Halland - (Ancient Slaughter)

General Details

Halland in East Sussex is a small straggling village on the A22 London to Eastbourne main road. The village is located on a cross road, what is now a roundabout, where the Heathfield to Lewes road crosses the A22 .

Until the late 1890s Halland was known as The Nursery .

There are two legend about Terrible Down and why it came to be named that way. The first is that Alfred the Great fought the vikings here and that the slaughter was so terrible that the streams ran red with blood. The second is that Henry III'd army that was defeated at the Battle of Lewes by Simon de Montfort turned to face their pursuers at Terrible Down, and were cut down to a man.

Halland has been dominated by the Pelham family from about 1595 to 1768. In 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers a knight from Laughton Sir John Pelham together with Sir Roger De La Warr captured Jean the King of France, because of this the Sir John was given the Kings belt buckle as a badge of honour. This badge can be seen in many churches in the area showing the influence and power of the Pelham family. ( see Laughton and East Hoathly ) In 1595 the Pelham family built a new house in Halland because the 'air was nicer' presumably less damp than in Laughton as it lies lower in the valley.

The area was tied to the iron industry as it is close to the Waldron and Heathfield furnaces and the charcoal works at Blackboys the results are visible as there are iron milestones in the area with the Pelham Buckle on them. The village was probably used as a resting point for the teams of oxen pulling the completed cannons to Lewes .

The Pelhams left Halland in 1768 to move to Stanmer, possibly due to the air polution from the nearby furnaces, Halland Place was demolished and used for building materials.

Views

Looking south west from Halland in East Sussex you can see the South Downs which are very imposing , even from this distance.

The whole area is made up of rolling hills and farming land which is very attractive especially when the trees have come back into leaf.

The gliders from nearby Ringmer Gliding Club can be seen circling on warm summer weekends.

Services

Halland in East Sussex has a few local village services, with one or two larger concerns, which rely on the A22 for business.

The nearest shopping centre is at Uckfield about 6 miles to the north up the A22, together with the nearest train service to London.

Larger shops can be found at Lewes , the county town about 10 miles south west.

Map

Halland is shown as the red symbol on the map.

Nearby Villages
(click on symbol to see the village page)

Barcombe

(Village in three places)

5.24 miles

Blackboys

(Charcoal and Soot)

2.22 miles

Broad Oak

(Smallpox at the Academy)

7.41 miles

Cade Street

(Jack Cade and the Kentish rebellion)

6.97 miles

Chiddingly

(Walking on Cheese ??)

3.02 miles

Cross in Hand

(The Crusaders Assembly)

4.91 miles

East Hoathly

(Another Sussex Cannibal?)

1.33 miles

Framfield

(380 years without a church tower)

2.46 miles

Heathfield

(19th Century Natural Gas)

5.88 miles

Hellingly

(Only remaining Ciric in Sussex)

5.62 miles

Horam

(Which Station do we get off at ?)

4.71 miles

Isfield

(Simon de Montfort and the Lavender Line)

3.12 miles

Laughton

(Knight captures King of France)

2.16 miles

Newick

(Killer Cricket and Dirk Bogarde)

6.19 miles

Piltdown

(The Piltdown Man hoax)

4.86 miles

Ringmer

(Poor Roads and riots)

4.38 miles

Uckfield

(Traction Engine destroys bridge)

3.11 miles

Vines Cross

(Cannons and Doodlebugs)

5.75 miles

Waldron

(Fullers Earth)

3.40 miles

Warbleton

(The Iron Man)

6.72 miles

West Dean

(Alfred the Great's Palace)

40.19 miles

Local Businesses

Battle Brewery our local excellent micro brewery

It's the year 1906. Rumours abound that a deadly plot is hatching - not in the fog-ridden back-alleys of London's Limehouse district or the sinister Devon moors of the Hound of the Baskervilles but in faraway Peking...

The Bald Explorer for local documentaries