Balcombe

Village in West Sussex, England
the village and civil parish in West Sussex

Balcombe is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. It lies 31 mile (50 km) south of London, 16 mile (26 km) north of Brighton, and 32 mile (51 km) east northeast of the county town of Chichester. Nearby towns include Crawley to the northwest and Haywards Heath to the south southeast.

The name Balcombe may mean "Mining Place Camp". Bal is a Cornish word meaning a mining place as in Bal Maidens, and the same word may have existed in Ancient British Celtic. Although Coombe or Combe can mean a valley, it can also come from the Roman "camp". So possibly from its name Balcombe could have once been a Romano British mining settlement. South of Balcombe on the London to Brighton railway line is the Ouse Valley Viaduct. Designed and engineered by John Urpeth Rastrick (1780–1856) in consultation with the talented architect David Mocatta, it was completed in 1842. It is 100 feet (30 m) high and 500 yards long. It has 37 arches and was built with 11 million imported Dutch bricks. The village has a series of murals about World War I in its Victory Hall. Lady Gertrude Denman commissioned artist Neville Lytton to paint the 34 feet (10 m) long by 10 feet (3 m) high frescoes. Balcombe was the birthplace of Colour Sergeant (later Lieutenant Colonel) Frank Bourne DCM, who fought at the battle of Rorke's Drift in the Zulu War. He was the last British survivor of that battle when he died in Dorking in 1945. Famous residents included actor Paul Scofield who is buried with his wife Joy in St. Mary's churchyard. The River Ouse was once navigable from the south coast to Balcombe, for the delivery of Dutch bricks to the viaduct.

The parish contains no scheduled monuments.

St Mary's Church is Balcombe's parish church, located to the north of the village, on London Road (B2036), at The original church was built in the late 13th or early 14th century; it consisted of a chancel (now the south chapel) and a narrow nave (now the south aisle). The west tower, with a shingled broach spire, was added in the 15th century. The church was rebuilt in 1847–50, adding a north aisle (now the nave); and again in 1872–72, when the current north aisle and chancel were built. The church is built of local sandstone, with a Horsham Stone roof. The church is a Grade I listed building, listed for the tower (List Entry Number 1354797, first listed 28 October 1957). The church is in the Church of England Diocese of Chichester, Archdeaconry of Horsham.

The village has a railway station which lies just north of Haywards Heath on the Brighton Main Line. Balcombe railway station helped expand a predominantly farming community into one of the popular London commuter villages. The station offers direct services to London Victoria, Cambridge (via London Bridge), and Brighton. To the north of the village is Balcombe tunnel.

Test drilling and possible fracking for petroleum deposits was proposed in 2012. A protest group was formed and a picnic was held. There was considerable opposition in the local population to exploration plans. Cuadrilla Resources, the company that proposes to drill the well, engaged in public relations efforts attempting to convince villagers that the project was both useful and safe. Previous exploration by Conoco in the same area in 1986 was abandoned. In July 2013 a licence to drill the well was granted by the Environment Agency and Cuadrilla began transporting equipment and supplies to the test site. The well would be 3000 feet (914 m) deep with a possible 2500 feet (762 m) horizontal leg. As of August 2013, Balcombe had emerged as a focus of opposition to fracking in the Weald Basin of southeast England and vigorous protests were in progress. In March 2014, a group of residents set up a renewable energy co operative called REPOWERBalcombe, with a view to healing the rifts that emerged during the protests. REPOWERBalcombe aims to match the village's domestic electricity demand with community owned solar power.

Balcombe was used as the location for Arthur Dent's house in the first episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series) in May 1980. Dent wakes up to find bulldozers about to demolish his house. The show's producers said they spent two months searching for the ideal location, before finding the farmhouse at Edmonds Farm in Balcombe.