Poynings
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Poynings ( or ) is a village and
civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
in the
Mid Sussex District Mid Sussex is a non-metropolitan district, local government district in West Sussex, England. The largest town is Haywards Heath, where the council is based. The district also contains the towns of Burgess Hill and East Grinstead plus surroundin ...
of
West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...
, England. The parish lies wholly with the
South Downs National Park The South Downs National Park is England's newest national parks of England and Wales, national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in t ...
. To its south is
Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority area, ceremonially in East Sussex, England. There are multiple villages alongside the seaside resorts of Brighton and Hove in the district. It is administe ...
, to its west is
Fulking Fulking is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The parish lies wholly with the South Downs National Park. The parish is located on the north slopes of the South Downs, five miles (8 km) to the north ...
parish, to its east is Newtimber parish and to its north is
Albourne Albourne is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District, Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England. It lies just off the A23 road three miles (4.8 km) east of Henfield. The parish has a land area of 772.9 hectares (1909&nbs ...
parish. The planning authority for Poynings is the
South Downs National Park Authority The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east, through the counties of Hamp ...
(SDNPA), the statutory planning authority for the National Park area. The village is located on the north side of the
South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the ...
near Devil's Dyke, five miles (8 km) north-west of
Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...
. The civil parish covers an area of and had a population of 287 at the 2001 census, including
Newtimber Newtimber is a small village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. It is located north-west of Brighton. The parish also includes the Hamlet (place), hamlet of Saddlescombe. The parish lies almost wholly with the ...
, increasing to 432 at the 2011 census. The area was known as "Puningas" in 960 AD. Some have suggested the name came from "sons of Puna" or "people of Puna", Puna being the nickname of a hammer-wielding Saxon leader. Others have suggested it means "tThe people of the pond". The downland scarp, which includes the
Fulking Fulking is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The parish lies wholly with the South Downs National Park. The parish is located on the north slopes of the South Downs, five miles (8 km) to the north ...
and Perching bostals (paths), is part of the
Beeding Hill to Newtimber Hill Beeding Hill to Newtimber Hill is a biological and geological Downland Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) north of Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 2, and it includes Devil's Dyke Geological ...
designated
Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...
.


Listed Buildings and Scheduled Monuments

Poynings civil parish contains ten
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
s. Of these, one is Grade I and the remaining nine are Grade II. The parish contains four
scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...
s.


Listed buildings


Grade I listed buildings

* The Parish Church of the Holy Trinity (List Entry Number 1285135) – see above.


Scheduled monuments

*
Bowl barrow A bowl barrow is a type of burial mound or tumulus. A barrow is a mound of earth used to cover a tomb. The bowl barrow gets its name from its resemblance to an upturned bowl. Related terms include ''cairn circle'', ''cairn ring'', ''howe'', ''ker ...
on Scabes Castle (List Entry Number 1014950), lying on the parish boundary between Poynings and Fulking, an originally circular funerary monument, now a roughly oval mound, having been levelled by modern ploughing on its eastern side. * Devil's Dyke hillfort (List Entry Number 1014953), a large univallate
hillfort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...
dating to the Iron Age, situated on a chalk spur which forms part of the Sussex Downs. * Post-medieval stock enclosure at Devil's Dyke (List Entry Number 1014954), which survives as a north east-south west aligned, rectangular earthwork. It was used for the stalling of working oxen and as winter housing for fatstock cattle. Before excavation in 1908, it was assumed to be a burial mound. *
Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...
farmstead 480m north west of Devil's Dyke Cottages (List Entry Number 1017649), which survives largely in buried form and is visible as an area of hollows and uneven ground.


Notable buildings and areas

Poynings is a little village on the north side of the Downs. Its church is cathedral-like and comparable to Alfriston church without the spire. There is a public house, the Royal Oak, in the village which is a popular stop off point for walkers ascending the scarp slope. Also of note are the large ponds fed from the Downs, including the Poynings springhead (), which has a little pumping station hidden in a lush gill wood and the old mill pond (), both to the southeast of the village.


