Project area parishes
Wisborough Green
by Mike King
Wisborough Green lies on the western edge of the West Weald Landscape Project, astride the A272 east-west main road. The River Arun and its flood plain to the east and the heavily wooded high ground of Bedham Hill to the south-west maintain the essentially rural nature of the Parish and its separation from the commercial and residential development in Billingshurst and Petworth. Wisborough Green is a typical English village with a village green, public houses, pond, Church, village shop and Post Office in the centre of the village. The Register of Electors currently shows some 650 separate properties and 1194 electors. Children and non-eligible adults probably raises the resident population to around the 1800 mark.
Historically the village has medieval and earlier origins. It is dominated by its Church on the village’s high ground; St Peter ad Vincula is likely to have started life as a fortified structure commanding north-south lines of communication on Stane Street (Roman road) and the rivers Arun and Kird. In more recent times, the Second World War saw a Canadian Division harboured in nearby Hawkhurst Court and the 1942 Dieppe raid, commemorated annually in the church and on the Green, was mounted from its requisitioned buildings and adjacent woodland.
Predominantly a farming community but rich in timber resources, the Parish
became heavily involved in both the early iron and glass industries. With
the discovery of coal elsewhere these primary industries disappeared and
subsequent commercial development has been very limited in scale.
The Parish has three quite distinct landscape areas.
1. The Arun Valley, which runs down the Eastern side of the parish, contains
the Wey & Arun Canal for most of its length along the river itself
and broad meadow lands. Part of the valley is a Site of Special Scientific
Interest (SSSI), designated for its rich assemblage of dragon- and damselflies,
a number of which are considered rare.
2. The land around the village itself is characterised by small fields,
hedgerows and woodlands. The woods in spring are full of wildflowers and
perhaps the thing that typifies the quality of our environment the most
is walking among the bluebells of an evening, listening to the delightful
song of the nightingale.
3. The hilly land of the greensand ridge at Bedham now largely falls within
the new National Park in recognition of its landscape quality, and certainly
the views from the road that runs along the ridge are stunning, providing
a broad panorama across to the Surrey Hills. The Sussex Wildlife Trust
nature reserve of The Mens here is designated a European Special Area
for Conservation for its rare woodland and bats as well as fungi, lichens
and insects. Walking through it you get a sense of being in something
ancient and wild, the woodland dating back probably as far as the last
Ice Age.
