Hassocks - History

History

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.

The area was colonised by the Romans and a Roman cemetery was found by Stonepound Crossroads. Modern Hassocks seems 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. 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 village became better known after 2 April 1839 when the first railway line was laid between London and Brighton. Over 6,000

navvies were hired for up to two years building, blasting and clearing rubble beneath the South Downs to create Clayton Tunnel. The tunnel was built at a cost of £90,000 and is a good example of Victorian engineering. It is the second longest tunnel on the London to Brighton Line, some 1¼ miles long and 270 feet (82 m) below ground. The opening of Hassocks Gate as the railway station in 1841 saw the beginning of the village that is known today. In 1861 there was a collision between two trains, which 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 (it was still going in the 1950s). Evacuations then began from London bringing an additional 1,250 to the population.