Hassocks prepares to mark Remembrance Sunday

Hassocks Parish Council is bringing community groups together to mark Remembrance Sunday on 8 November 2026, and residents are warmly invited to take part.

The commemorations will begin at 1.30pm in the Adastra Park car park, opposite the Memorial Gardens. The parade will then travel along Keymer Road to Keymer Church, arriving for an outside service around 2.00pm.

Representatives of local community groups as well as Hassocks Parish, West Sussex County and Mid Sussex District Councils will lay wreaths. Scouts, Brownies and Cubs will also take part, each laying a wooden cross at the war memorial when the names are called.

The Parish Council took over management of Hassocks’ Remembrance Sunday commemorations from the local Royal British Legion in 2025. Around 100 people attended last year, and we expect an even larger gathering this November.

The event offers the whole community an opportunity to come together, remember those 52 fallen men from Keymer and Hassocks who served in the two world wars and Falklands War, and to reflect on the continuing impact of war and conflict.

If you have questions about the arrangements, please contact Louise Coles at office@hassocks-pc.gov.uk.

Road closures and travel advice

To help the event run safely, Adastra Park car park will close from 12 noon. Anyone planning to attend should allow extra time for their journey. There will be road closures on the B2116 Keymer Road between Adastra Park to Beaconhurst, with diversions in place. These are likely to affect:

• Keymer Road/Burial Gound intersection
• Keymer Road/Ockley Lane
• The intersection of Lodge Lane/Dale Avenue (north end of Lodge Lane/Keymer Road)
• Keymer Road/Orchard Lane
• Keymer Road/Dale Avenue

Remembrance Sunday Facebook event

Hassocks’ history of service and remembrance

In the last Census, 297 Hassocks residents identified as UK armed forces veterans, while many other local families have connections to military service or personal experience of war and conflict.

Adastra Park and its Memorial Garden were donated to the Parish Council by the late E. D. Stafford in memory of his son, who was killed while serving with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. The park takes its name from the official motto of the Royal Flying Corps and, later, the Royal Air Force: Per ardua ad astra – ‘Through adversity to the stars’.

During the Second World War, evacuation from London swelled the population of Hassocks by around 1,250. The village also hosted troops from the 1st Canadian Army, the largest Commonwealth force ever stationed in the UK, charged with defending the Sussex coast before helping to liberate Europe.

The local Keymer and Clayton War Memorials blog records the names and stories of 77 men from the wider local area who died in the two world wars, including those commemorated on local memorials:

Anscombe, Arthur Thomas | Attree, Horace | Avery, Israel Charles John | Bell, Alexander Herbert | Broad, Richard Blunsom | Brooker, Thomas Edwin | Burgess, Albert Edward | Burgess, Henry | Coleman, Frederick Allan (Allen) | Coleman, George Thomas | Coppard, Cecil Trayton | Coppard, Frederick Marshall | Covey, William Henry | Flint, Hedley | Garbett, Hubert Eustace King | Gearing, George William | Gearing/Geering, John Ambrose | Golby, Arthur Hugh | Hartnup, Frederick | Hirst-Smyth, James Lawrence | Howard, John Brereton | Johnson, Thomas William | Juniper, James | Jupp, Mervyn George Crisp | King, Robert George MM | Manning, George Alfred MC | Masters, James | McDonald, John Edward | Mears, Arthur Leslie | Meautys, Denzil Hatfield | Meautys, Paul Raymond | Meautys, Thomas Gilliat | Munster, John Francis | Parsons, Benifold Warren | Parsons, Ernest Henry | Peatfield, Stanley James | Pelham, Herbert Lyttelton | Pilbeam, Frank | Povey, Cecil Herbert | Randall, Samuel | Russell, Henry | Shelton, George Arthur | Simmonds, Osborne John | Smart, Henry Walter | Smith, Douglas Charles | Stafford, Frederick John Ewart | Stallwood, William Alfred | Standing (Brown), Alfred Edward | Stoner, William | Tidey, Thomas Edwin | Vincent, Hugh | Waterfield, Frederick Charles | Winter, Thomas | Wooller, Albert Stanley | Bell, Arthur Douglas | Bennett, Robert Sidney | Daughtrey, Albert | Downer, John Harry | Dudeney, Sydney John | Earl, Arthur Ronald | Earl, George William | Gaman, Harry Charles | Gray, Leonard Maurice | Hill, Christopher St George Sundius | Hill, Desmond Fairfax | Janman, Thomas William | Jeal, Percy William | Kennett, Douglas Frank | Key, Peter | Lynn, Peter Walter | McLean, Alastair Iain Grant | Medhurst, Gordon Francis | Norman, Robert Charles Francis | Pettet, Alexander Henry | Phillips, Kenneth David Gordon | Pithers, Reginald Arthur | Whiting, Robert