The South Downs

On Tumuli

2012-05-11T14:49:00.002+01:00

Any look at a map of the South Downs Way National Trail will draw your attention to curious humps known as 'tumulli'. These are the burial bounds of the late Neolithic period. Common across the south and in the Celtic lands they are not seen frequently in other parts of England. The ones in Downland frequently have dips in the centre where enthusiastic but less than diligent 18th and 19th century proto-archaeologists dug hard into them in search of riches and treasures rather than evidence and understanding.

At Chanctonbury and above Firle, as elsewhere, these mounds are either side of the ancient trackway, much in the same way as the Romans buried their dead outside the city astride the main roads into the urban environment many centuries later.

No-one knows why these sites were chosen, but one evening, when the summer sun is setting over the black shadowy hulk of the Isle of Wight, far in the distance, lay down and rest your head against a mound near Chanctonbury Ring, watch the buzzards soar into the twilight and listen to light summer breeze rustling the grass around your head. Look out across the Low Weald. Where else would you chose to rest for eternity?

2012-05-03T21:04:00.002+01:00

Ha'nacker Mill by Hilaire Belloc

2012-04-25T15:19:00.000+01:00

Ha'nacker Mill

Sally is gone that was so kindly,
Sally is gone from Ha'nacker Hill
And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly;
And ever since then the clapper is still...
And the sweeps have fallen from Ha'nacker Mill.

Ha'nacker Hill is in Desolation:
Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.
And Spirits that call on a fallen nation,
Spirits that loved her calling aloud,
Spirits abroad in a windy cloud.

Spirits that call and no one answers --
Ha'nacker's down and England's done.
Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers,
And never a ploughman under the Sun:
Never a ploughman. Never a one.

Hilaire Belloc

To the River Arun - Charlotte Turner Smith

2012-04-25T06:13:00.005+01:00

To the River Arun

On thy wild banks, by frequent torrents worn,

No glittering fanes or marble domes appear:
Yet shall the weeping muse thy course adorn,
And still to her thy rustic waves be dear.
For with the infant Otway lingering here
Of early woes she bade her votary dream,
While thy low murmurs soothed his pensive ear;
And still the poet consecrates the stream.
Beneath the oak and birch that fringe thy side,
The first-born violets of the year shall spring
And in thy hazels, bending o'er the tide,
The earliest nightingales delight to sing:
While kindred spirits pitying shall relate
Thy Otway's sorrows, and lament his fate

The South Country by Hilaire Belloc

2012-04-23T22:41:00.002+01:00

The South Country WHEN I am living in the Midlands
That are sodden and unkind,
I light my lamp in the evening:
My work is left behind;
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea;
And it's there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day:
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
Their skies are fast and grey;
From their castle-walls a man may see
The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong,
A-rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along.
They have the secret of the Rocks,
And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise,
They get their laughter from the loud surf,
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring
When over the sea she flies;
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines
But I smell the Sussex air;
Nor I never come on a belt of sand
But my home is there.
And along the sky the line of the Downs
So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend:
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end.
Who will there be to comfort me
Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald;
They watch the stars from silent folds,
They stiffly plough the field.
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed.

If I ever become a rich man,
Or if ever I grow to be old,
I will build a house with deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold,
And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
And the story of Sussex told.

I will hold my house in the high wood
Within a walk of the sea,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me.

Changing of The View

2012-04-21T09:00:00.000+01:00

Think of the South Downs and one can guarantee the first image that springs to mind is the iconic view of the Seven Sisters' startlingly white chalk cliffs viewed from the Cuckmere River's outflow just east of Seaford.

Things are changing though, with three projects in the pipeline that will all potentially change that view forever.

In 2000, the tidal Cuckmere flooded. A combination of environmental factors created a perfect storm whereby the river could not escape to the sea and poured out into its ancient floodplain. Over the years man has tried to fight the river, fixing it's course, but within a few short days forgotten rivers flowed again, and the old floodplains were inundated, and while the Uck and the Ouse caused most of the damage, the Cuckmere blocks the major east-west route, the A27, at Sherman Bridge when it floods to this extent.

The cost of maintaining the path of the Cuckmere at the estuary is £50,000 pa. Standing on the shoulder of Haven Brow it is clear to see where the river used to flow, with the cut-off meanders clearly visible and used for canoeing practice, while the tidal flood races down a narrow fixed channel. The decision has been taken to allow the river to run its natural course in this section of landscape, in the hope that if it can flood out at Cuckmere some of the pressure will be taken off higher up the river; and of course the Environment Agency will save a lot of money.

Secondly, there is a project to build a windfarm off the coast of Brighton. It'll be visible from all along the Seven Sisters, it appears will obstruct the view of the Sisters and Beachy Head from the West Sussex side of the bay that is formed by the Manhood Peninsula and Beachy Head itself. The farm itself is small, but the project has mapped up space for a significant increase in size. But what price a view? Even the Brighton Green MP supports the project, which will run an underground cable across the South Downs National Park to provide electricity to new homes in the northern part of the county. Of course, you can;t see the wind farm from here.

