Framfield, Sussex

FRAMFIELD is a parish, a mile and a half south-east from Uckfield, and 43 miles from London by road, in the Eastern division of the county, hundred of Loxfield Dorset, Pevensey rape, Uckfield union, Lewes county court district and archdeaconry, diocese of Chichester, and rural deanery of South Malling. The church of St. Thomas-a-Becket, is an ancient structure; it has nave, chancel, side aisles, north and south chapels, a stained window erected in the chancel in 1847, and an organ: the church is supposed to have been built in 1200, and the date of the first registry is 1538. The living is a vicarage, tithe commuted at £590, with residence, in the gift of and held by, the Rev. Richard Leonard Adams, M.A., of Christ College, Cambridge. The vicarage house was rebuilt in 1835. Here is a Parochial school. The charities are £64 per annum. Earl De La Warr is lord of the manor. Framfield Place, the seat of Alexander Donovan, Esq., J.P., is a picturesque spot, and commands a good view of the surrounding neighbourhood; it is surrounded by woods and plantations, shrubberies, and lawns tastefully laid out: the house was rebuilt in 1847. At Tarble Down, in this parish, the archbishop formerly had a seat; and tradition says that on this down was fought an engagement between part of the army of Henry III. and some troops of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. The number of acres is 6,700; the population in 1861 was 1,355.
BLACKBOYS is a hamlet, 2 miles east.

[Kelly's Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, 1867.]