Ship Street was built in 1985.[33] TheLondon England Temple ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is just over theSurrey border atNewchapel.[34]
The United Kingdom (and former world) headquarters of theChurch of Scientology is atSaint Hill Manor on the southwestern edge of East Grinstead. Scientology's founderL. Ron Hubbard bought theGeorgian mansion and its 24 hectares (59 acres; 0.24 km2) of grounds from theMaharaja ofJaipur in 1959 and lived in the town until 1967.[18]
The East Grinstead Town Centre Master Plan was adopted on 10 July 2006 as a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). The scheme proposed regeneration of the town centre in association with Thornfield Properties PLC. Thornfield Properties had submitted plans to the council for the start of an ambitious development of the Queens Walk and West Street area. It was expected that other redevelopment companies would fulfil targets outlined in the SPD over the next 20 years.[35]
Gatwick Airport is 10 miles (16 km) from the town, whilstRedhill Aerodrome andBiggin Hill Airport are both within half an hour's drive.Hammerwood Park has a helicopter landing site for visiting pilots (3.5 miles (5.6 km) from the town).
East Grinstead station became a railway terminus in 1967, after the line fromThree Bridges toRoyal Tunbridge Wells was closed under theBeeching cuts, a rationalisation ofBritish Railways' branch lines based on a report by DrRichard Beeching, a resident of the town at that time.[36] The line toLewes, part of theBluebell Railway, closed in 1958.
In the late 1970s, the town's inner relief road was built along a section of one of the closed railway lines and is officially named "Beeching Way". It has been nicknamed "Beeching Cut" as it runs through a cutting and was once one of the lines that Beeching cut.[37] Much of rest of the trackbed of the disusedThree Bridges to Groombridge line now forms the route of theWorth Way andForest Way, linear Country Parks allowing access to the Wealden countryside.
A part of theLewes line was re-constructed by theBluebell Railway,[38] a nearby preservedstandard-gauge railway. The extension work was carried out in stages. The first paid-passenger service departed from East Grinstead station at 9:45 on Saturday 23 March 2013, and the first train left Sheffield Park for East Grinstead at 9:30 a.m. with services running each way every 45 minutes thereafter.[39][40]
The town lies on the junction of theA22 andA264 roads. For just over one mile (1.6 km), from just to the north of the Town Centre toFelbridge village inSurrey, the two routes use the same stretch of single carriageway road. This is one of the principal causes of traffic congestion in the town.
The town is within commuting distance ofLondon (about 30 miles (50 km)) andCrawley/Gatwick (about 10 miles (16 km)) by road. According to the 2001Census, one in eight residents commuted to Crawley and Gatwick Airport for work with over 98% travelling by car.
Education in the town is provided through both state and independent schools.West SussexCounty Council provides seven primary schools along with two secondary schools. All these schools are co-educational and comprehensive. Private secondary education is provided by several day and boarding schools in the surrounding areas straddling Kent and Sussex.
