96 Church Walk, Burgess Hill - 01444 238202 touristinformation@burgesshill.gov.uk

Burgess Hill is a civil parish and a town located in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England, close to the border with East Sussex, on the edge of the South Downs National Park. Located 39 mi (63 km) south of London, 10 mi (16 km) north of Brighton and Hove, and 29 mi (47 km) east-northeast of the county town of Chichester, it occupies an area of 3.7 sq mi and had a population of 30,635 at the time of the 2011 Census, making it the fourth most populous parish in the county (behind Crawley, Worthing and Horsham) and the most populous in the district. Other nearby towns include Haywards Heath to the North East and Lewes, the County town of East Sussex, to the South East.

Burgess Hill is predominantly situated just on the West Sussex side of the border dividing the two counties, although parts of the World's End district in the North East are across the county boundary in the Lewes district of East Sussex.

Although a Roman road, the London to Brighton Way, was built connecting London to the South coast and passing through what is now Burgess Hill, there is no evidence that the Romans settled.

Burgess Hill originated in the parishes of Clayton, Keymer and Ditchling - all of them mentioned in the Domesday Book. The town's name comes from the Burgeys family when the name John Burgeys appeared in the tax rolls. The name of Burgeys stood for 'bourgeois', the inhabitant of a borough. By the Elizabethan period a community had established itself and many buildings dating from this era still stand.

The hill in the town's name is taken to mean different things to different people; many believe that the hill in question is the hill on which the railway station currently stands, but there is a Burgess Farm on a hill in the south-east of the town, in Folders Lane. Whether this is the hill referred to in the town's name is not known.

The few buildings in the area were the two farmhouses, at Hammonds Ridge (still standing as a residence) and one at Queen's Crescent, in the west of what is now Burgess Hill. But until the nineteenth century, the town was known as St John's Common, and much of what is now the town centre was common land used by the tenants of Clayton and Keymer manors for grazing and as a source of fuel. Buildings which supported the common land were the King's Head pub (now demolished), a blacksmith's forge, and several cottages.

From the fourteenth century or earlier the annual Midsummer Fair was held on this common land on 24 June, the feast of the birth of St John the Baptist. The last such sheep and lamb fair was held in 1913.

This sheep and lamb fair was the first of the year in Sussex, and there was much interest. It is said that farmers from as far afield as Hastings to the east and Findon to the west visited, and at its peak, more than 9000 lambs were sold at the fair, together with numerous horses, cattle and sheep.

With the development of the London to Brighton mainline railway, however, those in the business soon realised that transporting sheep by train was more cost effective and easier than using the old roadways. Most livestock trading began to centre on railside markets such as those at Hassocks, Haywards Heath and Lewes railway stations. By the dawn of the 20th century, livestock trading had all but ceased in the Burgess Hill area.