Old Heathfield

Old Heathfield is a small village that resides alongside the growing market town of  of Heathfield. Its local pub, The Star Inn, was originally built to serve as an alehouse for the stonemasons that were engaged in building the Norman Church All Saints. The church has a list of all the vicars that have served there which dates as far back as 1400.

The church is most famous, however, for one vicar in particular called Robert Hunt. In 1606, the37 year old vicar was chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury to accompany Richard Hakluft on his expedition to the New World to discover new lands. Robert Hunt became the first clergyman to settle in America. On the 29th April 1607 he gave his first prayer as the new settlers planted a cross at Cape Henry to commemorate the founding of the first permanent English Settlement in North America.

The American and British Commonwealth Association of the United States commissioned a plaque in 1957 in Hunt’s memory and to commemorate the founding of Jamestown, Virginia. Then, in 1962, a memorial window was unveiled at All Saint’s church. The window was donated by Dawn Langley in memory of her grandmother and great aunt, twin sisters who resided in Old Heathfield for many years. The window was unveiled by Dawn’s adoptive mother, Dame Margaret Rutherford in 1962. The window depicts Robert Hunt administering Holy Communion to a congregation made up of settlers and native Americans. There are two Red Indian children in the congregation who have been given the faces of the Ticehurst Twins the window is memorialising.

School Hill Old Heathfield