The company have seemingly tried to curry some favour by calling the windfarm 'Rampion', after Sussex's county flower. A nice ecologically sound name, for a project who's benefits are questionable, both ecologically and environmentally. It is notable that Sussex is, at the time of writing, already in a state of drought, a situation that is only likely to become more frequent as climate change develops. I have yet to see a study or a suggestions to how we are going to provide these new homes with water.

The third attack on this iconic view is Trinty House's decision to stop painting Beachy Head lighthouse in it's distinctive red and white stripes and to let it return to a granite grey. The argument is that with modern navigational aids shipping no longer needs the lighthouse to have its distinctive stripes. One could argue, tongue in cheek, that with these sophisticated aids that perhaps the entire lighthouse network could be withdrawn.

The stripes on the Lighthouse are as much part of the view, part of the experience as the chalk cliffs themselves. There's a cost of course, and a local campaign is trying to raise the money to have the lighthouse repainted, which will cost £45,000. The paint costing £20,000 has already been donated by a paint company, so just the cost of the work needs to be found. The Lighthouse needs painting every ten years, but Trinity House says it can no longer afford the £4,500 pa to carry out the work.

Whatever your feelings on each of the projects, the fact is that things are changing here on the South Downs, so much so that even iconic views aren't safe. While things are always changing due to natural influences, such as when Devil's Chimney collapsed in April 2001, we have three very different, but simultaneous attacks on what is surely one of Britain's most cherished views.

You can help the campaign to save the stripes here, and join with such luminaries as Julia Bradbury, Bill Bryson and Neil Oliver.

More about the Cuckmere Estuary Project can be found here http://www.sevensisters.org.uk/page82.html and here http://www.cuckmere.org.uk/

Finally, more about the Rampion windfarm, along with a map can be found here http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1159604 , here http://www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/conservation/conservation/page00032.htm, and here are minutes from one of Eon's meeting regarding the wind farm.

Get on board with one of the projects, maybe sign up to walk round the lighthouse at low tide and help keep this iconic view iconic.

Click here for a suggested walking route to get the best view of the Seven Sisters.

Beachy Head by Charlotte Smith

2012-04-20T17:49:00.000+01:00

Beachy Head

ON thy stupendous summit, rock sublime !
That o'er the channel rear'd, half way at sea
The mariner at early morning hails,
I would recline; while Fancy should go forth,
And represent the strange and awful hour
Of vast concussion; when the Omnipotent
Stretch'd forth his arm, and rent the solid hills,
Bidding the impetuous main flood rush between

The rifted shores, and from the continent
Eternally divided this green isle.
Imperial lord of the high southern coast !
From thy projecting head-land I would mark
Far in the east the shades of night disperse,
Melting and thinned, as from the dark blue wave
Emerging, brilliant rays of arrowy light
Dart from the horizon; when the glorious sun
Just lifts above it his resplendent orb.
Advances now, with feathery silver touched,
The rippling tide of flood; glisten the sands,
While, inmates of the chalky clefts that scar
Thy sides precipitous, with shrill harsh cry,
Their white wings glancing in the level beam,
The terns, and gulls, and tarrocks, seek their food,
And thy rough hollows echo to the voice

Of the gray choughs, and ever restless daws,
With clamour, not unlike the chiding hounds,
While the lone shepherd, and his baying dog,
Drive to thy turfy crest his bleating flock.
The high meridian of the day is past,
And Ocean now, reflecting the calm Heaven,
Is of cerulean hue; and murmurs low
The tide of ebb, upon the level sands.
The sloop, her angular canvas shifting still,
Catches the light and variable airs
That but a little crisp the summer sea.
Dimpling its tranquil surface.
Afar off,
And just emerging from the arch immense

Where seem to part the elements, a fleet
Of fishing vessels stretch their lesser sails;
While more remote, and like a dubious spot
Just hanging in the horizon, laden deep,
The ship of commerce richly freighted, makes
Her slower progress, on her distant voyage,
Bound to the orient climates, where the sun
Matures the spice within its odorous shell,
And, rivalling the gray worm's filmy toil,
Bursts from its pod the vegetable down;
Which in long turban'd wreaths, from torrid heat
Defends the brows of Asia's countless casts.
There the Earth hides within her glowing breast
The beamy adamant, and the round pearl
Enchased in rugged covering; which the slave,
With perilous and breathless toil, tears off

