Historian pens book on Rose Green

Local historian Gwen Stabler has covered an amazing 34 subjects in her look back at the past of the popular area.

All About Rose Green In The Past contains a wealth of facts in its 86 A5-sized pages.

Readers will be able to discover the location of the summer camps which Sir Osward Mosley used for his British Union of Fascists in the 1930s.

He and his followers were a familiar sight in their black shirts.

The Rose Green Brick Company also features along with coal merchant Bert Clinch.

Mrs Stabler, who lives around Westminster Drive on the edge of Rose Green, was prompted to write the book because of her curiousity about an area in which she grew up.

"I have always been curious about its name and how Rose Green came about," she stated.

"It was so small at the turn of the 20th century so why was it an area with its own name and not swallowed up by either Aldwick or Nyetimber?"

She spoke to some old school friends, who jogged her memory about aspects of life there, and many visits to the West Sussex Record Office resulted in more than enough information for the book.

It is the fourth which Mrs Stabler, who is in her early 60s, has written. She explained: "I love finding out information.

"If I come across a press cutting, I want to know more about what has been covered. It's a bit like being a detective and it's always nice to revive old memories.

"Once I've got that information I want to tell everybody about it. There's no point keeping it to myself.

"There's been a lot of new building in the area over the years. So many people have moved in who probably don't know anything about its past.

"Rose Green has more than trebled in size and it's difficult to know where it begins and ends.

"Luckily, parts of this rural village remain undeveloped and still resemble life before the 20th century with its expanse of land which is still cultivated today."

All About Rose Green Of The Past is on sale, priced 3.99 a copy, at the Art and Craft Centre in Rose Green Road.

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