Ovingdean
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Ovingdean is a small formerly agricultural village which was absorbed into the borough of Brighton, East Sussex, UK, in 1928, and now forms part of the city of Brighton and Hove. It has expanded through the growth of residential streets on its eastern and southern sides, and now has a population of about 1200. Some of the current housing replaces earlier shacks of the type once found in Woodingdean and Peacehaven, built after the First World War. It almost abuts Rottingdean to the south-east and Woodingdean to the north-east, but still has open downland on its other sides, on which may be found a golf course and Brighton racecourse as well as some residual farmland.
The name, which is Old English for 'the valley of people associated with a man called Ōfa', shows that the village has existed since Anglo-Saxon times. Little seems to have disturbed its peace since. It is sometimes said to have been attacked by French raiders in the known incursion of 1377, but there is no hard evidence for this. The historic village is a conservation area. Its focus is the eleventh-century church of St Wulfran, a dedication only ever found in two other places in England (Grantham and Dorrington, both in Lincolnshire - it has vanished at Dorrington).
Many homes in the conservation area are converted farm buildings, and the most prominent houses are Ovingdean Grange and Ovingdean Hall. The Grange is the subject of legend. In 1857, the popular novelist W. Harrison Ainsworth wrote 'Ovingdean Grange, A Tale Of The South Downs', in which he described how the future King Charles II stayed overnight before escaping to France in 1651, fathering a child in the process. In reality, the king stayed at the George Inn in West Street, Brighton. The Hall is a gentry mansion which now serves as a school for deaf and hearing-impaired children. Longhill School, a comprehensive school, is on the edge of the village, with its postal address in Rottingdean.
Buried in the churchyard, or having a monument there, are the inventor Magnus Volk, the stained-glass artist Charles Kempe, the pioneer female medical student Sophia Jex-Blake and the distinguished lawyer Helena Normanton, one of the first female barristers and QCs.
The village is distinguished by having a single shop (a sub-post-office) and no pub.
Just outside the historic boundary of Ovingdean, and actually in historic Rottingdean, is Ian Fraser House, better known as St Dunstan's, a famous residential and rehabilitation centre for blind ex-servicemen and (as of April 2006) the home of Britain's oldest living man at 110, Henry Allingham, the last surviving founder-member of the RAF.
[edit] References and further reading
- Carder, Tim, The encyclopaedia of Brighton. Lewes: East Sussex County Council (1991).
- Coates, Richard, A history of Rottingdean and Ovingdean through their place-names. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society (forthcoming).
- Davies, John G., research papers deposited locally, in e.g. East Sussex Record Office; the present writer is indebted to these papers.
