Copy map of Burwash Down and Heathfield Down [by Henry Allen of Tonbridge in Kent]

This map, undated, monochrome, without title or scale and measuring 29½ x 25½ inches, shows the edge of Burwash and Heathfield Downs and the enclosures within them, stretching from Newick Lane in Heathfield on the West to Burwash Wheel in Burwash on the East. It shows, in a diagrammatic yet plausibly accurate manner, the houses, kitchens and barns on the edge of the Downs, the names of their owners, occasional farm-names and topographical features within the boundary of the Downs. Starting from the West on the North side, the features are as follows: Surrounding the Downs Thomas Iden; house and barn on site of present Westerns Farm, Iden Lane (no house in 1873) Widow Cossam; house and barn in enclosure within the Down [at the present Magreed] John Tailor; house and barn [Priors Farm] Stephen Aynscom; house and barn [Crouches Farm] [Scotsford Road] John Hilder; house and barn [Holme Chase] Anthony Hilder; house at TQ609230 Crooches Mill [Pottens Mill] No name; house and barn [Little Bigknowle] John Pankhurst; house and barn [Great Bigknowle], with an enclosure (22¼a) and wood (7¼a) John Packham; his two copyhold called Goodfellows and Heise (122½a) No name; house at TQ610249 Marchols Corner; two houses and a barn [Southbin Farm] No name; two barns at TQ635235 No name; house and barn at TQ636235 John Oxenbridge; house and barn [Climshurst] Heirs of Miniver; house and ?kitchen [Oakdown] Heirs of Bine; house and barn at TQ642242 Road to Ticehurst No name; Gutshole; large two-gabled house with large barn The Burchet Coppice (11½a) Thomas Ellis; Williamsbow; house and barn Pound Road to Burwash Town Thomas Burden his cottage; cottage on island West of Burwash Wheel Williamford Lane [Willingford Lane] Lawrence Swane; house and enclosure (10½a) opposite the pound West of Burwash Wheel Richard Weston; house opposite Foots Farm Weston; house at TQ644228 Gate Polsford Lane [Poundsford Lane] John Cooper; house, ?kitchen and barn [Kingsdown] Master Staplee; [Anthony Stapley]; house with terminal chimney [Milkhurst] Hodrop; house [Home Farm / Milkhurst Toll] Dunk; house at TQ619228 Abraham Bowredge; house and barn at TQ617226 Richard Harmare; house and barn [Little Tottingworth] Mr Milse; house at TQ604217 Robert Fuller; barn Abraham Reede; house at TQ600214 Road to Cade Street Road to Heathfield Within the Down The Downs are divided at a narrowing-point South of Olives Farm; Heathfield Down measured at 405 acres and Burwash Down at 638 acres. Enclosure owned by Mepham, Dunk and the heirs of Pankhurst; house and barn Beacon at TQ640231 on site of 1873 Seaview Lodge Annotated, c1760: NB the Duke of Newcastle is Lord of all the waste in the Rape of Hastings so that this map belongs to him. Endorsed: Burwash and Heathfield Downs; No 13

<p>For a map of Heathfield and Burwash Downs, based on a survey by Thomas Yeakell and William Gardner, c1788, see CHR 18/8.</p>

BL Maps 5461.(10.)

Acquired by the British Museum in May 1947.

Burwash or Hawkesborough Down lay in the parishes of Heathfield and Burwash, and by the 18th century was recognised as two distinct downs, Heathfield Down and Burwash Down. From the 1570s until the 1830s, the right to enclose land on the down was in contention between the Pelham family and the owners of the several manors whose tenements abbutted it. An informative perspective on the early phase of the dispute can be found in a court book of the manor of Burghurst in Burwash (ASH 206), which contains a list of the tenements bounding the down, the names of their owners and of the manors of which they were held; for a partial analysis of this list, see AMS 6794/4. The list is followed by a commentary on the claim of Sir John Pelham, 'who pretendeth to be lord of the whole down and waste ground', and asserting the rights of the neighbouring lords. 'But the Pelhams, being lords of the Hundred of Hawkesborough (within the which hundred all the waste ground and common lyeth) hath used to drive the whole common yearly, to try what beasts were strays or waifs. And none of the other lords using to take any commodity of their wastes, the Pelhams have (by little and little) so encroached, that now Sir John Pelham claimeth to be lord of the whole waste, and hath felled down woods upon upon other men's wastes, and further intendeth to fell down all the residue, and to inclose at his pleasure.' The list can be dated between the grant of the manor of Heathfield to Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst in 1570 and the death of Sir John Pelham in 1580, but it (or the original of which it is a copy) can probably be associated with the aftermath of the claim of John Wybarne, lord of Burghurst, against Sir John Pelham, which reached the Court of Chancery in 1567 (TNA C3/195/11). The map can be dated to a generation later than the list. Gregory Cossam of Heathfield, husbandman, left his tenement called Magareed in Heathfield to his wife Agnes by his will of 6 September 1590, proved on 26 September. Widow Cossam is shown at the appropriate place on the map. Her own nuncupative will was proved on 30 May 1601.