Plumpton is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is located north-west of Lewes. The parish measures in length on its north–south axis and at its widest on the B2116 Underhill Road. The southern half of the parish lies within the South Downs National Park and at the highest point, , the South Downs Way traverses the crest of Plumpton Plain. The parish includes the small village of Plumpton adjacent to the Downs and to the north the larger village of Plumpton Green where most of the community and services are based. Plumpton is known for its racecourse, and also Plumpton College, which farms over of land and has become one of the leading centres for land-based education in the UK.

Plumpton Green is rumoured to have been the inspiration for the popular 1960s British children's television series Trumpton by Gordon Murray, with nearby Chailey being Chigley and Wivelsfield Green being Camberwick Green.

History Plumpton is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as having a church and two mills, and is shown as Pluntune, meaning 'town or settlement where plum-trees grew'.Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, p.369.

Simon de Montfort fought and defeated King Henry III at the Battle of Lewes in 1264. He gained a strategic advantage, and achieved complete surprise, by using a night march to position his numerically inferior army on Downland high above the town by early morning. To avoid detection they ascended the Downs four miles to the north-west of Lewes up Warningore Bostal, a deeply-worn track that exists to this day. Before marching on the town de Montfort is reputed to have rallied his forces, wearing large white crosses on their tunics for identification, on Plumpton Plain. Although now no longer in place, within living memory a sandstone block at the centre of the cross bore the inscription 'Battle of Lewes 1264'.

As in the medieval Sussex Weald generally, Plumpton parish and Plumpton's manorial outliers to the north (known as 'Plumpton Boscage') had huge amounts of common land. By 1596, of Plumpton Common had been enclosed and divided, though Plumpton Green remained common land until 1842. There is little evidence now of the commons. Place names like 'Riddens' Farm and Wood and 'Inholmes' Farm indicate very ancient enclosures from the wild. The place name 'Lentridge' Farm perhaps denotes the more widespread ancient presence of small-leaved lime, which is rare now in the Weald. ('Lent' = 'lind', as in 'linden', lime). The scarce Wild Service Tree is occasionally present in the hedgerows.

Schooling began in 1837, where two teachers taught in a small building (measuring 22×16' – 6.7×4.9m) in the south of the parish in Plumpton village. This was the main centre of the parish population, which was then around 275, with some 20 children attending school.

The railway station was opened 1863, two miles to the north, and the centre of the parish gradually moved towards it. By the 1870s there were three drinking establishments, the village shop and a few other small businesses to the north of the station, spaced along Station Road. There were also a number of brickmaking sites in the open fields to either side of the road. Apart from brick-making and farming there were other rural activities such as bird-scaring, hare-coursing, acorn-picking, horse-driving, steeplechasing; even collecting flowers for the May Day celebrations. The Elementary Education Act 1870 introduced compulsory education and during 1875 the newly formed Plumpton School Board approached a total of six local landowners to sell a half-acre plot for the building of the school. All refused. The threat of compulsory purchase finally procured, for £250, a corner of a meadow bordered by a stream 200m north of the railway and in 1877 building commenced on a large single schoolroom, surmounted by a prominent bell-tower, with adjoining three-bedroomed house for the schoolmaster. The parish population was about 400 at this time; the school was designed for 64 pupils, and opened in 1878. During the first few years absenteeism was very high as it was common for children to work from an early age.

The school functioned for almost a century, and was extended at least twice to accommodate the ever-increasing population. It was eventually superseded by the present school, which was built in 1974 at the end of Southdowns cul-de-sac, and provides education facilities for 150 pupils, ranging from the ages of 4 to 11 in seven educational years. The redundant old school building had a number of community uses and then became a private residence until, in the late 1980s, with the addition of three new cottages it was converted into a total of seven dwellings. The school bell, still intact in the tower, was presented to the new school, where it is prominently displayed in the courtyard. The adjoining schoolhouse was unaffected by this development, and remained unchanged.

Landmarks The Clayton to Offham Escarpment is a Site of Special Scientific Interest along the ridge and slopes of the South Downs. Stretching some 10 km from Hassocks in the west to Lewes in the east, it passes through several parishes including Plumpton. The site is of biological importance due to its rare chalk grassland habitat along with its woodland and scrub.

The most visible boundary of the South Downs National Park aligns with the southernmost access road to Plumpton Racecourse, which itself runs alongside the Sussex Greensand Way, the Roman Road that crossed the parish in an east–west direction.

Notable buildings and areas

The parish of Plumpton comprises the top of the South Downs down the Clayton to Offham Escarpment to the Sussex Weald stretching north to the Wivelsfield and Chailey parish. To the east is East Chiltington, to its south Falmer and to its west is the Streat parish. Like all the parishes in this area that run north from the scarp slope of the South Downs it is long and thin.

