Crowborough
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Crowborough is the largest inland town in East Sussex, United Kingdom. No one is quite sure of the origins of the name. The most prosaic interpretation is that it was frequented by crows. However crows are not by nature flocking birds unlike rooks which are also numerous in the area. Crowborough's early industry was iron smelting and it was suggested in the Story of Crowborough published by the Courier in 1933 that Crowborough derived its name from the Irish for Iron or Croe. Malcolm Payne who wrote Crowborough - The Growth of a Wealden Town in 1985 wrote that it was possible that its name was based upon its visual aesthetics. Croh is a Saxon word for saffron or saffron coloured. It was possible therefore that people looking at the hill in spring or early summer would have seen a hill covered in yellowish-golden gorse and would have referred to it as the ochre-coloured barrow which later got shortened to Crowborough.
Crowborough was generally thought to be an uncivilised place until Henry Fermor bequeathed money for a Church and Charity School in his will in 1734 for the benefit of the 'very ignorant and heathenish people' that lived there. The Church and School still survive today.
In Victorian times it was promoted as a health resort based on its high elevation, the rolling hills and surrounding forest. Some went as far as to call it 'Scotland in Sussex'.
It is the former home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories, whose unique statue stands in the town centre and Richard Jefferies. It is also home of the English Grand Lodge for Europe and Africa of the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC.
Crowborough shares the headquarters of Wealden District Council with nearby Hailsham. It is twinned with the French town Montargis and the Greater Manchester town Horwich.
The town is on the summit of one of the highest points in East Sussex. The relative height of the highest point of the town is 159 m, meaning Crowborough qualifies as one of England's Marilyns. The actual summit is not marked in any way on the ground, however.
Nowadays, Crowborough is not so rural as it once was. Being only about 55 km from Central London, many of the larger chains have taken over this small town, and it is now far more similar to the larger town of Tunbridge Wells, located approximately 7 miles away. It is also approximately 7 miles from Uckfield.
