Now owned by Wealden District Council and East Sussex County Council.

Opened in 1880, the Cuckoo Line was the Polegate to Eridge railway built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway to prevent its rival, the South Eastern Railway, accessing the Eastbourne traffic. It was named the Cuckoo Line after the tradition that the first cuckoo of spring was always heard at the Heathfield Fair. In time it settled down to become a country railway carrying milk, coal, livestock and timber as well as passengers. As buses and lorries gradually removed its traffic, the line was eventually shut as part of the "Beeching" cuts; in 1965 to passengers and 1968 to freight and the track was then torn up. 

The Cuckoo Trail now runs for 11 miles along the route of the railway, linking three of the District’s larger towns; Heathfield, Hailsham and Polegate. It also passes through the villages of Horam and Hellingly. An extension south of Polegate takes the Trail onto Eastbourne.

Click on the map below to go to one of my web pages for photographs of the area.