If you are driving along A264 from Tunbridge Wells to East Grinstead you will go under the railway bridge at Ashurst and immediately over the river Medway marking the border of Kent and Sussex. You are now in Blackham.
As the road sweeps round to the right and up Watch Oak Hill, you might just glimpse the plain village sign before taking a sharp left hander. A few buildings flash past before you speed along the tree-lined road and, within a mile, drive past the Sussex Oak pub on your way to Holtye.
You have driven through Blackham. Or more accurately, you have driven past it because most of the village lies away from the main road, a well-kept secret hidden from view on the other side of the horse's-head shaped 'island'.
Officially Blackham is just the northernmost part of the parish of Withyham, a village made important by the presence of the Sackville family. They lived at Buckhurst and had their chapel in St Michael's Church, Withyham before they moved to Knole in Sevenoaks to be nearer London and the Court.
One of the problems of researching Blackham's history is that most of the written evidence has to be extracted from documents concerning Withyham. Many a Blackham resident is listed as being 'of Withyham'.
This problem is made harder because it is not easy to decide where the two separate. We know the western border of Blackham - the parish boundary with Hartfield. To the north it nestles into Kent Water until that small river enters the Medway and starts to form an eastern border. But how far south does Blackham go before it becomes Withyham village?
Some would say no further than Beech Green House. But there is a case to claim that the village extends as far as the river at Summerford Farm, for surely it must include Blackham Court? Certainly the maps of the Manor of Blackham in the Buckhurst Terrier, a survey taken in 1597-1598, suggest that was the boundary.
The other justification for such a claim comes from that disparaging comment from the Rev Sutton that "Sunday was entirely disregarded. Idlers were to be seen about the lanes, passing the day playing pitch and toss &c., whilst others were drinking and fighting." Part of the reason for that could have been that in the days before metal roads, the low ground around Blackham would have been too boggy to cross. The very name Summer Ford, suggests it was difficult to get to Withyham church during the winter, and Sutton explains Lord Buckhurst's move to Knole between 1603-5 thus: "Some have thought that Queen Elizabeth wished to have him within easier reach of her Court and Councils, especially as the roads in the neighbourhood of Buckhurst were at times impassable."
Link
to Rev Sutton's Historical Notes of Withyham, Hartfield & Ashdown Forest online
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