From the rough sea-rock, deep beneath the waves.
These are the toys of Nature; and her sport
Of little estimate in Reason's eye:
And they who reason, with abhorrence see
Man, for such gaudes and baubles, violate
The sacred freedom of his fellow man
Erroneous estimate ! As Heaven's pure air,
Fresh as it blows on this aërial height,
Or sound of seas upon the stony strand,
Or inland, the gay harmony of birds,
And winds that wander in the leafy woods;
Are to the unadulterate taste more worth
Than the elaborate harmony, brought out
From fretted stop, or modulated airs
Of vocal science.So the brightest gems,
Glancing resplendent on the regal crown,

Or trembling in the high born beauty's ear,
Are poor and paltry, to the lovely light
Of the fair star, that as the day declines,
Attendant on her queen, the crescent moon,
Bathes her bright tresses in the eastern wave.
For now the sun is verging to the sea,
And as he westward sinks, the floating clouds
Suspended, move upon the evening gale,
And gathering round his orb, as if to shade
The insufferable brightness, they resign
Their gauzy whiteness; and more warm'd, assume
All hues of purple. There, transparent gold
Mingles with ruby tints, and sapphire gleams,
And colours, such as Nature through her works
Shews only in the ethereal canopy.
Thither aspiring Fancy fondly soars,

Wandering sublime thro' visionary vales,
Where bright pavilions rise, and trophies, fann'd
By airs celestial; and adorn'd with wreaths
Of flowers that bloom amid elysian bowers.
Now bright, and brighter still the colours glow,
Till half the lustrous orb within the flood
Seems to retire: the flood reflecting still
Its splendor, and in mimic glory drest;
Till the last ray shot upward, fires the clouds
With blazing crimson; then in paler light,
Long lines of tenderer radiance, lingering yield
To partial darkness; and on the opposing side
The early moon distinctly rising, throws
Her pearly brilliance on the trembling tide.

The fishermen, who at set seasons pass
Many a league off at sea their toiling night,
Now hail their comrades, from their daily task
Returning; and make ready for their own,
With the night tide commencing:The night tide
Bears a dark vessel on, whose hull and sails
Mark her a coaster from the north. Her keel
Now ploughs the sand; and sidelong now she leans,
While with loud clamours her athletic crew
Unload her; and resounds the busy hum
Along the wave-worn rocks. Yet more remote,
Where the rough cliff hangs beetling o'er its base,
All breathes repose; the water's rippling sound
Scarce heard; but now and then the sea-snipe's cry
Just tells that something living is abroad;
And sometimes crossing on the moonbright line,

Glimmers the skiff, faintly discern'd awhile,
Then lost in shadow.
Contemplation here,
High on her throne of rock, aloof may sit,
And bid recording Memory unfold
Her scroll voluminousbid her retrace
The period, when from Neustria's hostile shore
The Norman launch'd his galleys, and the bay
O'er which that mass of ruin frowns even now
In vain and sullen menace, then received
The new invaders; a proud martial race,
Of Scandinavia the undaunted sons,
Whom Dogon, Fier-a-bras, and Humfroi led
To conquest: while Trinacria to their power
Yielded her wheaten garland; and when thou,

Parthenope ! within thy fertile bay
Receiv'd the victors
In the mailed ranks
Of Normans landing on the British coast
Rode Taillefer; and with astounding voice
Thunder'd the war song daring Roland sang
First in the fierce contention: vainly brave,
One not inglorious struggle England made
But failing, saw the Saxon heptarchy
Finish for ever.Then the holy pile,
Yet seen upon the field of conquest, rose,
Where to appease heaven's wrath for so much blood,
The conqueror bade unceasing prayers ascend,
And requiems for the slayers and the slain.
But let not modern Gallia form from hence

Presumptuous hopes, that ever thou again,
Queen of the isles ! shalt crouch to foreign arms.
The enervate sons of Italy may yield;
And the Iberian, all his trophies torn
And wrapp'd in Superstition's monkish weed,
May shelter his abasement, and put on
Degrading fetters. Never, never thou !
Imperial mistress of the obedient sea;
But thou, in thy integrity secure,
Shalt now undaunted meet a world in arms.
England ! 'twas where this promontory rears
Its rugged brow above the channel wave,
Parting the hostile nations, that thy fame,
Thy naval fame was tarnish'd, at what time
Thou, leagued with the Batavian, gavest to France

One day of triumphtriumph the more loud,
Because even then so rare. Oh ! well redeem'd,
Since, by a series of illustrious men,
Such as no other country ever rear'd,
To vindicate her cause. It is a list
Which, as Fame echoes it, blanches the cheek
Of bold Ambition; while the despot feels
The extorted sceptre tremble in his grasp.
From even the proudest roll by glory fill'd,
How gladly the reflecting mind returns
To simple scenes of peace and industry,
Where, bosom'd in some valley of the hills
Stands the lone farm; its gate with tawny ricks
Surrounded, and with granaries and sheds,
Roof'd with green mosses, and by elms and ash

