Early history

The village's name is derived from connections to the Wealden iron industry, and a reference to the hammer used in the furnace of the iron forge. A Romano-British iron bloomery (now listed as a site of historic interest) was located near the ponds to the south-east of where the modern village – which did not exist at the time – is located, and a blast furnace existed on another site nearby from at least the 1500s.^[3][4] Areas of nearby woodland are similarly named, including Hammer Wood, Cansiron Wood and Cinder Wood. The settlement was, for several centuries, the central part of an estate known as The Bower, and is believed to have comprised part of a medieval deer park.^[5][6]

Development

In 1792, a site to the south-east of the nucleus of the current settlement was selected by architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe and his commissioner, John Sperling, as the location on which they would build Hammerwood Park, a country house which was one of the first examples of Greek Revival architecture in Great Britain (it was Sperling who originally coined the name 'Hammerwood').^[7] Many of the buildings which form part of Hammerwood today were constructed in the 19th century as tied cottages to support the Hammerwood estate, which at that time consisted of c. 2,500 acres; Oswald Augustus Smith provided in 1864 for a Hammerwood Cricket Club; in 1873 for a village school for 100 children; in 1875 for the Vicarage, and in 1880 for St Stephen's Church, Hammerwood – to the design of E. P. Loftus Brock – at the cost of £7,431 (the first vicar being Rev. Clement Colby Woodland of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge), as well as for a number of other buildings in Holtye and East Grinstead. On 9 July 1880, an ecclesiastical parish of Hammerwood was duly formed from portions of those of East Grinstead and Hartfield.^[8] The population of Hammerwood reached a peak of 438 in 1891.^[9][10][11] St Stephen's Church contains a two manual pipe organ, built by the firm of T. C. Lewis.^[12]

20th century

Hammerwood Park

The Hammerwood estate entered a period of decline after the First World War, and much of the village was sold off. In c. 1930, the owner of Hammerwood Park at that time (a Lt. Col. Pollen) provided for a Hammerwood and Holtye Village Hall, next to the Vicarage. There was also a Hammerwood and Holtye Women's Institute, and a Hammerwood and Holtye Men's Club (both ceased to exist in the 1980s).^[13] The Hammerwood County Primary School closed in 1959, and the ecclesiastical parish of Hammerwood was united with that of St Mary Magdalene, Cowden in June 1977.^[14]

During the Second World War, on 2 March 1944 a Heinkel He 177 of the Luftwaffe's Kampfgeschwader 100 on a bombing mission to London was shot down over Hammerwood by a Mosquito Mk XIII of No. 151 Squadron RAF at 3:15 am. Six were on board the German aircraft; four survived, and wreckage was scattered widely in nearby woodland.^[15] Hammerwood Park was requisitioned for use by the armed forces during that war, becoming home to 200 soldiers (including the cricketer Denis Compton, and a contingent from the Canadian Army).^[16] From November 1943, No. 660 Squadron RAF operated from an unpaved airstrip (RAF Hammerwood) to the east of the village, from which the SOE flew Westland Lysanders for a time. Flying ceased by July 1944.^[16]

On 29 August 1944, a V-1 flying bomb which had been shot down by an aircraft came down in the village.^[17] After the war, Hammerwood Park was divided into flats and the remnants of the estate were purchased by Led Zeppelin. It subsequently became derelict, before being purchased by the current owner in 1982. A programme of rolling restoration continues.^{[16][18][19][20]}