[2] The parish, which has a land area of 2,139 hectares (5,290 acres),[1] includes the hamlets of Highbrook, Selsfield Common and Sharpthorne.

[3] The mostly rural parish is centred on West Hoathly village, an ancient hilltop settlement in the High Weald between the North and South Downs.

[6] At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the land covered by the present parish was held by the manors of Ditchling and Plumpton to the southeast.

[4] Gravetye Manor house, built in 1598, still stands in extensive grounds 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village.

[7] In 1556, West Hoathly resident Ann Tree was burnt at the stake in East Grinstead for refusing to renounce Protestantism; she was one of 17 "Sussex Martyrs" who suffered this fate.

[5] In 1624, a side from West Hoathly was involved in what is believed to be the earliest known organised cricket match in Sussex, which took place at Horsted Keynes.

The church has a tower with a Perpendicular Gothic broach spire, a single-aisled nave, a chancel and a side chapel.

English Heritage describe the building as "a curiosity": it was a cottage with an attached butcher's shop until its conversion into a church in 1957.

Later abandoned to smugglers, the building and its grounds were rejuvenated in 1884 when "the greatest English gardener" William Robinson bought it.

[7] The Priest House West Hoathly in the centre of the village opposite St Margaret's Church, was turned into a museum by the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1935.

[14][29] The 15th-century open hall-house, with a five-bay façade and a solar wing, retains some original windows and its king post and trussed roof.

It is approximately H-shaped, built of ashlar, and has prominent mullioned windows and a gabled roof laid with Horsham stone slabs.

[4][7] The village pub is the Cat Inn, housed in an early 16th-century timber-framed building with a tile and brick exterior.

The best days of the club's history came in the 1980s where the team won the county league in five consecutive seasons a feat yet to be reproduced since.

This work will take place over the summer of 2012 and be undertaken on the majority by members of the parish and team players already in the construction and decorating industry.