Partially shaded; and not far remov'd
The hut of sea-flints built; the humble home
Of one, who sometimes watches on the heights,
When hid in the cold mist of passing clouds,
The flock, with dripping fleeces, are dispers'd
O'er the wide down; then from some ridged point
That overlooks the sea, his eager eye
Watches the bark that for his signal waits
To land its merchandize:Quitting for this
Clandestine traffic his more honest toil,
The crook abandoning, he braves himself
The heaviest snow-storm of December's night,
When with conflicting winds the ocean raves,
And on the tossing boat, unfearing mounts
To meet the partners of the perilous trade,
And share their hazard. Well it were for him,

If no such commerce of destruction known,
He were content with what the earth affords
To human labour; even where she seems
Reluctant most. More happy is the hind,
Who, with his own hands rears on some black moor,
Or turbary, his independent hut
Cover'd with heather, whence the slow white smoke
Of smouldering peat arisesA few sheep,
His best possession, with his children share
The rugged shed when wintry tempests blow;
But, when with Spring's return the green blades rise
Amid the russet heath, the household live
Joint tenants of the waste throughout the day,
And often, from her nest, among the swamps,
Where the gemm'd sun-dew grows, or fring'd buck-bean,
They scare the plover, that with plaintive cries

Flutters, as sorely wounded, down the wind.
Rude, and but just remov'd from savage life
Is the rough dweller among scenes like these,
(Scenes all unlike the poet's fabling dreams
Describing Arcady)But he is free;
The dread that follows on illegal acts
He never feels; and his industrious mate
Shares in his labour. Where the brook is traced
By crouding osiers, and the black coot hides
Among the plashy reeds, her diving brood,
The matron wades; gathering the long green rush
That well prepar'd hereafter lends its light
To her poor cottage, dark and cheerless else
Thro' the drear hours of Winter. Otherwhile
She leads her infant group where charlock grows
'Unprofitably gay,' or to the fields,

Where congregate the linnet and the finch,
That on the thistles, so profusely spread,
Feast in the desert; the poor family
Early resort, extirpating with care
These, and the gaudier mischief of the ground;
Then flames the high rais'd heap; seen afar off
Like hostile war-fires flashing to the sky.
Another task is theirs: On fields that shew
As angry Heaven had rain'd sterility,
Stony and cold, and hostile to the plough,
Where clamouring loud, the evening curlew runs
And drops her spotted eggs among the flints;
The mother and the children pile the stones
In rugged pyramids;and all this toil
They patiently encounter; well content
On their flock bed to slumber undisturb'd

Beneath the smoky roof they call their own.
Oh ! little knows the sturdy hind, who stands
Gazing, with looks where envy and contempt
Are often strangely mingled, on the car
Where prosperous Fortune sits; what secret care
Or sick satiety is often hid,
Beneath the splendid outside: He knows not
How frequently the child of Luxury
Enjoying nothing, flies from place to place
In chase of pleasure that eludes his grasp;
And that content is e'en less found by him,
Than by the labourer, whose pick-axe smooths
The road before his chariot; and who doffs
What was an hat; and as the train pass on,
Thinks how one day's expenditure, like this,

Would cheer him for long months, when to his toil
The frozen earth closes her marble breast.
Ah ! who is happy ? Happiness ! a word
That like false fire, from marsh effluvia born,
Misleads the wanderer, destin'd to contend
In the world's wilderness, with want or woe
Yet they are happy, who have never ask'd
What good or evil means. The boy
That on the river's margin gaily plays,
Has heard that Death is thereHe knows not Death,
And therefore fears it not; and venturing in
He gains a bullrush, or a minnowthen,
At certain peril, for a worthless prize,
A crow's, or raven's nest, he climbs the boll,

Of some tall pine; and of his prowess proud,
Is for a moment happy. Are your cares,
Ye who despise him, never worse applied ?
The village girl is happy, who sets forth
To distant fair, gay in her Sunday suit,
With cherry colour'd knots, and flourish'd shawl,
And bonnet newly purchas'd. So is he
Her little brother, who his mimic drum
Beats, till he drowns her rural lovers' oaths
Of constant faith, and still increasing love;
Ah ! yet a while, and half those oaths believ'd,
Her happiness is vanish'd; and the boy
While yet a stripling, finds the sound he lov'd
Has led him on, till he has given up
His freedom, and his happiness together.

I once was happy, when while yet a child,
I learn'd to love these upland solitudes,
And, when elastic as the mountain air,
To my light spirit, care was yet unknown
And evil unforeseen:Early it came,
And childhood scarcely passed, I was condemned,
A guiltless exile, silently to sigh,
While Memory, with faithful pencil, drew
The contrast; and regretting, I compar'd
With the polluted smoky atmosphere
And dark and stifling streets, the southern hills
That to the setting Sun, their graceful heads
Rearing, o'erlook the frith, where Vecta breaks
With her white rocks, the strong impetuous tide,
When western winds the vast Atlantic urge
To thunder on the coastHaunts of my youth !

