The Village
In the centre is the village green which, together with the shops, the Crown pub and the Free Church, form the focal point. The village has two churches, St Leonard's Anglican church, on a ridge of the hill, and Turners Hill Free Church. St Leonard's was built in 1895-7 by Lacy Ridge, with porches and the rock-faced tower added by Sir Aston Webb in 1923. The stained glass windows are all by Charles Eamer Kempe. The reredos seems to be a composite of salvaged pieces from different sources. The Free Church building dates from 1906 and replaced by a church on the same site built by the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion.
The village has two pubs, the Crown and the Red Lion. Facilities for football, netball, five-a-side and tennis are available on the large recreation ground while the cricket club now has its own ground. There is a Victorian primary school, Turners Hill Church of England primary school, which has recently been extended, and has a wind turbine. Pupils usually move to Imberhorne School after year six. A community centre, The Ark, and parish council facilities involving a village housing scheme has been built adjacent to the recreation ground.
The area to the north of the cross-roads represents the major residential development in recent years while the older parts of the village, and in particular Lion Lane, have retained their historic character. Many buildings date from the 17th and 18th centuries and a number have been listed by the Department of the Environment. The village centre with its pubs and churches has been designated a conservation area.
Read more about this topic: Turners Hill
Famous quotes containing the word village:
“Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homoeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)