TheWeald (/ˈwiːld/) is an area ofSouth East England between the parallelchalkescarpments of theNorth and theSouth Downs. It crosses the counties ofHampshire,Surrey,West Sussex,East Sussex, andKent. It has three parts, thesandstone "High Weald" in the centre, theclay "Low Weald" periphery and theGreensand 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, as scattered farms and villages sometimes refer to the Weald in their names.
The name "Weald" is derived from theOld Englishweald, meaning "forest" (cognate of GermanWald, but unrelated to English "wood"). This comes from a Germanic root of the same meaning, and ultimately fromIndo-European.Weald is specifically aWest Saxon form;wold is theAnglian form of the word.[1] TheMiddle English form of the word iswēld, and the modern spelling is a reintroduction of the Old English form attributed to its use byWilliam Lambarde in hisA Perambulation of Kent of 1576.[2]
In early medieval Britain, the area had the nameAndredes weald, meaning "the forest of Andred", the latter derived fromAnderida, the Roman name of present-dayPevensey. The area is also referred to in early English texts asAndredesleage, where the second element,leage, is another Old English word for "woodland", represented by the modernleigh.[3]The adjective for "Weald" is "wealden".
The Weald is the eroded remains of a geological structure, ananticline, a dome of layeredLower Cretaceousrocks cut through byweathering to expose the layers assandstone ridges andclay valleys. The oldest rocks exposed at the centre of the anticline are correlated with thePurbeck Beds of theUpper Jurassic. Above these, the Cretaceous rocks, include theWealden Group of alternating sands and clays – theAshdown Sand Formation,Wadhurst Clay Formation,Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation (collectively known as theHastings Beds) and theWeald Clay. TheWealden Group is overlain by theLower Greensand and theGault Formation, consisting of theGault and theUpper Greensand.[4]
The rocks of the central part of the anticline include hard sandstones, and these form hills now called theHigh Weald. The peripheral areas are mostly of softer sandstones and clays and form a gentler rolling landscape, theLow Weald. TheWeald–Artois Anticline continues some 40 miles (64 km) further south-eastwards under theStraits of Dover, and includes theBoulonnais ofFrance.[4]
Many important fossils have been found in the sandstones and clays of the Weald, including, for example,Baryonyx. The famous scientific hoax ofPiltdown Man was claimed to have come from a gravel pit atPiltdown nearUckfield. The firstIguanodon was identified after the fossil collector and illustratorMary Ann Mantell supposedly unearthed some fossilised teeth by a road in Sussex in 1822. Her husband, the geologistGideon Mantell sent them to various experts and this important find led to the discovery of dinosaurs.[5]The area contains significant reserves ofshale oil, totalling 4.4 billionbarrels of oil in the Wealden basin according to a 2014 study, which then Business and Energy MinisterMichael 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.[6]
Prehistoric evidence suggests that, following theMesolithic hunter-gatherers, theNeolithic inhabitants had turned to farming, with the resultant clearance of the forest. With theIron Age came the first use of the Weald as an industrial area. Wealden sandstones containironstone, and with the additional presence of large amounts of timber for makingcharcoal for fuel, the area was the centre of theWealden iron industry from then, through theRoman times, until the last forge was closed in 1813.[7][8] 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-centuryAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Weald measured 120 miles (193 km) or longer by 30 miles (48 km) in the Saxon era, stretching fromLympne, nearRomney Marsh in Kent, to theForest of Bere or even theNew Forest in Hampshire.[9] 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 asDartmoor,the Fens and theForest of Arden.[9] The Weald was used for centuries, possibly since theIron Age, fortranshumance of animals alongdroveways in the summer months.[9] 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 fortranshumance 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 thekings of Sussex. The pattern of droveways which occurs across the rest of the Weald is absent from these areas.[9] These areas includeSt Leonard's Forest, Worth Forest,Ashdown Forest andDallington Forest.