Scenes of fond day dreams, I behold ye yet !
Where 'twas so pleasant by thy northern slopes
To climb the winding sheep-path, aided oft
By scatter'd thorns: whose spiny branches bore
Small woolly tufts, spoils of the vagrant lamb
There seeking shelter from the noon-day sun;
And pleasant, seated on the short soft turf,
To look beneath upon the hollow way
While heavily upward mov'd the labouring wain,
And stalking slowly by, the sturdy hind
To ease his panting team, stopp'd with a stone
The grating wheel.
Advancing higher still
The prospect widens, and the village church
But little, o'er the lowly roofs around

Rears its gray belfry, and its simple vane;
Those lowly roofs of thatch are half conceal'd
By the rude arms of trees, lovely in spring,
When on each bough, the rosy-tinctur'd bloom
Sits thick, and promises autumnal plenty.
For even those orchards round the Norman farms,
Which, as their owners mark the promis'd fruit,
Console them for the vineyards of the south,
Surpass not these.
Where woods of ash, and beech,
And partial copses, fringe the green hill foot,
The upland shepherd rears his modest home,
There wanders by, a little nameless stream
That from the hill wells forth, bright now and clear,
Or after rain with chalky mixture gray,

But still refreshing in its shallow course,
The cottage garden; most for use design'd,
Yet not of beauty destitute. The vine
Mantles the little casement; yet the briar
Drops fragrant dew among the July flowers;
And pansies rayed, and freak'd and mottled pinks
Grow among balm, and rosemary and rue:
There honeysuckles flaunt, and roses blow
Almost uncultured: Some with dark green leaves
Contrast their flowers of pure unsullied white;
Others, like velvet robes of regal state
Of richest crimson, while in thorny moss
Enshrined and cradled, the most lovely, wear
The hues of youthful beauty's glowing cheek.
With fond regret I recollect e'en now
In Spring and Summer, what delight I felt

Among these cottage gardens, and how much
Such artless nosegays, knotted with a rush
By village housewife or her ruddy maid,
Were welcome to me; soon and simply pleas'd.
An early worshipper at Nature's shrine;
I loved her rudest sceneswarrens, and heaths,
And yellow commons, and birch-shaded hollows,
And hedge rows, bordering unfrequented lanes
Bowered with wild roses, and the clasping woodbine
Where purple tassels of the tangling vetch
With bittersweet, and bryony inweave,
And the dew fills the silver bindweed's cups
I loved to trace the brooks whose humid banks
Nourish the harebell, and the freckled pagil;
And stroll among o'ershadowing woods of beech,

Lending in Summer, from the heats of noon
A whispering shade; while haply there reclines
Some pensive lover of uncultur'd flowers,
Who, from the tumps with bright green mosses clad,
Plucks the wood sorrel, with its light thin leaves,
Heart-shaped, and triply folded; and its root
Creeping like beaded coral; or who there
Gathers, the copse's pride, anémones,
With rays like golden studs on ivory laid
Most delicate: but touch'd with purple clouds,
Fit crown for April's fair but changeful brow.
Ah ! hills so early loved ! in fancy still
I breathe your pure keen air; and still behold
Those widely spreading views, mocking alike
The Poet and the Painter's utmost art.

And still, observing objects more minute,
Wondering remark the strange and foreign forms
Of sea-shells; with the pale calcareous soil
Mingled, and seeming of resembling substance.
Tho' surely the blue Ocean (from the heights
Where the downs westward trend, but dimly seen)
Here never roll'd its surge. Does Nature then
Mimic, in wanton mood, fantastic shapes
Of bivalves, and inwreathed volutes, that cling
To the dark sea-rock of the wat'ry world ?
Or did this range of chalky mountains, once
Form a vast bason, where the Ocean waves
Swell'd fathomless ? What time these fossil shells,
Buoy'd on their native element, were thrown
Among the imbedding calx: when the huge hill
Its giant bulk heaved, and in strange ferment

Grew up a guardian barrier, 'twixt the sea
And the green level of the sylvan weald.
Ah ! very vain is Science' proudest boast,
And but a little light its flame yet lends
To its most ardent votaries; since from whence
These fossil forms are seen, is but conjecture,
Food for vague theories, or vain dispute,
While to his daily task the peasant goes,
Unheeding such inquiry; with no care
But that the kindly change of sun and shower,
Fit for his toil the earth he cultivates.
As little recks the herdsman of the hill,
Who on some turfy knoll, idly reclined,
Watches his wether flock; that deep beneath
Rest the remains of men, of whom is left

