Sports facilities

Henfield Leisure Centre at Northcroft has a sports hall and fitness suite. There is a small skate park located next to the sports centre. Near to the leisure centre is Henfield tennis club, founded in 1920.^[8]

The Cat House

The Cat House

The Cat House is at Pinchnose Green, so called because there used to be a tannery nearby and the process of tanning produces unpleasant odours. This house was once owned by George Ward who had a canary. This bird was killed by a cat belonging to the Anglican Canon Nathaniel Woodard who lived at nearby Martyn Lodge. So incensed was Ward that he painted his house with pictures of a cat holding a bird that would be seen by the canon every time he walked past on his way to the church. He also rigged up strings of sea shells to rattle, and a black figure would appear at a small window called the zulu hole when the hapless canon was seen approaching.

Henfield Museum

Started in the 1930s, Henfield Museum moved to its current location in the Henfield Hall in 1974. It contains collections related to local events and people from mesolithic times onwards as well as local natural history. It also contains materials linked to local people such as Marjorie Baker and William Borrer and enterprises including the Allen-Brown Violet Nurseries and local railway station (closed in 1966).^[9] It is run by the Friends of Henfield Museum and the Henfield Parish Council.

Henfield's Commons

Henfield Parish Council supports four Commons: Henfield Common, Broadmere Common, Oreham Common and the Tanyard. All are ecologically rich and support a diverse range of wildlife.^[10]

Henfield Common

Henfield Common (TQ 219 156) is at the southern end of the High Street. It covers almost 20 hectares, including a cricket pitch, two football fields, rich marshland and heathy grassland.^[11][12] It is botanically important and supports a wide range of wildlife. Its main character historically was that of a moor and three quarters of its special plants grow best on marsh or wet ground and the other quarter on heath and grasslands. In June and July the southern marsh orchid can be seen amongst the common spotted orchid. In the late summer to the south of the marsh, the grass can be tinted purple by the devil's-bit scabious. There are surviving patches of wild chamomile on the cricket pitch also. In autumn, there are many species of field fungi including waxcaps and fairy clubs on the heath. The natural environment also supports much fauna and conservation groups monitor the area.^[13]

Despite the historical botanical richness and beauty of the common, many species have already been lost from the area since the drainage ditch was dug in 1886, making the area less wet. Lost species include small fleabane, starfruit, mudwort, lesser marshwort, bogbean, sundew, marsh cinquefoil, beaked and white sedges, chaffweed and bog-myrtle. Recent changes in the management of the Common mean even more species have been lost or are rapidly disappearing including dwarf gorse, common heather and petty whin. In 2017 disaster struck for the future of the botanical richness and the accompanying, often unseen, wildlife of the Common when the football pitches were sprayed with herbicide and ploughed destroying the glorious chamomile lawn and the recovering marsh vegetation. In the process heath and southern marsh orchids, marsh pennywort and the only patch of scarce adder's tongue fern were killed. If any of the botanical richness of the area is going to persist, the marsh will benefit from re-wetting and the heath will benefit from grazing, as well as mowing.^[14]

Broadmere common, Henfield, West Sussex

Footpath to Broadmere Common - geograph

Broadmere Common

Broadmere Common (TQ 216 150) is at the eastern end of Dag Brooks and is almost 5 hectares. The name derives from the old English term "broad mere" meaning broad lake due its wetness. It has many pools, many of which were originally dug for the clay needed for brick-making. It has many precious plants though including yellow flag, goat willow, meadowsweet, occasional marsh woundwort and even scarce meadow brome. In the ponds there are water mint, greater bird's-foot-trefoil, common fleabane and swan mussels. Once it was famed by botanists for even rarer local plants including small fleabane, starfruit, mudwort and lesser marshwort, but of these only the lesser marshwort still exists and its survival is threatened by the invasive Australian swamp stonecrop.^[14] Palmate newts are present in the ponds and the Common can still support a number of Birds of Conservation Concern including nightingale and cuckoo, and even lesser spotted woodpecker has been seen there.^[15] The richness of the Common fauna and flora will benefit from having the ponds cleared and the land grazed.^[14]

Oreham Common - geograph

Woods Mill

Conyboro1898

Woods Mill is the headquarters of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and an environmental education centre. It is an area of 47 acres. There is an ancient woodland, a lake, streams and unimproved meadows with wild hedgerows.

Henfield Brooks

Henfield brooks (TQ 203 153) are to the east of the River Adur and to the south west of the village. The fields flood regularly during winter rains. In spring the brooks are full of life with marsh frogs, lapwings, reed buntings and traditionally the call of the cuckoo, although that is becoming rarer. In summer the ditches support scarce plants such as greater water parsnip (an aquatic plant which has seen a massive reduction recently and now only occurs in around 50 sites in England^[18]), water dropwort, arrowhead and flowering rush. The area can support common snipe, lesser spotted woodpecker and little owl.^[14]

Henfield Moors

Between Henfield Common and Woodmancote Place is a low plain with fine unimproved wet rush pastures known as The Moors. The ground is made from the Sussex Gault Clay. gorse and birch line the fences and the two ditches support bog pondweed. Behind the Swains Farm shop, in the pony-grazed western fields there is the largest population of (and best managed) meadow thistle in Sussex. You can also find heath spotted orchid, lousewort, tormentil, ragged-robin, marsh pennywort and at least six sedges.^[14]

The Pokerlee stream

The Pokerlee Stream is a lovely tributary of the Adur that runs through the Beeding, Horton, and Dag brooks, south of Henfield, Nep Town and The Pools meadows and ends up going through a tiny triangular bluebell wood on the north side of Horn Lane. It separates the Wealden Clay of Oreham from the fertile Greensand ridge's large arable fields. The best access is from the south of Henfield. Like many of the steams of east of the Adur, parts have been straightened, partly for mill leats and partly for land drainage. There was a farmstead and barns of the same name (TQ 204 144). Only the farm pond and a little holloway leading down to the Horton brooks survives.^[14]

The name, Pokerlee, is first recorded (indirectly) in 1327. The first element might be the word poker, 'hobgoblin', which is of Scandinavian origin and survives as the Durham place-name 'Pokerley'. However, as this is a southern usage this is not very likely. Thus, it could alternatively mean "one who has to do with a poke or bag", which survives in its diminutive form as 'pocket' and in the saying 'a pig in a poke' (sack) which refers to something bought without inspection or through a confidence trick. The second element of word, lee, refers to a meadow or a clearing.^[19]