The forests of the Weald were often used as a place of refuge and sanctuary. TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle relates events during theAnglo-Saxon conquest ofSussex when the nativeBritons (whom the Anglo-Saxons calledWelsh) were driven from the coastal towns into the recesses of the forest for sanctuary,:
A.D. 477. This year cameÆlle to Britain, with his three sons, Cymen, and Wlenking, andCissa, in three ships; landing at a place that is calledCymenshore. There they slew many of the Welsh; and some in flight they drove into the wood that is called Andred'sley.[10]
Until theLate Middle Ages the forest was a notorious hiding place for criminals.[11]
Settlements on the Weald are widely scattered. Villages evolved from small settlements in the woods, typically four to five miles (six to eight kilometres) apart; close enough to be an easy walk but not so close as to encourage unnecessary intrusion. Few of the settlements are mentioned in theDomesday Book; howeverGoudhurst'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 forpannage 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 ofThanet. 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.[7]
In 1216 during theFirst Barons' War, a guerilla force of archers from the Weald, led byWilliam of Cassingham (nicknamed Willikin of the Weald), ambushed the French occupying army led byPrince Louis nearLewes and drove them to the coast atWinchelsea. 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.[12] In 1264 during theSecond Barons' War, the royalist army of KingHenry III of England marched through the Weald in order to force the submission of theCinque Ports. Even though they were not aligned with the rebellious barons, the Weald's natives – mostly operating as archers – opposed the royalist advance, usingguerrilla warfare. 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 theBattle Abbey for the disloyalty of its tenants.[13]
In the first edition ofOn The Origin of Species,Charles Darwin used an estimate for the erosion of the chalk,sandstone and clay strata of the Weald in histheory of natural selection. Charles Darwin was a follower of Lyell's theory ofuniformitarianism 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 ofsolar fusion – he calculated the Sun had been burning for less than a million years, and put the outside limit of theage 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 ofOn the Origin of Species.[14]
Modern chronostratigraphy shows that the Weald Clays were laid down around 130 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous.[15]
The Weald begins north-east ofPetersfield inHampshire and extends acrossSurrey andKent in the north, and Sussex in the south. The western parts in Hampshire and West Sussex, known as theWestern Weald, are included in theSouth Downs National Park. Other protected parts of the Weald are included in theSurrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and theHigh Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In extent it covers about 85 miles (137 km) from west to east, and about 30 miles (48 km) from north to south, covering an area of some 500 square miles (1,300 km2). The eastern end of the High Weald, theEnglish Channel coast, is marked in the centre by the high sandstone cliffs fromHastings toPett Level; and by former sea cliffs now fronted by the Pevensey and Romney Marshes on either side.
Much of theHigh Weald, the central part, is designated as the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its landscape is described as one of
rolling hills, studded with sandstoneoutcrops and cut by streams to form steep-sided ravines (called gills); small irregular-shaped fields and patches of heathland, abundant woodlands; scattered farmsteads and sunken lanes and paths.[16]
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 ofAndredesweald.[17]
There are centres of settlement, the largest of which areHorsham,Burgess Hill,East Grinstead,Haywards Heath,Tonbridge,Tunbridge Wells,Crowborough; and the area along the coast from Hastings andBexhill-on-Sea toRye andHythe.
The geological map shows the High Weald in lime green (9a).
TheLow Weald,[18] the periphery of the Weald, is shown as darker green on the map (9),[19] 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 aroundCrawley, have been utilised for urban use: here areGatwick Airport and its related developments and theHorley-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, althoughAshford,Sevenoaks andReigate lie immediately on the northern edge. Settlements tend to be small and linear, because of its original wooded nature and heavy clay soils.[20]
The Weald is drained by the many streams radiating from it, the majority being tributaries of the surrounding major rivers: particularly theMole,Medway,Stour,Rother,Cuckmere,Ouse,Adur andArun. Many of these streams provided the power for thewatermills,blast furnaces and hammers of the iron industry and the cloth mills.
TheM25,M26 andM20 motorways all use theVale of Holmesdale to the north, and therefore run along or near the northern edge of the Weald. TheM23/A23 road toBrighton, 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 busyA21 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. TheBrighton Main Line followed the same route as its road predecessors: although it necessitated thelong tunnel near Balcombe and theOuse Valley Viaduct. Tributaries of the River Ouse provided some assistance in the building of now-closedEast Grinstead-Lewes and theUckfield-Lewes lines. The principalmain-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.
Severallong-distance footpaths criss-cross the Weald, and it is well-mapped recreationally, covered by routes from:
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Weald" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
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 thetopography 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 theWestern Rother. Historically the area of cereals grown has varied greatly with changes in prices, increasing during theNapoleonic Wars and during and sinceWorld War II.
About 60% of the High Weald farmed land is grassland, with about 20% being arable.[21]
The Weald has its own breed of cattle, called theSussex, although the breed 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 byArthur Young in his bookAgriculture 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 novelMemoirs of a Fox-hunting Man, the poet and novelistSiegfried Sassoon refers to "the agricultural serenity of the Weald widespread in the delicate hazy sunshine".
Viticulture 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[22][23]
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 asheathland, the largest remaining areas of which are inAshdown Forest and nearThursley.
Although common inFrance, the wildboar became extinct inGreat Britain by the 17th century, but wild breeding populations have recently returned in the Weald, following escapes from boar farms.[24][25]
The Weald has been associated with many writers, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These includeVita Sackville-West (1892–1962),Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) andRudyard Kipling (1865–1936). The setting forA.A. Milne'sWinnie-the-Pooh stories was inspired byAshdown Forest, near Milne's country home atHartfield.[26]John Evelyn (1620–1706), whose family estate wasWotton House on theRiver Tillingbourne nearDorking, Surrey, was an essayist, diarist, and early author of botany, gardening and geography. The second half ofE. M. Forster'sA 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, nearWesterham, 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."[a][28]
In the early 21st century, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council promoted "Seven Wonders of the Weald":
The game ofcricket may have originated prior to the 13th century in the Weald .[29] The related game ofstoolball 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.[30]
Several other areas in southern England have the name "Weald", includingNorth Weald inEssex, andHarrow Weald in north-westLondon.
"Wold" is used as the name for various open rolling upland areas in the North of England, including theYorkshire Wolds and theLincolnshire Wolds, although these are, by contrast, chalk uplands.
TheCotswolds are a major geographical feature of central England, forming a south-west to north-east line across the country.
