Guestling


Guestling is a village and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. The village is located north-east of Hastings on the A259 road to Rye. Its parish church is dedicated to St Laurence.

History

Guestling, referred to in the Doomsday book as Gestelinges, was originally named as a settlement of the family of a man named Gyrstel. The Doomsday book also showed that in 1086, the village consisted of twenty one households, 14 villagers and 7 cottagers.
In 1542, Gregory Martin was born in Guestling and went on to do the majority of the translation for the Douay–Rheims_Bible, the first full official Catholic English Bible translation. In 1896, hand made bricks were first produced in Guestling, which would go on to be used in Royal locations such as Buckingham Palace and Hampton Court.
In June 2017, Brian Bellhouse was trampled to death by a herd of cows in a field at Church Lane, Guestling.

Geography

The village of Guestling is located from the coast, and about north east of Hastings The village is a scattered one, consisting of multiple parts — Guestling Green and Guestling Thorn; the hamlet of Three Oaks lies within the parish.

Landmarks and culture

The village was likely originally centred around the St Laurence's Church, built in the 11th century - the building has a Norman tower which has been Grade I listed since 1961. However, the villagers moved further away from the church, possibly due to victims of an outbreak of black death buried in the church graveyard. Also buried in the graveyard was Olive Brockwell, nanny of Christopher Robin Milne. The church had been restored in 1886, however the restorations where damaged by a fire in 1890. The village's war memorials are located within the church, with 24 names from World War I and 8 from World War II. There has been an annual Flower Festival since the 1990s at St Laurence's Church.
The school in the village is the Guestling-Bradshaw CE Primary School, which dates back to 1835.