Burgh Hill Farm Meadow is a
Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) within the parish. This is a hedgerow-surrounded meadow of an uncommon grassland type. The
Church of England parish church at Chiddingly is of unknown date and dedication, but references to it occur from the 13th century. Today the parish is part of a united
benefice with the neighbouring parish of
East Hoathly. A
Congregational chapel was founded in Chiddingly in 1901. Chiddingly has a
primary school. The annual Chiddingly Festival hosts an eclectic selection of artistic endeavours in and around the village each autumn, with performers of not insubstantial renown having taken their place in the programme over the years . Chiddingly had four
public houses: The Six Bells Inn, in the centre of the village, and The Gun Inn - both of which are still open - The Golden Cross Inn (which closed in 2015 and has now been converted to flats) and The Bat & Ball at Holmes Hill, closed for many years and now a private residence. There was also a beer house known as the Rose & Crown opposite the end of Caldicotts Lane on The Dicker - though this was a few hundred yards 'over the border' in the neighbouring parish of Hellingly (its exact location is shown on a 19th-century Ordnance Survey map which can be viewed here). The parish is also home to the Gun Brewery, which serves its own produce via a tap room, and hosts many functions and events during the course of the year. Chiddingly has a
village hall. Chiddingly also has a museum and archive. The
Farley Farm House gallery features the lives and work of
Roland Penrose and
Lee Miller and is open for guided tours on pre-determined days. Stone Hill is a well preserved medieval
hall house dating from the 15th century, with a large park garden. In the early 20th century, the house was owned by
J.M. Barrie, author of
Peter Pan, who lived there until 1934. In the 1970s and 1980s the property was owned by composer and pianist
Keith Emerson (founder of
The Nice and
Emerson, Lake & Palmer), who lived there with his family. At his Steinway piano in the barn he composed famous music pieces, such as "Karn Evil 9" and "Piano Concerto No.1". There is a thriving bonfire society which represents the parish during the
Sussex Bonfire season, and hosts its own event in late November. The Society was founded in October 2020, at the Six Bells public house with the ambition of creating a community asset for the Parish of Chiddingly. The Society represents Chiddingly at bonfire events across Sussex & Kent, and also introduces new members to the historic Sussex bonfire tradition. Given the importance to the village of the iron industry since its first manifestation under the Romans, these celebrations also include reference to Old Clem's Night – traditional festivities intended to celebrate St Clement, patron saint of blacksmiths. At other locations where the same folk ritual is observed – and attended by genuine blacksmiths – a high point is 'the firing of the anvil' where a charge of black powder is placed in the hardy or pritchel hole of a real anvil, and ignited to general acclaim. The bonfire society instead fabricate an enormous anvil from heavy-duty cardboard, stuff it with pyrotechnics and blow the thing to pieces as a precursor to their main firework display. On an associated tack, the fruits of the blacksmith's labours would often find their way to the workplace of a whitesmith - a craftsman who specialised in maintaining or restoring a usable cutting edge on bladed implements. This was a vital job in an largely agricultural community, ensuring that ploughshares, scythes, billhooks and other bladed tools were fit for purpose; the location of the most proximate practitioner of this particular art is indicated - of course - by the name of the hamlet of Whitesmith (where Forge Cottage can still be found) towards the western edge of the parish; this building is marked as a 'smithy' on this location map. Historical pursuits in the village included a biannual 'rook shoot' around Latchett Wood which provided the staple ingredient of
rook pie for the participants - a welcome addition to their usual impoverished agrarian fare - and, more esoterically, the recreation ground opposite the present school is marked on early ordnance survey maps as a 'wrestling place'. The village cricket club has been extant for many years, disporting themselves with enthusiasm and no little skill across the grounds of the county, although football and rugby seem only to have had prompted more fleeting interest, by way of ad hoc teams raised by patrons of The Six Bells when challenged. In 1971 the
film director Philip Trevelyan made the
documentary film The Moon and the Sledgehammer about the Page family, who lived in a
wood outside the village and operated two
traction engines: an Allchin and a
Fowler.
A maze of willow trees near Whitesmith was planted by a local farmer in the shape of
a quotation from the bible. Chiddingly village is adjacent to East Hoathly (a mile and three quarters away, as the crow flies); in West Sussex, to the south east of Crawley, the hamlet of Chiddinglye can be found in similar proximity to West Hoathly. ==Notable people==