Queen Victoria Hospital was founded as acottage hospital in 1863, and was rebuilt on its current site in the 1930s. Queen Victoria Hospital has been known for its burns treatment facilities and expertise.[8]
There are many facilities for mental healthcare in East Grinstead, including Springvale Community Mental Health Centre[41] and Charters Court.[42]
East Grinstead istwinned with:
East Grinstead is served by local sports and social clubs. Municipal facilities include theKing George's Field, which was left to the town by a local benefactor and was named as a memorial toKing George V. The King's Centre leisure centre, currently owned and operated by Mid Sussex District Council is on this land. The centre includes an indoor swimming pool and other facilities such as a gym and sports hall.[45]
There are floodlit tennis courts and bowling green at Mount Noddy and also tennis courts and a variety of pitches at East Court whereNon-League football clubEast Grinstead Town F.C. play. The athletics club, East Grinstead AC, which was formed in 1978 train atImberhorne School.[46] The senior team competes in the Southern Athletics League Division 3 and has young athletes teams competing in regional leagues. East Grinstead Rugby Football Club currently play in Harvey's of Sussex 1. EGRFC are supported by a junior section which fields teams from Under 18's down to Under 7's. East Grinstead is also home toEast Grinstead Hockey Club and East Grinstead Lacrosse Club established in 2004, with two men's teams and a women's team catering to a variety of skill levels.[47]
East Grinstead Runners meet every Tuesday and Thursday evenings usually at the station top car park for various training runs and every Sunday morning for the Sunday social which is always on the trails around town.[citation needed]
Chequer Mead Theatre (formerly Chequer Mead Community Arts Centre) was built in the 1990s and is a 336-seat theatre.[48] It is home to the East Grinstead Music & Arts Festival, which exists to encourage and promote dancing, singing and speech and drama inSussex and neighbouring counties. The honorary vice-president of the festival in 2018 was former ballerinaBeryl Grey.[49] Local groups include the East Grinstead Choral Society and the East Grinstead Operatic Society.[50]
There were two weekly newspapers: theEast Grinstead Courier, published each Tuesday byLocal World Ltd and theEast Grinstead Gazette, published each Wednesday by theJohnston Press.
Local news and television programmes are provided byBBC South East andBBC London onBBC One, andITV Meridian andITV London onITV1. Television signals are received from either theHeathfield[51] andCrystal Palace TV transmitters.[52] However, the local relay transmitter only broadcasts programmes fromLondon.[53]
The town is covered by bothBBC Radio Surrey on 104.0 FM andBBC Radio Sussex on 104.5 FM. Other radio stations includingHeart South on 102.7 FM,Greatest Hits Radio South on 106.6 FM and107 Meridian FM, a based community station which from the town on 107 FM and also online.
 | This sectionmay containirrelevant references topopular culture. Please helpimprove it by removing such content and addingcitations toreliable,independent sources.(April 2021) |
In 1994, a documentary,Why East Grinstead?, was produced forChannel 4'sWitness strand of documentaries. It sought to examine and explain the convergence of such a wide variety of religious organisations in the East Grinstead area. The documentary, produced by Zed Productions and directed by Ian Sellar, reached no definite conclusion: explanations ranged from the local presence ofley lines to the more prosaic idea that religious leaders had settled there because they liked the views.[18][54]
In 2016The Guardian called East Grinstead "Britain's strangest town", citing the presence of TheChurch of Scientology, theAncient and Mystical Order Rosæ Crucis, the ultra-Catholic order ofOpus Dei,Christian Scientists, AshworthDowsers and thePagan Federation.[55]
In 2017,The Economist published an article titled "The Joy of Sects" asking why Scientologists, Mormons, Opus Dei and others have settled around East Grinstead. It reported views that included ley lines, proximity to London, and to the experience of the Second World War when "Archibald McIndoe, a plastic surgeon, treated desperately disfigured servicemen at the local Queen Victoria Hospital. East Grinstead was dubbed 'the town that did not stare', for its warmth and openness towards the outsiders."[56]
East Grinstead is the destination of the adulterous lovers Norman and Annie inAlan Ayckbourn's trilogy of plays entitledThe Norman Conquests. It was chosen because Norman, after some effort, could not get in at Hastings. In the 1977 Thames Television version of the trilogy, Norman and Annie were portrayed byTom Conti andPenelope Wilton.
East Grinstead also features inChristopher Fowler's novel,Psychoville (1995), in which the town features as harbouring the fictional Invicta Cross, as well as the eventual New Invicta. The town of New Invicta was later used byJo Amey inHeist as a safehouse.
East Grinstead is the home of Harry Witherspoon, one of the lead characters in a musical comedy byStephen Flaherty andLynn Ahrens calledLucky Stiff.
East Grinstead is the home town of the pop bandRight Said Fred.
The following people and military units have received theFreedom of the Parish of East Grinstead.
 |
Neighbouring areas | |
|---|---|
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Geographic | |
| Other | |
