The earliest known human settlement is an Iron Age camp at Piper's Copse, the only one found on low ground in Sussex.

Competing for firewood with glassmakers were the ironmasters, using continental technology in the Tudor and Stuart periods, to smelt iron from locally dug ironstone in water powered blast furnaces.

Tar, methyl alcohol and acid were distilled into wooden barrels leaving high quality charcoal needed by gunpowder mills to produce improved black powder for the Napoleonic wars.

By 1839 the site had become a tannery where cattle hides were soaked in liquid made from ground up oak tree bark for many months, a very smelly process.

As well as the Anglican parish church of St Michael there was the chapel of the Society of Dependants, built in 1872 behind the present village shop and now a private dwelling.

[3] Education for the ordinary people began in 1835 with the building of a free Sunday School at the junction with the lane to Hillgrove, using government money channelled through the Church of England.

in 1849 this was extended to become a Church of England day school, giving a free basic education in literacy and numeracy and having emphasis on religious indoctrination.

By the early 20th century the building was considered inadequate by the County Council and the site unhealthy as they were pumping water from the sewage polluted stream.

Alongside the primary school is the Working Men's Club, founded in 1924 as a memorial to the villagers killed in the First World War.