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Please don't moan if your news or event isn't mentioned. If
you don't tell us then we can't
tell everyone else!
Some good power news
We have been criticised for only giving negative news, well
you know the old story "Man Bites Dog" is news, "Dog Bites Man" is
not! However we are pleased to report that the night of February 29th was
one of the stormiest for a long time yet we did not suffer a single power
outage! So it's "well done" to E.D.F. for keeping village lights alight.
Perhaps the recent spate of power line tree cutting helped?
Crown Inn sold - Press Report
We are pleased to announce that the Crown has been sold and
is to reopen as a pub in the near future. Now let's get that plastic down!
More details soon. If the new owners would like to give us some firm info we
would be delighted to pass it on to the village. It beats a natter outside
the Post office anytime. ;-)
VILLAGE RUNS DRY TWICE IN ONE WEEK
The freezing weather not only disturbed travel arrangements
this week. After being without water earlier this week when a leak was
fixed, taps in Horsted Keynes again started to run dry on Saturday night
when workmen set to repairing a leak that had been fountaining out of the
road near Ludwell Grange for several days.
As soon as this leak was cured early on Sunday morning and
full pressure restored, another part of the same pipe literally blew a hole
in a field a hundred metres away near Medhurst Farm.
This meant that the village was without a mains water supply
for the whole of Sunday. On what must have been expected to be one of the
busiest days of the year The Green Man was forced to close, as was the
British Legion.
Supplies started to return just after 6 p.m. on Sunday
evening and are now back to normal.
A large badger in our garden at 4a.m.! No reason, just to look at!
More lightning on the Green! June 23 2007
After the Crown strike another of the remaining Horsted
Keynes hostelries was attacked by the elements today. The British Legion was
near the centre of yet another lightning strike which came out of an almost
blue sky. It seems that this time it was telephone lines rather than the
power cables that were hit as with little warning a massive bang could be
heard all over the village. Electrical items and computers took the brunt as
they suddenly came to a halt at about 2.30 on Saturday afternoon.
Fortunately there was no structural damage reported.
Is someone, somewhere trying to tell HK drinkers
something or is it all a sinister plot by B.T. ? ;-)
New BBC Show
Heir Hunters Features Former Horsted Keynes Resident
A new daytime programme to be shown on BBC1 will feature
a former Horsted Keynes resident Clive Mussen. The programme Heir Hunters
covers people throughout the UK who have died intestate - without leaving a
will - and looks for their relatives who might be about to inherit a small
(or large) fortune.
We understand that Clive Mussen has left property in the
centre of the village and so far no relatives have come to light.
UPDATE
The series was shown on BBC1 at
9-15a.m. starting on June 4th. 2007 however in the end there was no
mention of Clive or his former home. Perhaps this is because the Government
reportedly got the cash this time?
South-Eastern Water lifted their 18 month hosepipe ban
today. 'Bout time too! This means that all areas of the village can once
again wash their cars and water their greenhouses. Let's hope they don't
reinstate a ban the first time that the sun shines on the village green.
RAVING
MAD?
(Updated Wednesday 14th. June)
An all night "Rave" caused much consternation last Saturday
night - it could be heard as far away as Ardingly, Lindfield and Haywards Heath!
There is now a
news
report on the BBC web site about the rave. One interesting point is that the
police say that they broke the rave up at about 2a.m. All together now... "Oh no
they didn't!". We could certainly hear the thumping until well after dawn.
Perhaps the police broke up a different rave?! ;-)
Another question worth asking is if it is Mid-Sussex
Council's responsibility to act on this disturbance then why do they not have 24
hour "noise patrols" like other areas?
We received the following email just as things were breaking
up and before the full facts emerged. Some of the comments are therefore still
justified, while others may need to be modified as fuller information
emerges....(Due to developments of news we have unusually
decided to remove the entry)
ALL NIGHT RAVE KEEPS THE
VILLAGE FROM SLEEPING
Comments removed as the original letter has be
superseded due to news updates.
Submitted by "a villager".
Fire at The Crown Inn
At last some developments! A short informal meeting was held in the Martindale
Centre on Monday 16th January 2006 concerning the future of the Crown.
Those present were: Tony Harrison, Michael Oesterlin,
Lizzy Oesterlin, Ann Lock, David Lock, Pat Webster, Mr Webster, Reg
Stewart, Bob Pelling and Jim Brimfield. Georgie Elwes, Nicky Harrison
and Helen Owers were also present for a short time at the beginning of
the meeting.
The objective of the meeting was to share any information
gathered about the Crown and to try to find a way to further two aims: to
protect the cricket pitch as an open green space and to get the Crown
rebuilt.
It was established that the owners of the pub have no
intention of rebuilding the Crown in line with the planning consent that Mid
Sussex District Council (MSDC) has granted; i.e. as a two storey building
operating as a pub. There will be many in the village who would be extremely
sad not to see the Crown rebuilt as a pub. However it was agreed that for
the present, our aim should be to try to preserve the structure as it is, as
a Grade II listed building. The Society for the Protection of Ancient
Buildings has advised that the best way to do this is for us to put pressure
on MSDC to serve a notice of repairs, which would involve MSDC drawing up a
list of necessary permanent repairs together with a specified time limit.
