Hassocks

The area first became a centre of population around 20,000 years ago during the Stone Age. These people were mostly nomadic until approximately 5,000 years ago. Around this time, the first farmers settled on and around the South Downs, a mile to the south of the village. They travelled from the continent, bringing with them various types of farming livestock. Evidence of their existence has been found in the form of tools and dwellings around Stonepound Crossroads and in the Parklands area.

Around 600 B.C. the first metal workers came to the area with the beginning of the Bronze Age, and a good example of an Iron Age fort is to be found on the top of the nearby Wolstonbury Hill on the South Downs.[5]

The area was colonised by the Romans and a Roman cemetery was found by Stonepound Crossroads. Modern Hassocks is thought to have stood at a Roman crossroads on the London to Brighton Way between Londinium Augusta (modern London) to Novus Portus (possibly modern Portslade) (running north–south) and the Greensand Way Roman road from modern Hardham to a north–south road at Barford Mills north of Lewes and possibly further to Pevensey.[6][7] With the demise of the Roman Empire came an influx of Anglo-Saxons and the eventual reintroduction of stone buildings, such as the parish church of St. John the Baptist in the nearby village of Clayton, which is believed to have been built around the 11th Century.

The opening on 21 September 1841 of Hassocks Gate station (named after the nearby toll gate on the turnpike road to Brighton, but now known simply as Hassocks) on the London to Brighton railway saw the beginning of the village that can be seen today. South of the village the railway passes beneath the chalk escarpment of the South Downs through Clayton Tunnel, which at 6,777 feet (2,066 m) is the longest of the five tunnels on the railway. The north entrance of the tunnel is distinguished by a castellated portal with a dwelling house between the two towers. The latter might have been built for the use of the man who had to look after the gas lighting in the tunnel (for several years after opening the interior of the tunnel was whitewashed and lit by gas lamps, presumably to allay the fears of early railway travellers).[8] In 1861 a collision between two trains within the tunnel killed 23 people and injured 176 others.

In the 1930s the Grand Avenue residential area, along with several other roads, was developed by George Ferguson on the site of former orchards and the Orchard Pleasure Gardens. A special feature of the Hassocks Homes development ordered by Mr Ferguson was the planting of flowering cherry trees along the main roads.

1939 saw the beginning of World War II, and the closure of the cinema in September of that year for the duration (it was still going in the 1950s). Evacuations then began from London bringing an additional 1,250 to the population.

Another eastward view along Keymer Road, from the railway overbridge.

Hassocks has a mixture of shops. The village also benefits from having a well-used community centre called Adastra Hall which is used for a wide range of community and private events.

The former council buildings housing the road maintenance department on London Road have been demolished and have become a number of homes, whilst the land given to the people of Hassocks (via East Sussex County Council) by a benefactor, previously used by a children's charity, was built upon in 2014/15 the charity having claimed ownership.[9]

Two miles west of Hassocks in the adjoining village of Hurstpierpoint lies Danny House, an Elizabethan manor where David Lloyd George came to draw up terms for the armistice at the end of World War I.

On the downs above Hassocks there are two windmills, named Clayton Windmills but known locally as "Jack and Jill". Jack is a tower mill and was built in 1866. Jill, a post mill, was built in Dyke Road in Brighton in 1821 and was later moved to Clayton in 1852 by a team of oxen. The working life of the mills ended in about 1906, and Jack is now in private ownership; Jill was restored in 1986 and is open to the public. To the North East of the village can be found Oldland Mill.

Hassocks civil parish contains 27 listed buildings. Of these, one is Grade I, three are Grade II* and the remaining 23 buildings are Grade II.

Grade I listed buildings:

• The Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Clayton, an Anglo-Saxon church, noted for its 12th century wall paintings (List Entry Number 1286147).[10]

Grade II* listed buildings:

• Ockley Manor (List Entry Number 1285397), an early 18th century house.[11]
• Clayton Priory (List Entry Number 1354811), a Regency country house built about 1820. The architect was possibly John Rebecca of Worthing.[12]
• Clayton Windmills and the Millhouse Attached (List Entry Number 1354812), better known as 'Jack and Jill' windmills.[13]

The parish contains one scheduled monument:

• Round barrows West of Ditchling Beacon (List Entry Number 1005830), four bowl barrows, forming part of a round barrow cemetery. The barrows have been levelled by ploughing but survive as buried remains.[14]

There is a Site of Special Scientific Interest within the parish. Clayton to Offham Escarpment, which stretches from Hassocks in the west, passing through many parishes including Ditchling, to Lewes in the East. This site is of biological importance due to its rare chalk grassland habitat along with its woodland and scrub.[15]

Butchers Wood

To the south of Hassocks is a small 7.12 hectares (17.6 acres) ancient woodland known as Butcher's Wood. The wood is mainly oak and hazel with a large bluebell ground flora.[16] It was acquired by the Woodland Trust in 1988.

On the north-western edge of the village, on the London Road, is the Friars Oak, formerly a coaching inn, adjoining open meadows known as Friars Oak Fields.