No traces in the records of mankind,
Save what these half obliterated mounds
And half fill'd trenches doubtfully impart
To some lone antiquary; who on times remote,
Since which two thousand years have roll'd away,
Loves to contemplate. He perhaps may trace,
Or fancy he can trace, the oblong square
Where the mail'd legions, under Claudius, rear'd,
The rampire, or excavated fossé delved;
What time the huge unwieldy Elephant
Auxiliary reluctant, hither led,
From Afric's forest glooms and tawny sands,
First felt the Northern blast, and his vast frame
Sunk useless; whence in after ages found,
The wondering hinds, on those enormous bones
Gaz'd; and in giants dwelling on the hills
Believed and marvell'd

Hither, Ambition, come !
Come and behold the nothingness of all
For which you carry thro' the oppressed Earth,
War, and its train of horrorssee where tread
The innumerous hoofs of flocks above the works
By which the warrior sought to register
His glory, and immortalize his name
The pirate Dane, who from his circular camp
Bore in destructive robbery, fire and sword
Down thro' the vale, sleeps unremember'd here;
And here, beneath the green sward, rests alike
The savage native, who his acorn meal
Shar'd with the herds, that ranged the pathless woods;
And the centurion, who on these wide hills
Encamping, planted the Imperial Eagle.
All, with the lapse of Time, have passed away,

Even as the clouds, with dark and dragon shapes,
Or like vast promontories crown'd with towers,
Cast their broad shadows on the downs: then sail
Far to the northward, and their transient gloom
Is soon forgotten.
But from thoughts like these,
By human crimes suggested, let us turn
To where a more attractive study courts
The wanderer of the hills; while shepherd girls
Will from among the fescue bring him flowers,
Of wonderous mockery; some resembling bees
In velvet vest, intent on their sweet toil,
While others mimic flies, that lightly sport
In the green shade, or float along the pool,
But here seem perch'd upon the slender stalk,

And gathering honey dew. While in the breeze
That wafts the thistle's plumed seed along,
Blue bells wave tremulous. The mountain thyme
Purples the hassock of the heaving mole,
And the short turf is gay with tormentil,
And bird's foot trefoil, and the lesser tribes
Of hawkweed; spangling it with fringed stars.
Near where a richer tract of cultur'd land
Slopes to the south; and burnished by the sun,
Bend in the gale of August, floods of corn;
The guardian of the flock, with watchful care,
Repels by voice and dog the encroaching sheep
While his boy visits every wired trap
That scars the turf; and from the pit-falls takes
The timid migrants, who from distant wilds,
Warrens, and stone quarries, are destined thus

To lose their short existence. But unsought
By Luxury yet, the Shepherd still protects
The social bird, who from his native haunts
Of willowy current, or the rushy pool,
Follows the fleecy croud, and flirts and skims,
In fellowship among them.
Where the knoll
More elevated takes the changeful winds,
The windmill rears its vanes; and thitherward
With his white load, the master travelling,
Scares the rooks rising slow on whispering wings,
While o'er his head, before the summer sun
Lights up the blue expanse, heard more than seen,
The lark sings matins; and above the clouds
Floating, embathes his spotted breast in dew.

Beneath the shadow of a gnarled thorn,
Bent by the sea blast, from a seat of turf
With fairy nosegays strewn, how wide the view !
Till in the distant north it melts away,
And mingles indiscriminate with clouds:
But if the eye could reach so far, the mart
Of England's capital, its domes and spires
Might be perceivedYet hence the distant range
Of Kentish hills, appear in purple haze;
And nearer, undulate the wooded heights,
And airy summits, that above the mole
Rise in green beauty; and the beacon'd ridge
Of Black-down shagg'd with heath, and swelling rude
Like a dark island from the vale; its brow
Catching the last rays of the evening sun
That gleam between the nearer park's old oaks,

Then lighten up the river, and make prominent
The portal, and the ruin'd battlements
Of that dismantled fortress; rais'd what time
The Conqueror's successors fiercely fought,
Tearing with civil feuds the desolate land.
But now a tiller of the soil dwells there,
And of the turret's loop'd and rafter'd halls
Has made an humbler homesteadWhere he sees,
Instead of armed foemen, herds that graze
Along his yellow meadows; or his flocks
At evening from the upland driv'n to fold
In such a castellated mansion once
A stranger chose his home; and where hard by
In rude disorder fallen, and hid with brushwood
Lay fragments gray of towers and buttresses,

Among the ruins, often he would muse
His rustic meal soon ended, he was wont
To wander forth, listening the evening sounds
Of rushing milldam, or the distant team,
Or night-jar, chasing fern-flies: the tir'd hind
Pass'd him at nightfall, wondering he should sit
On the hill top so late: they from the coast
Who sought bye paths with their clandestine load,
Saw with suspicious doubt, the lonely man
Cross on their way: but village maidens thought
His senses injur'd; and with pity say
That he, poor youth ! must have been cross'd in love
For often, stretch'd upon the mountain turf
With folded arms, and eyes intently fix'd
Where ancient elms and firs obscured a grange,
Some little space within the vale below,

