Forest Row

The village draws its name from its proximity to the Ashdown Forest, a royal hunting park first enclosed in the 13th century. From its origins as a small hamlet, Forest Row has grown, first with the establishment of a turnpike road in the 18th century; and later with the opening of the railway between East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells in 1866; the line, which included an intermediate station at Forest Row, closed in 1967 as a result of the Beeching Axe (a programme of closures put forward by East Grinstead resident and British Railways Board Chairman Richard Beeching). A part medieval public house the Yew Tree (now known as The Swan), was a centre of smuggling in the 18th century.…