Village layout Plumpton Green is essentially a ribbon development immediately to the north of the railway station and is home to the school, the village shop, a church and two pubs. The main thoroughfare, Station Road, runs the length of the village, with several cul-de-sacs branching from it. The majority of the road is paved on one side only.

Chapel Road is a cul-de-sac with 24 houses. These are mostly semi-detached, with a small terrace of cottages built in 1900. Woodgate Meadow is a fairly recent development of large, detached houses on the site of a former brickyard. Westgate was built on farmland some years later (1995) incorporating mainly detached houses and also the new village hall and green.

Plumpton Lane, connecting Plumpton and Plumpton Green has, in recent years, received several small housing developments. The houses are of an attractive design, incorporating traditional red Sussex tile-hung walls.

Plumpton railway station is on the East Coastway Line and the railway crossing had the last manually operated gates in Sussex, until finally replaced by automatic gates in 2016. As of December 2010 it has had an hourly service in each direction, between Eastbourne, Hastings and Ore and London Victoria. Plumpton Racecourse is located between the two villages, immediately to the south of the railway. Meetings draw large crowds and on race days the population of Plumpton doubles and the rail service is supplemented with extra trains. Races are sometimes televised, bringing Plumpton to a much wider audience.

Notable buildings There are a number of historic and notable buildings in the area.

Churches

The naves of Plumpton church () and Westmeston church () were built by the Normans, with later chancel and south aisle at Westmeston, and later tower and chancel at Plumpton. Stone buildings were exceptionally rare in those times hence their small size. Both of them had frescoes painted by the Lewes Group which were uncovered only in 1862, although those at Westmeston were not preserved. Parts of the paintings at Plumpton, on the north wall of the nave, do survive and have recently been restored. Extraordinarily, it is thought that the wooden bell-hanging frame may date back to 1040. The stone tower may have been built around the original wooden tower and its bell hanging. Plumpton church is surrounded by Plumpton College. Newly planted trees look to further obscure our view of it. The churchyard is currently badly maintained for meadow species.

In Plumpton Green stands All Saints Church (). Archaic vegetation survives in the front churchyard and has lots of common spotted orchid amongst oxeye daisy, sorrel, bugle, meadow foxtail, ladies smock and thale cress. The larger yard at the back is often unkempt, and may have lost some value.

The Plough Inn The pub was originally sited by Bower Farm but was relocated to the crossroads when the airfield was built in the second world war. There is a monument to the airmen by the pub.

Behind the Plough Inn is an archaic meadow, used as a campsite by the pub. It has old flowery sward, oxeye daisy, knapweed, fleabane, and even bits of saw wort, which the pub is commendably trying to manage (2015). In the autumn there are old meadow fungi such as cedarwood waxcap and fairy club. Unlike Worcestershire, where many pubs have old meadows attached to them, the Plough is special for maintaining its meadow, as this is not a strong Sussex tradition.

Plumpton College

Plumpton College is a Further and Higher education college with a variety of land-based courses, including Viticulture and Oenology, Agriculture, Horticulture, Floristry, Equine Studies, Animal Care and Veterinary Nursing, Countryside Management and so on.

Plumpton Place

Plumpton Place stands next to Plumpton College. It is a six-bedroom manor house with a moat and water mill () which run into Plumton Mill stream. It had a big 17th century threshing barn, which is used by Plumpton College.

In the early 1970s, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page purchased Plumpton Place, an Elizabethan manor, with 20th-century alterations by Sir Edwin Lutyens, surrounded by a moat and extensive gardens. With its relative proximity to Plumpton Racecourse, the grounds also include stables for horses. Page outfitted the manor with a recording studio and the credits for the Led Zeppelin album In Through the Out Door indicates that album mixing was carried out there. The manor can be seen briefly near the beginning of the Led Zeppelin concert film, The Song Remains the Same where the camera walks up to Page, playing a hurdy-gurdy, to inform him of the North American tour dates. Page sold the property in 1985.

Ashurst Farm

Ashurst Farm, by Plumpton Racecourse, has had an organic farm since 1994. Until then, the dairy cows had been hand-milked, and the land had received no artificial fertilisers since 1945, thus facilitating immediate organic status. The farm has a vegetable box scheme and employs much local labour.

Woodland There are a number of beautiful and ancient woodland in this area.

Plumpton Wood (south) The southern Plumpton Wood () stands on wet Gault Clay and is a hazel coppice wood, with no hornbeam present. It is owned by Plumpton College and stands to its north. It has at least twenty-two archaic woodland indicator species. It has remarkably varied vegetation, which includes a thick bluebell carpet in springtime, oak and ash standards, a gean swarm, wild service and pignut. It has large damp areas with ramsons, redcurrant, and even alder buckthorn. The last pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly was seen in Plumpton Wood in 1982, but perhaps one day they will be reintroduced with the small pearl-bordered fritillary, both of which were a common sight in all Sussex woodlands before the 1980s.

Plumpton Wood (north)