This might seem a bizarre place for a battle over energy policy in Britain.
A quaint village with a single pub, a well-attended tea room and a population of about 2,000, Balcombe has become the focal point of a heated debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which Prime Minister David Cameron hopes will revolutionize the country's energy industry.
"Frack off" read hand-painted signs held aloft along a leafy road leading to Lower Stumble, a wooded field a half a kilometer south of where the drilling company Cuadrilla Resources recently erected a rig.