Falmer
Falmer is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England, lying between Brighton and Lewes, approximately five miles north-east of the former. It is also the site of Brighton & Hove Albion's Falmer Stadium.
Falmer village is divided by the A27 road. North of the dual carriageway are a few houses and a pub, with a footbridge linking to the southern part of the village, where a large pond is encircled by cottages and the parish church, dedicated to St. Laurence. The two halves of the village are also linked by a road bridge just outside this circle of houses. The village pond is home to a population of ducks and geese, and is very likely to account for the name of the village. The village is recorded in the Domesday Book as 'Falemere' which is likely to be Saxon for "fallow mere" and mean a dark pool.
The campuses of the University of Sussex, the University of Brighton, and The Keep, are all nearby.
History
Before the Norman conquest of England, the manor of Falmer was held by Wilton Abbey. The Domesday Book describes the village as having 43 households: 35 villagers, 7 smallholders and 1 slave. The entry includes ploughlands, meadow, woodland and a church. After the conquest most of it appears to have been given to Gundred, wife of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. In the 11th century the village name was variously spelled Falemela, Falemere or Felesmere. There is 13th century thatched barn, hidden from view behind the church, which was used by the monks of Lewes Priory for storing corn.Edward II visited Falmer in 1324. Charles I granted the manor to Edward Ditchfield in 1628 or 1629 and he sold it to William Craven. At this time its manor extended over. The Cravens lost it because of their support of the King during the English Civil War.
Due to the proximity of Falmer to the city of Brighton and Hove, the parish has been substantially affected by the twentieth-century development of its large neighbour. Since the 1960s it has been home to the University of Sussex campus, and in the 1990s, the former Brighton Polytechnic Falmer campus became a principal base of the University of Brighton. The village lends its name to the University of Sussex's alumni magazine.
Notable buildings and areas
The Falmer parish when viewed from above has the shape of the African continent. However, the parish, like the village, has been divided by the fast A27, breaking the cohesiveness. On both sides of the road, the contours of the Downland are impressive to behold and, for the most part, even the noise of the road is contained within the A27 valley. The landscape has many visible layers of history. In the slanting light of late afternoon prehistoric and medieval lynchets show up on the slopes of High Park, St Mary's Farm and Green Broom.Sadly despite its long history and its beauty, only a few fragments of ancient Down pasture survive. The minutes of the old Brighton Council Farmlands Committee show that time after time they consented to the ploughing and ultimate wasting of the ancient landscape. The chalk grasslands that the National Trust describe as Europe's tropical rainforests, and which are known to support up-to 40 species of flowering plants in one square metre, have largely been destroyed since the second world war by the modern agricultural methods.
The South Downs Way passes through the parish from the south east to the north west and crosses the A27 at Housedean Farm. Falmer parish sits between Brighton and Hove to its west, St Ann Without parish to its east, Kingston parish to its south and the long thin parishes running down the scarp slopes to its north, which include Ditchling, Westmeston, Streat, Plumpton, East Chiltington, St John Without, and Hamsey from northwest to northeast.
South of the A27
To the south of the A27 is the south half of the village, which includes the church and the large village pond. The Falmer Road travels south to Woodingdean and to the sea at Rottingdean. The downland to the east of the road is part of Falmer parish. To the west are the Falmer Stadium and the University of Brighton which is in City of Brighton and Hove.Falmer Church
Falmer church is dedicated to St. Laurence. The church was built in 1649. It consists of a west tower, a nave and chancel with a vestry to its north. It has a gallery and organ loft at the west end of the nave. It is particularly special because of the pond just outside it.Falmer pond
Perhaps what is most special about this village is its large gravel pond, which is a focal point of the village from where the village and parish got its name. Many people come from Brighton and Lewes to enjoy the pond and the green beside it, to picnic here and watch the ducks.Falmer Court Barn
Behind the church is a manorial thatched barn of fourteen embayments which dates back to the 13th century. It is one of the largest medieval barns in Sussex and was used by the monks of Lewes Priory, who owned the manor, for threshing and storing corn. Falmer barn is a grade II* listed building.In 2006, the barn, other vernacular farm buildings, and the farmhouse were sold by Brighton and Hove City Council to the tenant farmer, who "promptly sold them on to a property developer."
