Rottingdean
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rottingdean | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Statistics | ||
| Population: | 2,500 | |
| Ordnance Survey | ||
| OS grid reference: | TQ375025 | |
| Administration | ||
| District: | Brighton & Hove | |
| Region: | South East England | |
| Constituent country: | England | |
| Sovereign state: | United Kingdom | |
| Other | ||
| Ceremonial county: | East Sussex | |
| Historic county: | Sussex | |
| Services | ||
| Police force: | Sussex Police | |
| Fire and rescue: | {{{Fire}}} | |
| Ambulance: | South East Coast | |
| Post office and telephone | ||
| Post town: | Brighton | |
| Postal district: | BN2 | |
| Dialling code: | 01273 | |
| Politics | ||
| UK Parliament: | Brighton Kemptown | |
| European Parliament: | South East England | |
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Rottingdean is a coastal village in the City of Brighton & Hove with a picture-postcard historic centre, situated in East Sussex, on the south coast of England bordering both Ovingdean and Woodingdean.
It has about 2,500 inhabitants. For most of its history it was a farming community, but from the late 18th century it attracted leisured visitors wanting a genteel alternative to raffish Brighton, among them some names famous in English cultural life. Some, in the late 19th century, notably the painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones and his nephew Rudyard Kipling, made it their home. Kipling's old house adjacent to Kipling Gardens is still standing and the former house of the painter Sir William Nicholson is currently open to the public as a library and museum. Rottingdean is also notable for the black wooden windmill on the hill on its western side; the hill is a local nature reserve. It was also well known for sport, having a cricket club founded in 1758 and having been a centre of foxhunting especially in the second half of the 19th century.
Its most historic other building is its probably 13th-century church of St Margaret, constructed in flint and having a short spire with a cap. An almost exact replica has been constructed at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. The Rottingdean church features stained glass by Edward Burne-Jones, whose ashes are buried in the churchyard. Other modestly well-known burials include those of the Victorian novelist William Black, Burne-Jones's granddaughter the author Angela Thirkell, and the 1920s music-hall star G.H. Elliott, known professionally as "The Chocolate-Coloured Coon".
Most of these well-known people were not local, and had settled in or retired to Rottingdean. The village also had home-grown talent of significance, notably the Copper Family who maintained a long tradition of English folksong, performing for the collector Kate Lee as early as 1892. Its best-known member was Bob Copper (1915-2004), also known as a writer.
Most histories of Rottingdean mention that its inhabitants were involved in smuggling when that was especially profitable, mainly in the 18th century. It is impossible to verify all the local stories, or believe all the claims about secret passages under the village, but it is persistently rumoured that the 18th-century vicar Dr Thomas Hooker was deeply implicated. The other face of Hooker was his devotion to education. He opened schools in the village both for the well-off (which developed eventually into the present St Aubyn's prep school) and for the local children.
The parish became part of county borough of Brighton in 1928. [1] It recently regained an independent parish council, the only one in what is now the city of Brighton and Hove. The adjacent suburb of Woodingdean was formerly (till 1933) part of Rottingdean parish.