The District Council has statutory powers to do this, but SPAB emphasised
that the success of such a campaign would be largely due to local pressure.
This means that as many people as possible should write in to MSDC to
express support for this action. The address to write to is:
Mrs Fisher
North Area Planning
MSDC
Oaklands
Oaklands Rd
Haywards Heath
West Sussex
RH16 1SS
The identity of the owners of the Crown should be confirmed by Wednesday of
this week. It was suggested that it might be beneficial to contact the
owners to try to ascertain what their plans were.
It was also agreed that the Land Registry Office be
contacted in order to get a site plan of the Crown and cricket pitch and to
ascertain whether or not any covenants exist on the cricket pitch.
The position so far is that Mid Sussex District Council
have sought the advice of English Heritage, presumably to investigate the
viability of keeping the Crown as a Grade II listed building, and is
awaiting a reply. Buildings can be de-listed at any time if a good case can
be made, but this is a lengthy and costly process, involving the Secretary
of State as well as English Heritage. An example would be a building where
not enough of the original fabric remains to warrant listed status, or where
the building is structurally unsound.
There will be an update at the beginning of the next Parish Council meeting
on 14th February 7.30 pm in the Village Hall.
Could the village
centre do with some fixed public lighting?
More than 100 years ago they used to hang oil lanterns
and candles from
the trees whenever there was an event at the church so that villagers could
walk down the hill without falling into the hedge! Indeed we are told that
there are still some of the hangers on the old trees in Church Lane
if you
know where to look. At the recent carol service there were many people
walking down the lane holding lanterns and torches as the way was quite dark
despite there being a full moon.
It's now nearly 2006 and perhaps time to consider a few
strategically placed street lights again - this time we could use
electricity instead of oil! Following requests from local residents we have decided to ask
your opinions on the matter.
We do appreciate that Horsted Keynes is one of the few
places between London and the coast where it is still really dark at night,
and many residents want it to stay that way without the dreadful orange glow
that can be seen on the horizon. Clearly some of the people
who are suggesting a change are newcomers to rural living who have not been
brought up to store a well charged torch by their front door!
On the other hand it is possible that a few more people
might park at the top of the hill and walk down to the church instead of
blocking Church Lane with their cars if they could see their way more
clearly at night. (We did say possible - that's all ;-)
Anyway, we have been asked to solicit comments, so ask
you to have a think about it and let us know your views. Obviously you could
instead have a chat with your local Parish Councillor if you prefer the old
non-electronic way of passing on your thoughts!
We try to publish all comments received but cannot
guarantee this as the web site is run as an unpaid hobby rather than a
business. As usual we will use your name or nickname unless you specifically
ask us to keep your comment annonymous.
As a rate paying village resident I wondered if there might be any other
residents out there interested in getting some attractive street
lighting down the village high street? I twisted my ankle so
badly this summer on the dark high street that it's not been the
same since. Other residents I've spoken to say they'd love to go
down to the local pub if it wasn't for walking in the pitch
black. The local pub and shop would surely benefit from some
extra trade from residents enjoying a lit walk to their venue? I
feel the high street would look so much more beautiful and
welcoming. Let's admit, lovely as HK is, isn't it feeling a
trifle dead? The ghostly Crown doesn't help much I know.
Could you put this idea to residents on your website and get
some kind of petition going? Not to scare them off though with
the idea of dreadful neon lights, but the attractive old
fashioned variety. What do you think?
Yours sincerely
Sonia Knox
Hi
I would vote NO on this one unless there is clear evidence that
people are being injured ( Although I have now lived here for 16
years, I had never previously lived anywhere without street lights
-
However the lack of lighting never bothered me. Indeed it rather
adds
to the charm of the place).
A more useful ( and cheaper ) safety measure might be to persuade
the
parents of young children that Church lane is a public road and not
an extension of the School playground!
Regards
Trev
34 New Houses in
Hamsland?
UPDATE, May 2006:We understand the development will not take place - for now! More
details soon.
On the South Eastern
edge of our village lies Hamsland, an estate built in the former fields
adjoining the mansion of that name. Half way along this road is St.
Stephen’s Catholic Church and behind this is a field.
It seems that Mid
Sussex District Council have put this (literally) green field site on a list
of areas where new housing could be developed. You can read all about it
here.
As can be imagined residents in the
area are not too keen on having 34 houses built where they now have
uninterrupted views across the Sussex countryside and have raised the matter
vociferously at Council level. One of their main objections seems to be that
the inclusion of this field has not been widely publicised (although we
understand that specific public objections will be sought in the future).
We will try to keep you abridged of
developments but in the mean time should you wish to comment on the proposal
as it now stands we will be pleased to add them to this page.
Emails to the usual address please.