Cranedean Plantation
By A27, east of the Falmer village, lies a clump of trees called the Cranedean Plantation. The name ‘Cranedean’ is a corruption of ‘Crane Down’ although cranes are wetland birds and would not be seen on these hills. It has been suggested that the name relates to bustard. ‘Bustard’ is an old French name, whereas ‘crane’ is a Saxon name, so it has been speculated that shepherds and ploughmen may have used the latter term in medieval times. The bustard is likely to have lived in the area. It has some old beeches, particularly at its north end, though the wood is strewn with tumbled hulks from the 1987 gales.New Barn valley
New Barn valley is east of the Cranedean Plantation and west of the Newmarket garage and cottages. The spur behind shelters the valley from the noisy A27 corridor so it is still peaceful. New Barn was built in 1845. It has two yards and a shepherd's room, complete with blackened fireplace, so the shepherd could attend the sheep round-the-clock during lambing.There are several tumps that look like possible barrows at the top of the slope south of the barn, next to the South Downs Way. The bank behind the barn has the flowers and insects of old Down pasture.
Loose Bottom
Half a mile south east of Falmer village are the scrubby pastures of Loose Bottom, part ancient and part restored to permanent pasture since 1987. Most of these erstwhile heathy Down pastures were bulldozed for corn after 1948, but the slopes in Loose Bottom were saved by their steepness. The name 'Loose' is derived from a Saxon word for a livestock enclosure , and refers to two ancient earthwork banks that run in the Bottom. Both were probably Saxon cattle enclosures. One runs alongside the Falmer Road before dropping into the head of the valley. There are scattered clumps of burnet rose along large sections of the earthwork banks of both enclosures.The fragments of surviving Down pasture have now been fenced back into a restored pasture block and the historical chalk grassland flowers are returning. There is now cowslip, wild orchid, devil's-bit, betony, rampion and chalk milkwort. There are adonis blue butterflies and emperor moth benefiting from the pasture's restoration.
Newmarket Plantation
The Newmarket Plantation lies on the eastern edge of Loose Bottom and the parish and west of the South Downs Way. It is a small deciduous woodland of with beech, ash and sycamore and new plantings. There are mown paths circle its interior since the storms of 1987 and is a place of big upturned rootplates, which is home to many wren and robin.North of the A27
To the north of the A27 is the north half of the village, which is like a quadrant around a small grazed field. The pub is one corner of the quadrant. To the west, just outside of the parish, is the University of Sussex. To the north, north west and north east is special downland, with much history.Farms
In Falmer village, at the T-junction between Mill Road and Ridge Road is Park Wall Farm. Running north from Falmer village, half way along Ridge Road and west of Balmer Farm, is the ruins of Ridge Farm. Now a good place for birdlife, such as yellowhammer, it was the start of the route of the biggest of the mass trespasses that marked the Sussex campaign for the right to roam in 1998–9. Carry on north down Ridge Road and at the end is St Mary's Farm.Housedean Farm is east along the A27. It manages part of Balmer Down, was one of the last on these Downs to use an ox team for tillage, only giving up in 1914. Balmer Farm lies on the site of the Saxon hamlet of Bergemere. Its name comes from the Saxon "the pool by the burh". It was sufficiently important at Domesday to have two slaves, a manorial church, swine pastures in the Weald at Horsted Keynes and Birchgrove, and brookland meadow south of Lewes still called ‘Bormer Brook’. The church has long gone but you can still trace the outlines of the hamlet green under the mess of modern farm clutter. Big blackthorn hedges mark the bounds of the medieval open fields of the hamlet, which drop away southwards from the farmstead. They went under the evocative names of Lanthorne Laine, Church Laine and Barren Laine.
Moon's Plantation
Moon's Plantation is planted woodland of. It is mainly beech and at the southern end are in uniformed lines.Moon's Corner slope, known locally as Sunny Bank, is a little slope that lies north east of Sussex University and west of Ridge Road. It is flowery meadow with orange tip butterflies in the small woodland glades in the spring and a swathe of devil's bit scabious in late summer. The bank is shadowy until midday when it becomes alive with insects and butterflies, including brimstone, brown argus, marbled white, small and common blue and clouded yellow. In autumn many migrants stop off in the meadow and common redstarts and spotted flycatchers are regularly seen on a stop over before their flight over the English Channel.