FIRLE

Once there was East Firle and West Firle but nowadays it is generally simply ‘Firle’.  The village has been a settlement since at least Saxon times and was mentioned in the Domesday Survey, its name coming from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Fierol’, meaning ‘oak covered land’ – though that was long ago as these days the village nestles in the lee of the largely treeless South Downs, Firle Beacon in particular. The village is essentially a single street, and a cul-de-sac, its houses attractive mixtures of warm tile, brick and flint. The reason the road goes nowhere is because the old road that ran at the foot of the South Downs between Brighton and Eastbourne closed in 1812. There were once three pubs, apparently; now just one, the popular Ram Inn. The village also has a cricket ground, post office and medieval church, St Peter’s. Virginia Woolf once rented a house in Firle.  Nearby is Firle Place, a medieval manor with Georgian exterior that has been owned by the Gage family since the 15th century. There's a good-sized car park on the edge of the village.