Recent History
Today Hassocks has a variety of independent shops including several cafes, specialist shops like the long established delicatessen, an optician, general hardware store & a couple of restaurants (Indian and Chinese) and a well-used community centre called Adastra Hall. Newer shops have started to appear replacing older businesses, like the gift /toy shop, a 'vintage' shop and antiques market. Recently well known high street brands have started to show an interest in the high street & modernisation of quaint old shops has seen the quirky give way to the corporate.
This is an expensive commuter area and Hassocks is near the top end for property prices in the region, though it is not quite as expensive as neighbouring Ditchling and Hurstpierpoint. These villages have many picturesque older buildings whereas Hassocks village centre is primarily post WW2. Since 2006 a number of new developments have started to spring up, the largest being a green field area just off of Grand Avenue. The former council buildings housing the road maintenance department on London Road have been demolished & will become a number of homes, whilst the land gifted to the people of hassocks (via East Sussex County Council)by a benefactor & used by a children's charity is to be built upon,the charity having claimed ownership.{http://www.midsussextimes.co.uk/news/local/stafford-house-trustees-release-statement-1-682370}
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 skyline 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.
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