They heard him, as complaining of his fate,
And to the murmuring wind, of cold neglect
And baffled hope he told.The peasant girls
These plaintive sounds remember, and even now
Among them may be heard the stranger's songs.
Were I a Shepherd on the hill
And ever as the mists withdrew
Could see the willows of the rill
Shading the footway to the mill
Where once I walk'd with you

And as away Night's shadows sail,
And sounds of birds and brooks arise,
Believe, that from the woody vale
I hear your voice upon the gale
In soothing melodies;
And viewing from the Alpine height,
The prospect dress'd in hues of air,
Could say, while transient colours bright
Touch'd the fair scene with dewy light,
'Tis, that her eyes are there !
I think, I could endure my lot
And linger on a few short years,
And then, by all but you forgot,
Sleep, where the turf that clothes the spot
May claim some pitying tears.

For 'tis not easy to forget
One, who thro' life has lov'd you still,
And you, however late, might yet
With sighs to Memory giv'n, regret
The Shepherd of the Hill.
Yet otherwhile it seem'd as if young Hope
Her flattering pencil gave to Fancy's hand,
And in his wanderings, rear'd to sooth his soul
Ideal bowers of pleasureThen, of Solitude
And of his hermit life, still more enamour'd,
His home was in the forest; and wild fruits

And bread sustain'd him. There in early spring
The Barkmen found him, e'er the sun arose;
There at their daily toil, the Wedgecutters
Beheld him thro' the distant thicket move.
The shaggy dog following the truffle hunter,
Bark'd at the loiterer; and perchance at night
Belated villagers from fair or wake,
While the fresh night-wind let the moonbeams in
Between the swaying boughs, just saw him pass,
And then in silence, gliding like a ghost
He vanish'd ! Lost among the deepening gloom.
But near one ancient tree, whose wreathed roots
Form'd a rude couch, love-songs and scatter'd rhymes,
Unfinish'd sentences, or half erased,
And rhapsodies like this, were sometimes found

Let us to woodland wilds repair
While yet the glittering night-dews seem
To wait the freshly-breathing air,
Precursive of the morning beam,
That rising with advancing day,
Scatters the silver drops away.
An elm, uprooted by the storm,
The trunk with mosses gray and green,
Shall make for us a rustic form,
Where lighter grows the forest scene;
And far among the bowery shades,
Are ferny lawns and grassy glades.

Retiring May to lovely June
Her latest garland now resigns;
The banks with cuckoo-flowers are strewn,
The woodwalks blue with columbines,
And with its reeds, the wandering stream
Reflects the flag-flower's golden gleam.
There, feathering down the turf to meet,
Their shadowy arms the beeches spread,
While high above our sylvan seat,
Lifts the light ash its airy head;
And later leaved, the oaks between
Extend their bows of vernal green.

The slender birch its paper rind
Seems offering to divided love,
And shuddering even without a wind
Aspins, their paler foliage move,
As if some spirit of the air
Breath'd a low sigh in passing there.
The Squirrel in his frolic mood,
Will fearless bound among the boughs;
Yaffils laugh loudly thro' the wood,
And murmuring ring-doves tell their vows;
While we, as sweetest woodscents rise,
Listen to woodland melodies.

And I'll contrive a sylvan room
Against the time of summer heat,
Where leaves, inwoven in Nature's loom,
Shall canopy our green retreat;
And gales that 'close the eye of day'
Shall linger, e'er they die away.
And when a sear and sallow hue
From early frost the bower receives,
I'll dress the sand rock cave for you,
And strew the floor with heath and leaves,
That you, against the autumnal air
May find securer shelter there.

The Nightingale will then have ceas'd
To sing her moonlight serenade;
But the gay bird with blushing breast,
And Woodlarks still will haunt the shade,
And by the borders of the spring
Reed-wrens will yet be carolling.
The forest hermit's lonely cave
None but such soothing sounds shall reach,
Or hardly heard, the distant wave
Slow breaking on the stony beach;
Or winds, that now sigh soft and low,
Now make wild music as they blow.

And then, before the chilling North
The tawny foliage falling light,
Seems, as it flits along the earth,
The footfall of the busy Sprite,
Who wrapt in pale autumnal gloom,
Calls up the mist-born Mushroom.
Oh ! could I hear your soft voice there,
And see you in the forest green
All beauteous as you are, more fair
You'ld look, amid the sylvan scene,
And in a wood-girl's simple guise,
Be still more lovely in mine eyes.

