Chiddingfold

Chiddingfold is a village and civil parish in the Weald in the Waverley district of Surrey, England. It lies on the A283 road between Milford and Petworth. The parish includes the hamlets of Ansteadbrook, High Street Green and Combe Common. Chiddingfold Forest, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, lies mostly within its boundaries. The name of Chiddingfold 'Chadynge's fold', Chiddingefoulde, is derived from the Saxon, probably meaning the fold (enclosure for animals) "in the hollow". Between the 14th and 17th centuries, Chiddingfold was a centre for glass-making. Window glass was made in the village in the 1350s for St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster and St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The Guy Fawkes festivities saw in 1887 the village policeman's house attacked by a mob – he was later transferred elsewhere – he may have set the fire early or failed to prevent it from being lit before time. The event of 1929 faced wider unrest, culminating a week later with talk of ducking innocent Sgt Brake into the pond being stalled by 200 Surrey officers using specially requisitioned buses; the village pubs were ordered to close and a JP was on hand to read the Riot Act should it have proved necessary. There was, from a date in the 19th century until the early 20th century, a tile and brickworks, extracting and processing the clay underlying the parish. Chiddingfold has an archive which shows the history of Chiddingfold and the previous owners of Chiddingfold houses. The Crown Inn is one of the oldest inns in England. Built as a rest house for Cistercian monks on their pilgrimage from Winchester to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury, it claims to have been established in 1285 with the earliest recorded reference to the present building dated 1383; probably when the alehouse (the Halle) expanded to include accommodation, thus becoming an inn. Subsequently, it merged with the adjoining alehouse through common ownership. The Crown has seen many distinguished visitors down the years.