Forest Row

Coordinates: 51°5′53.5″N 0°2′0.3″E / 51.098194°N 0.033417°E / 51.098194; 0.033417 Forest Row is a village and relatively large civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. The village is located three miles (5 km) south-east of East Grinstead.

History

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 programme of closures put forward by East Grinstead resident and British Railways Board Chairman Richard Beeching.

The village inn (now known as The Swan, owned by Mountain Range Restaurants which you can see on the right hand side of the picture, originally the Yew Tree), part medieval, was a centre of smuggling in the 18th century.