As
residents most affected by this proposal, we have been looking at the
MSDC website again to check on developments and notice that a list of
objections is now available.
What is
causing us concern and anger is that the Parish Council appears to be in
support of the development:
Council
recognises the need for affordable housing, and that there are limited
sites available. Development of this site should be considered, but
there are a number of issues that should be addressed.
Parish Council supports further consideration of the site, but believes
the number of houses proposed would create unacceptable traffic, and
that the development should only be considered if a much lower housing
density is agreed.
We
cannot but think that there is an ulterior motive behind this, possibly
in using the possible development as ammunition against the Freshfield
Tip. In any case, we feel that the Parish Council is not in tune with
the thoughts of local residents, as we never received a reply to our
first letter to them last July. Perhaps it is time again to raise this
matter on the website so that people in the village are aware of what is
happening.
Regards
– David Cotterill/Len Walton
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WOW - Horsted
Keynes live on the
BBC!
We are delighted to announce that the BBC have
selected Horsted Keynes as one of the most photogenic places in the UK and
they are now taking our live web camera pictures so that
visitors to their site (which is the largest web site in the UK and one of the
largest in the world) can see up to date pictures of our beautiful
Sussex village. This will of course bring the name Horsted Keynes to
the attention of readers and viewers all over the world!
Whilst we are showing the best pictures that we can
from our location, there are two things that would make this service
complete. These are two windowsills, one overlooking the village green, and
another looking out on Horsted Keynes station. How about it, do you have
somewhere suitable? You would need a broadband internet connection but we'd
provide the special cameras which don't need a computer to run and wouldn't interfere with your normal internet use at
all.
If you'd like to see
the new cameras that we are using
take a look
here.
PLEASE DO NOT STEAL OUR WORK!
If this web site was a book that you had
written and you found that a local book shop was selling off photocopies
with a different authors name on the cover you would be a little miffed, wouldn't you?
This web site contains more than 50Meg of material most of which is
unavailable anywhere else in this form and which has taken us literally
years of work to compile. The fact that it is published on a computer is immaterial.
Lately we have found several cases of sites (mostly larger than ourselves)
stealing our source material just to make their half empty pages look
better. In one case more than 100k (that's
probably 30 A4 size pages of text) have been
found on another site - complete with our grammatical and spelling
errors - now corrected. It just forgot to mention that we wrote the material! This is not only unfair it is illegal.
When we do a picture search for
Horsted Keynes things are even worse; we see photographs from this site
all over the internet! Let's make this 100% clear - if you find a photograph on
the internet you cannot just right click it and then put it on your own
web site. Photographs (up to a certain age anyway) are copyright and
reproduction is illegal. Without exception if we have found a recent
photo that we think might look good on these web pages we ASK FIRST. Usually
people are honoured to help (as are we) but occasionally we get
stonewalled. That's life!
As our site gets bigger and the village
gets better known, more visitors
will come to us both electronically and in person, so we are determined
to make HorstedKeynes.Com the best village site in the UK. To do this we
have to publish content that is both exclusive and accurate. This won't
happen if out of date, unchecked, material is available all over the internet.
Here is our final warning. We now have a
copyright lawyer who lives locally and has offered us free use of her
services. Warning emails have been sent to the miscreants (sorry, copyright thieves)
and if the theft continues we WILL sue and
claim damages. You have been warned!
The silly thing is as we say at the foot
of every page. Other web sites are welcome to
use our material free of charge, as long as
they ask first and
acknowledge us as the original authors of the
material! In this way we can advise them of amendments and updates,
it's not much to ask, is it?
If YOU see
our work (that's pictures or text) on other web sites please do
let us know. As far as we are aware we have not lifted a single
sentence from another web site without permission (except addresses and 'phone numbers which we
copy and paste for accuracy), so if the text is the same or the pictures
seem familiar, it's probably been "borrowed" from us!
Please email
copyright@horstedkeynes.com
with the address where you saw the information. We will take a look and in
most cases can confirm with 100% accuracy whether it's our work or not. You
may remain anonymous or give us your name as you wish. We won't contact you
back unless you say that we can, and your name would never be mentioned
publicly in
form.
Thanks,
Your webmasters.
p.s. ANYONE
may provide a link to this site without asking first.
If
you do link to us (and let us know) we will link back to you, this will boost both our ratings
as we are at or near the top of many search engines!
Exactly 700 years since
William Wallace's Death We love anniversaries and it won't have escaped your notice that
Scottish patriot William Wallace was put to death on August 23, 1305,
exactly 700 years ago. This should be recognised as a holiday, especially in
Scotland. (Please don't try and understand why this is here, it's just too
complicated to explain! ;-)
We are very unusual in allowing almost
all pictures on H.K.Com to be viewed or downloaded in full resolution for
PERSONAL use only. Just click on the picture that
you want to study and it will open. If you then see a little + symbol left click
again to view it full size.
To save the picture right click and then "Save As". You may NOT then copy the
picture onto another web site without permission.