Holy Trinity Church

Holy Trinity Church () is Poynings’
parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...
, located at the east end of the village, on The Street.. The church is in the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
Diocese of Chichester The Diocese of Chichester is a Church of England diocese based in Chichester, covering Sussex. It was founded in 681 as the ancient Diocese of Selsey, which was based at Selsey Abbey, until the see was translated to Chichester in 1075. The cathe ...
,
Archdeaconry of Horsham The Archdeacon of Horsham is a senior ecclesiastical officer in the Church of England Diocese of Chichester. The diocese almost exactly covers the counties of East and West Sussex and the City of Brighton and Hove, stretching for nearly a hundred ...
. The church is a Grade I
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
, described in the
National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...
as 'One of the finest village medieval churches in Sussex' (List Entry Number 1285135, first listed 28 October 1957). The church was in the
Domesday book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
but it was rebuilt by the de Poynings family in 1370. Its similarity to
Alfriston Alfriston is a village and civil parish in the East Sussex district of Wealden, England. The village lies in the valley of the River Cuckmere, about four miles (6 km) north-east of Seaford and south of the main A27 trunk road and part ...
church have left some people speculating that it had the same master mason architect. The church has an echoing empty interior and scant signs of the wealth of the donor family. There are only the smallest fragments of fourteenth century glass surviving in the plain glass windows. With its big, centralised, empty interior it has been noted that it feels more like a grand old mosque than the usual homely busy-ness of many medieval parish churches.


Cora's Corner

In the village opposite Holy Trinity Church there is a small sheltered memorial called Cora's Corner, which pays tribute to a former resident of Poynings; two benches in the shelter, Judy's Seat and Merrilee's Seat, are tributes to Cora's two daughters. The road linking Cora's Corner to the Royal Oak is called Cora's Walk.


The Poynings Crossways Woods

Within the parish of Poynings there are three ancient woods, which include Park, Stonestaples and Pondtail Wood. In the neighbouring parishes there are others which are part of the Poynings Crossways () Woods' cluster. These include Shaves Wood (), Holmbush Wood (), West Wood (), East Wood () and Newtimber Wood (). Except Stonestaple which sits on
Weald Clay Weald Clay or the Weald Clay Formation is a Lower Cretaceous sedimentary rock unit underlying areas of South East England, between the North and South Downs, in an area called the Weald Basin. It is the uppermost unit of the Wealden Group of ...
, the woods all sit on
Gault Clay The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in Fo ...
and are all extremely biodiverse, containing many different ancient woodland indicator plants (up to twenty-five in each wood) including
anemones ''Anemone'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. Plants of the genus are commonly called windflowers. They are native to the temperate and subtropical regions of all regions except Australia, New Zealand, and ...
, primroses, bluebells and wild
orchids Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Earth ...
. In Holmbush Wood there is still a population of scarce and fairy-like
giant lacewing Ithonidae, commonly called moth lacewings and giant lacewings, is a small family of winged insects of the insect order Neuroptera. The family contains a total of ten living genera, and over a dozen extinct genera described from fossils. The mode ...
. Unfortunately, as many areas of the natural world, the woods are under constant threat from development and have lost many of their most precious species. The woods were once famous for their moths and butterflies, including wood white,
high brown fritillary ''Fabriciana adippe'', the high brown fritillary, is a large and brightly colored butterfly of the family Nymphalidae, native to Europe and across the Palearctic to Japan. It is known for being Great Britain's most threatened butterfly and is li ...
, black-veined white (now extinct in the UK) and the
Duke of Burgundy Duke of Burgundy () was a title used by the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy, from its establishment in 843 to its annexation by the Crown lands of France, French crown in 1477, and later by members of the House of Habsburg, including Holy Roman E ...
. Change in land management means none of them live there now. The last Duke of Burgundy butterfly was seen in 1985 when a good proportion of Shaves Wood was bulldozed for pasture. Small pearl-bordered and pearl-bordered were also lost. In 2016 a new owner illegally felled hundreds of tree in Pondtail Wood before being ordered to stop by the council. The wood has since been sold to a more responsible owner in 2017.


Stonestaples Wood

Stonestaples Wood () is in the centre of the Poynings parish. It is the only one of the Poynings Crossways woods that sits on the Wealden Clay. It must have once joined to the other woods, but the intervening ground to its east is fertile
Lower Greensand The Lower Greensand Group is a geological unit present across large areas of Southern England. It was deposited during the Aptian and Albian ages of the Early Cretaceous. It predominantly consists of sandstone and unconsolidated sand that were d ...
, and so was farmed and ploughed centuries ago. The wood is rich in fungi, often colourful, and has big old hornbeam stools under an ash canopy, over anemones, primroses, bluebells and orchids. In the centre of the wood is a
paintballing Paintball is a competitive team shooting sport in which players eliminate opponents from play by hitting them with spherical dye-filled gelatin capsules called Paintball equipment#Paintballs, paintballs that break upon impact. Paintballs ar ...
location.


