The History of Uckfield
By Alexandra Horne
Uckfield has existed for a while now. Certainly for much for much longer than you or I or even Mr Hennebery has been around! It’s seen achievements, it’s seen losses, it’s seen wars, it’s seen peacetime parties. But what achievements? What losses? What wars? What parties? Keep reading to find out more...
The name Uckfield comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “uckefeld” meaning “open land of a man called Ucca”. So Ucca’s land.
In the late 13th century 1000s of people used to go on pilgrimage (a journey to a place of worship or holy place) to Canterbury each year to visit where Thomas Becket (Saint Thomas of Canterbury) died and to pray and ask God for help with their problems. The first settlement in Uckfield was located in Pudding Cake Lane where the people who stopped off in Uckfield visited a public house to enjoy a slice of pudding cake (hence the name!).
At roughly the same time as the pilgrims were eating some pudding cake at the public house, a chapel was built where the Parish Church (12 minutes away from our school) is today. So Church Street and Pudding Cake Lane that are part of our town today were once a part of medieval Uckfield.
A little bit further down the hill, we will have all seen Bridge Cottage at the bottom of town by the Station. Bridge Cottage has been there since around 1436, it is the oldest house still standing in Uckfield. In medieval times it would have been quite a way from the medieval settlement but today both places are part of modern day Uckfield.
In 1858 the railway came to Uckfield and this meant a great change for the town. Before this time the town had remained quite small and stayed at the top of town still around where the medieval settlement had started. The railway company decided to build the station at the bottom of the hill by the river. Quite quickly, shops sprung up all the way down the hill and the High Street was born. Many different types of houses, big and small, were built surrounding the high street and in quite a short space of time; Uckfield wasn’t so small anymore.
One of the large Victorian manor houses that used to be in Uckfield was called Uckfield House. It was a huge, grand house with acres of fields surrounding it. It is interesting for us because our school is now built where it used to stand before it was demolished in 1955 and that is why the housing estate is called Manor Park. The only part of it that still exists are the lime trees that used to be its driveway that are now the trees that are a pathway by the school drive. The Queen and Prince Phillip used to visit.
During World War II the people of Uckfield would have seen the Battle of Britain very closely as much of it was fought over Sussex.
If you go to the Highlands Inn you can see a memorial to a Belgian World War 2 pilot. He was called Flight Lieutenant Eugene Seghers who was killed over Uckfield on 26th July 1944. He very bravely diverted a V1 bomb (better known as a doodlebug) away from the town by touching it with the wing of his aeroplane, when he touched it the bomb exploded killing Seghers. Very brave!
Jumping forward a few decades, in October 2000 after several days of torrential rain, Uckfield woke up to crazy scenes - the town centre was completely flooded. A lifeboat -yes, a lifeboat- had to come out down the high street to rescue people. A helicopter hovered overhead to rescue people who needed it. One shopkeeper was swept away from his shop as he tried to rescue his stock and was rescued by a helicopter after becoming stuck in a tree! Uckfield was front page news! Luckily we now have much improved flood defences however climate change still is battling against us. More on climate change in other articles.
I wonder what the future has in store for Uckfield?