Haywards Heath

When the London to Brighton railway line was built, a stop was needed to service the villages of Cuckfield and Lindfield. However, neither town was happy to have a railway line running through their back yards so Haywards Heath, pretty much directly in the middle of the two, came to be the railway town. Since that day, Haywards Heath has grown and grown, leaving Cuckfield and Lindfield to become satellite villages to their bigger brother.

Some people believe the population in Haywards Heath is divided into three main groups: those that disappear to London each day (45 minutes away by train), those that work in the area (there are plenty of financial institutions with offices in Haywards Heath) and those that are retired. Haywards Heath is sufficiently far from London to count as the countryside; the Souths Downs are only a short drive away. Housing in Haywards Heath is marginally more expensive than larger nearby towns such as Crawley and Burgess Hill due to a perceived far higher desirability.