Replacement windows in Sharpthorne, above the Bluebell Railway tunnel

Sharpthorne is a village in West Hoathly parish, Mid Sussex, on the road from West Hoathly to Forest Row about four miles south of East Grinstead. Under it runs Sharpthorne Tunnel, 731 yards long and the longest tunnel on any heritage railway in Britain, carrying the Bluebell Railway.

A railway and brickworks village

The Lewes and East Grinstead line reached here in 1882. Its station, called West Hoathly, closed in 1958 and the building was demolished in 1967. When the Bluebell Railway relaid the line in 1992 the station was not rebuilt, partly because residents were worried about traffic.

The other industry was brick. The brickworks on the edge of the village, later run by Ibstock, made bricks for well over a century before production stopped, and in April 2024 Mid Sussex District Council approved 108 homes on the former site. Brick is the local material here, and a new estate is now on its way.

Windows and planning

Sharpthorne does not have a conservation area of its own; the West Hoathly conservation area covers the old hilltop village to the south. The village is inside the High Weald National Landscape, which matters a great deal for new building, as the arguments over the brickworks site showed, but does not change the right of a house owner to replace windows. For most homes here, white or cream uPVC casements are the sensible choice.

If you buy one of the new homes on the brickworks site, check the planning permission before changing anything. New estates in protected landscapes are often approved with conditions that remove permitted development rights, and window style can be one of them. The answer is in the decision notice on the council's planning register.

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