Park Wood

Park Wood () is to the east of the parish and next to Newtimber Wood. In medieval times formed part of the de Poynings family deer park, and may have been much more open. The ancient deer park bank forms a prominent boundary between Park and Newtimber Wood. After that, it was likely managed as coppice with standards until the last century, when much of it was coniferised, particularly with
cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs from the ''Cupressus'' genus of the '' Cupressaceae'' family, typically found in temperate climates and subtropical regions of Asia, Europe, and North America. The word ''cypress'' ...
. The northern section partly retains its
hornbeam Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the family Betulaceae. Its species occur across much of the temperateness, temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Common names The common English name ''hornbeam'' derives ...
coppice structure, over plentiful bluebells and is botanically rich. It is used as a
scout camp A Scout camp (also known as a Scout Centre, or a Scout Park) is a youth center, hostel, facility or campsite. They can be found both in nature and in urban environments. Scout parks are run by youth Scouts, and Scout leaders, generally on a volu ...
. . The wood is currently being split and sold into fragments for large sums to new private owners, in a controversial process known as 'woodlotting'.


Pondtail Wood

Pondtail Wood () is at the north of the parish and is attached to Shaves Wood in the neighbouring parish of
Albourne Albourne is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District, Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England. It lies just off the A23 road three miles (4.8 km) east of Henfield. The parish has a land area of 772.9 hectares (1909&nbs ...
. The wood has a mixture of intact
hazel Hazels are plants of the genus ''Corylus'' of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family, Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K ...
coppice with very tall, clean
oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...
standards at its east end, and heavy pine planting elsewhere. There may be as many as twenty three woodland indicator plants in the area. In 2016, the wood was sold to a new owner who started to bulldoze part of the centre of the wood and laid hardcore upon it, despite the binding legal requirements for permission for such felling. Demonstrators marched to the site, and several intrepid campaigners worked all one night to lift some of the hard core and dump it at the site entrance. The council intervened and the owner fined. There is now a new owner who is committed to the wood's restoration.


Scarp and downland

To the south of Poynings is the scarp. On the eastern base of slope () is an old hazel coppice and spring bluebells. There are a number of ancient bostal paths going up the scarp. The most varied and interesting route is The Bostal Road, a bridlepath, which curves through the woods and at its top passes the Iron Age ramparts above the Dyke Valley. The Wickhurst Bostal starts at Wickhurst Barns, passes a tiny chalk quarry () with a Victorian limekiln still intact, and tops at the junction with another bostal down to Fulking. Another path, which was called the Butter Track two centuries ago, takes you steeply up the scarp to the Dyke Pub. The ancient terrace way (now a bridleway) that tracks down and across the south slope of the Dyke Valley is probably part of the Roman route starting at Southwick, on the coast, and joining the Roman road now called the
Greensand Way The Greensand Way is a long-distance path of in southeast England, from Haslemere in Surrey to Hamstreet in Kent. It follows the Greensand Ridge along the Surrey Hills AONB, Surrey Hills and Chart Hills. The route is mostly rural, passing thr ...
south of
Hurstpierpoint Hurstpierpoint is a village in the Mid Sussex district, in the county of West Sussex, England, southwest of Burgess Hill, and west of Hassocks railway station. It sits in the civil parish of Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common which has an ...
. The Devil's Dyke Farm's barns and cottages were built around 1950 and are the very last generation of farm buildings to be built with relatively traditional uses and proportions.


Devil's Dyke

At the top of the scarp slope is the very special Devil's Dyke (). It Is a deep valley carved by water running off the Downs during the last Ice Age over freeze-thaw cycles. Over the last two centuries, there have been an amusement park and pleasure gardens, a hotel, three railways (the railway up from Hove; a funicular railway down the north scarp slope; and a cable car across the Dyke Valley), golf courses, and a zoo. Despite this, it still has the well preserved ramparts of an
Iron Age hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...
and much of its special biodiversity has been retained.


The Devil’s Punch Bowl

The Devil's Punch Bowl is the little rounded hill between Saddlescombe and the mouth of the Dyke Valley. It is a peaceful place and its steep northern slopes are covered in cowslips in spring and
fragrant orchid ''Gymnadenia conopsea'', commonly known as the fragrant orchid or chalk fragrant orchid, is a herbaceous plant of the family Orchidaceae native to northern Europe. Etymology The name of the genus ''Gymnadenia'' is formed from Ancient Greek, G ...
in early summer.


Adder Bottom

Adder Bottom () has the lynchet lines of an Iron Age field system visible in good evening light. There is prehistoric bowl barrow () called Scabes Castle which marks the corner of the Poynings and Fulking parishand the Brighton boundary. It is now only detectable by a slight rise in the fence line as it crosses the ploughed-out mound.


See also

* List of Stewards of the Manor of Poynings


References


External links


Map of Poynings parishPoynings village websitePoynings Parish CouncilThe Downland Benefice: Poynings Church
- Photographs of the church, taken on 18 January 2004 {{authority control Mid Sussex District Villages in West Sussex Civil parishes in West Sussex