Forest Row is a village and relatively large civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England The village is located three miles (5km) south-east of East Grinstead. The village draws its name from its proximity to the Ashdown Forest, a royal hunting park first enclosed in the 13th century. From its origins as a small hamlet, Forest Row has grown, first with the establishment of a turnpike road in the 18th century; and later with the opening of the railway between East Grinstead and Lewes in 1882; the line closed in 1958. The village inn (now known as The Swan, originally the Yew Tree), part medieval, was a centre of smuggling in the 18th century. Brambletye House (known locally as Bambletye Castle) was built by Sir Henry Compton in 1631. This building features in the 1826 Horace Smith novel: Brambletye House. A mail coach robbery occurred at the bottom of Wall Hill on June 27th 1801. John Beatson and his adopted son William Whalley Beatson hid in a meadow at the foot of Wall Hill, by the entrance to an old Roman road. The mail coach made its way up Wall Hill, where it was stopped by them just after midnight. The Beatsons took between £4,000 and £5000. Judge Baron Hotham sentenced the two men to death by hanging at the trial on March 29th 1802. Gallows were erected on the spot where the robbery took place, on April 17th 1802. Beatson and his adopted son were hanged in the presence of 3,000 people. John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, came to Forest Row in 1963 during his visit to the UK, attending a service at the Our Lady of the Forest church. At the time he was engaged in a series of discussions with the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at his home in nearby Birchgrove. More on Forest Row