Burgess Hill

Location of Burgess Hill, 16 km north of Brighton

Burgess Hill (बर्जेस हिल) is a town located in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England.

Location

It is close to the edge of the South Downs National Park. Located 63 km south of London, 16 km north of Brighton and Hove and and 47 km east-northeast of the county town of Chichester.

Origin of name

Burgess Hill originated in the parishes of Clayton, Keymer and Ditchling – all of them mentioned in the Domesday Book. The town's name comes from the Burgeys family when the name John Burgeys appeared in the tax rolls. The name of Burgeys stood for 'bourgeois', the inhabitant of a borough. Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror.

Bryges is the historical name given to a people of the ancient Balkans. They are generally considered to have been related to the Phrygians, who during classical antiquity lived in western Anatolia. Both names, Bryges and Phrygian, are assumed to be variants of the same root. They may have given name to Burgess Hill.

Geography

Burgess Hill is situated in the Sussex Weald, 16 km north of Brighton, and about 7.2 km south of Haywards Heath. Lewes, in East Sussex, is 19 km southeast of Burgess Hill, and the larger town of Horsham is 24 km to the northwest. Crawley, a major settlement, is 21 km to the north, and Gatwick Airport is 26 km in the same direction.

The amenities and shopping services in Burgess Hill are also well used by the surrounding villages. The larger villages of Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint are 5 to 10 minutes' drive away from the town centre, to the south and southwest respectively. Albourne, Ansty, Bolney, Clayton, Ditchling, Ditchling Common, East Chiltington, Goddards Green, Hickstead, Jacob's Post, Keymer, Plumpton, Plumpton Green, Sayers Common, Streat, Twineham, Westmeston, Wivelsfield (which has given its name to a railway station in Burgess Hill), and Wivelsfield Green are other nearby villages.

One of the tributaries of the River Adur weaves its way through the town, known locally as Hambrook. The town is a nuclear settlement, radiating out from the centre, curbed on the western side by the ring road, and on the east side by the East/West Sussex border (although it should be noted that some development on the eastern side of the town, particularly in the northeast, is in Lewes District) and by Ditchling common.

The northeastern side of the town (which includes Wivelsfield railway station) is known as World's End. It acquired this name around 23 December 1899, from a serious rail accident when a red signal was obscured by thick fog. A train from Brighton collided with a boat train from Newhaven Harbour at 40 mph; six passengers were killed and twenty seriously injured. Due to the nature of the accident and the relatively high (in relation to other accidents of the time) number of deaths and injuries the name World's End was coined and has stuck since that day.

The name World's End was in use many years before the accident referred to and can be found as peoples address in the Parish Registers certainly as early as 1863

Jat clans

Following Jat clans have some phonic similarity with Burgess or Burgeys but it is a matter of research if there is any correlation:

• Bargasa gotra Jats live in Chhoti Sadri tahsil in Chittorgarh district in Rajasthan.
• Bargaya or Vargaya is gotra of Jats in Uttar Pradesh.
• Barkesiya Gotra Jats live in Nimach district in Madhya Pradesh; Chittorgarh district in Rajasthan.

History

Although a Roman road, the London to Brighton Way, was built connecting London to the South coast and passing through what is now Burgess Hill, there is no evidence that the Romans settled.

The few buildings in the area were the two farmhouses, at Hammonds Ridge (still standing as a residence) and one at Queen's Crescent, in the west of what is now Burgess Hill. But until the nineteenth century, the town was known as St John's Common, and much of what is now the town centre was common land used by the tenants of Clayton and Keymer manors for grazing and as a source of fuel. Buildings which supported the common land were the King's Head pub (now demolished), a blacksmith's forge, and several cottages.

Sheep and lamb fair: From the fourteenth century or earlier the annual Midsummer Fair was held on this common land on 24 June, the feast of the birth of St John the Baptist. The last such sheep and lamb fair was held in 1913. This sheep and lamb fair was the first of the year in Sussex, and there was much interest. It is said that farmers from as far afield as Hastings to the east and Findon to the west visited, and at its peak, more than 9000 lambs were sold at the fair, together with numerous horses, cattle and sheep. With the development of the London to Brighton mainline railway, however, those in the business soon realised that transporting sheep by train was more cost effective and easier than using the old roadways. Most livestock trading began to centre on railside markets such as those at Hassocks, Haywards Heath and Lewes railway stations. By the dawn of the 20th century, livestock trading had all but ceased in the Burgess Hill area.

Brighton History

Brighton is a seaside resort on the south coast of England which is 75 km south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The ancient settlement of "Brighthelmstone" was documented in the Domesday Book (1086).

The first settlement in the Brighton area was Whitehawk Camp, a Neolithic encampment on Whitehawk Hill which has been dated to between 3500 BC and 2700 BC. It is one of six causewayed enclosures in Sussex. Archaeologists have only partially explored it, but have found numerous burial mounds, tools and bones, suggesting it was a place of some importance. There was also a Bronze Age settlement at Coldean. Brythonic Celts arrived in Britain in the 7th century BC, and an important Brythonic settlement existed at Hollingbury Camp on Hollingbury Hill. This Celtic Iron Age encampment dates from the 3rd or 2nd century BC and is circumscribed by substantial earthwork outer walls with a diameter of c. 1,000 feet (300 m). Cissbury Ring, roughly 10 miles (16 km) from Hollingbury, is suggested to have been the tribal "capital".

Later, there was a Roman villa at Preston Village, a Roman road from London ran nearby, and much physical evidence of Roman occupation has been discovered locally. From the 1st century AD, the Romans built a number of villas in Brighton and Romano-British Brythonic Celts formed farming settlements in the area. After the Romans left in the early 4th century AD, the Brighton area returned to the control of the native Celts. Anglo-Saxons then invaded in the late 5th century AD, and the region became part of the Kingdom of Sussex, founded in 477 AD by king Ælle.

External links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_House#/map/0