West Hoathly

West Hoathly is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England, located 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south west of East Grinstead. In the 2001 census 2,121 people, of whom 1,150 were economically active, lived in 813 households. At the 2011 Census the population increased to 2,181. The parish, which has a land area of 2,139 hectares (5,290 acres), includes the hamlets of Highbrook, Selsfield Common and Sharpthorne. The mostly rural parish is centred on West Hoathly village, an ancient hilltop settlement in the High Weald between the North and South Downs.

The area was already settled by the 11th century, when St Margaret's Church was founded. Names recorded at that time include Hadlega and Hodlega—later standardised to Hodlegh and Hothelegh, then (West) Hoathly. This Anglo-Saxon word signifies a heath-covered clearing. The parish lay on the edge of the dense woodland of the Ashdown Forest.

At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the land covered by the present parish was held by the manors of Ditchling and Plumpton to the southeast. The rectory of the church was associated with Lewes Priory. By the 16th century, the manor of Gravetye was in existence. Gravetye Manor house, built in 1598, still stands in extensive grounds 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village.

In 1556, West Hoathly resident Ann Tree was burnt at the stake in East Grinstead for refusing to renounce Protestantism; she was one of 17 "Sussex Martyrs" who suffered this fate. A brass memorial in the church commemorates her.

In 1624, a cricket team from West Hoathly was involved in what is believed to be the earliest known organised match in Sussex, which took place at Horsted Keynes.

West Hoathly was connected to the British railway network when the Lewes and East Grinstead Railway was built in 1882. A station was provided east of the village, between the village itself and Sharpthorne.

The line passed under a sandstone ridge by means of a 731yd long tunnel. The line and station closed on 16 March 1958, and the station stood derelict for many years, with the footbridge and down-platform buildings removed in 1964 and the station house demolished in 1967. The preserved Bluebell Railway, (now 11 miles in length) runs along part of the route of the former Lewes and East Grinstead Railway. The West Hoathly station site was purchased by the Bluebell Railway on 30 November 1975, and the line re-opened through the site in 1992, but the station itself otherwise remains disused.

Also known as "Great-upon-Little", this natural landscape formation is in a wooded area southwest of the village, near the road to Ardingly. It is an exposed outcrop of sandstone with a harder band overlying a soft stratum at ground level. The lower stratum has weathered significantly, making the upper section overhang like the cap of a mushroom.