Ye phantoms of unreal delight,
Visions of fond delirium born !
Rise not on my deluded sight,
Then leave me drooping and forlorn
To know, such bliss can never be,
Unless loved like me.
The visionary, nursing dreams like these,
Is not indeed unhappy. Summer woods
Wave over him, and whisper as they wave,
Some future blessings he may yet enjoy.
And as above him sail the silver clouds,
He follows them in thought to distant climes,
Where, far from the cold policy of this,

Dividing him from her he fondly loves,
He, in some island of the southern sea,
May haply build his cane-constructed bower
Beneath the bread-fruit, or aspiring palm,
With long green foliage rippling in the gale.
Oh ! let him cherish his ideal bliss
For what is life, when Hope has ceas'd to strew
Her fragile flowers along its thorny way ?
And sad and gloomy are his days, who lives
Of Hope abandon'd !
Just beneath the rock
Where Beachy overpeers the channel wave,
Within a cavern mined by wintry tides
Dwelt one, who long disgusted with the world
And all its ways, appear'd to suffer life

Rather than live; the soul-reviving gale,
Fanning the bean-field, or the thymy heath,
Had not for many summers breathed on him;
And nothing mark'd to him the season's change,
Save that more gently rose the placid sea,
And that the birds which winter on the coast
Gave place to other migrants; save that the fog,
Hovering no more above the beetling cliffs
Betray'd not then the little careless sheep
On the brink grazing, while their headlong fall
Near the lone Hermit's flint-surrounded home,
Claim'd unavailing pity; for his heart
Was feelingly alive to all that breath'd;
And outraged as he was, in sanguine youth,
By human crimes, he still acutely felt
For human misery.

Wandering on the beach,
He learn'd to augur from the clouds of heaven,
And from the changing colours of the sea,
And sullen murmurs of the hollow cliffs,
Or the dark porpoises, that near the shore
Gambol'd and sported on the level brine
When tempests were approaching: then at night
He listen'd to the wind; and as it drove
The billows with o'erwhelming vehemence
He, starting from his rugged couch, went forth
And hazarding a life, too valueless,
He waded thro' the waves, with plank or pole
Towards where the mariner in conflict dread
Was buffeting for life the roaring surge;
And now just seen, now lost in foaming gulphs,
The dismal gleaming of the clouded moon

Shew'd the dire peril. Often he had snatch'd
From the wild billows, some unhappy man
Who liv'd to bless the hermit of the rocks.
But if his generous cares were all in vain,
And with slow swell the tide of morning bore
Some blue swol'n cor'se to land; the pale recluse
Dug in the chalk a sepulchreabove
Where the dank sea-wrack mark'd the utmost tide,
And with his prayers perform'd the obsequies
For the poor helpless stranger.
One dark night
The equinoctial wind blew south by west,
Fierce on the shore; the bellowing cliffs were shook
Even to their stony base, and fragments fell
Flashing and thundering on the angry flood.

At day-break, anxious for the lonely man,
His cave the mountain shepherds visited,
Tho' sand and banks of weeds had choak'd their way
He was not in it; but his drowned cor'se
By the waves wafted, near his former home
Receiv'd the rites of burial. Those who read
Chisel'd within the rock, these mournful lines,
Memorials of his sufferings, did not grieve,
That dying in the cause of charity
His spirit, from its earthly bondage freed,
Had to some better region fled for ever.

Charlotte Smith

Beachy Head—A Spring Evening

2012-04-20T00:00:00.000+01:00

The women decided that we must go,

Packing our evening tea,
To the lawns at the head of the cliffs,
To a view of the lighthouse.

Along the edge of the crumbling chalk,
Lawn thatched walls that barred Caesar,
Pagan hues of spring on football-painted boys,
And with mysteries elevated, the girls met in vesper fresh dresses.
Those with thoughts just for one walked, hands-joined
To the head of the cliffs
“For a view of the lighthouse.”

With sandwiches, biscuits and tea
The young men and women
Sat talking with passionless curiosity
Of the ones who come without tea, without a friend,
Shrouding themselves in mists of grief
To the head of the cliffs, who stepped from the living
Losing a view of the lighthouse.

Evening burned hard the once blue sky,
Embracing light stretched out from the day.
We sat about on the brilliant green,
Lazily bathed by touches of warm sea wind,
On the lawns of the cliffs,
In view of the lighthouse.

Steve Taunton

A Sense of Place.

2012-04-19T13:05:00.002+01:00

When I was at school I was hopeless at maths, it made no sense to me, and I never saw myself being part of a world where quadratic equations mattered. The only thing that pricked my attention was when we started playing with protractors and learning what was essentially resection, a navigational technique. As a child I loved maps, I would pour over them in the library, or follow the routes of the great explorers with a nail-bitten finger. I was soon drawing all over them and calculating angles and distances.

I consider myself lucky, I have a fantastic sense of place, a sense of where I am. I feel connected with that ancient ability to move through the landscape with apparently little to guide me. This doesn't mean that I don't know how to use a map and compass, far from it, but they often sit buried in my rucksack while I am walking. Generally, even in the Highlands, I read over the route on the map the day before I leave and tuck the map in a pocket only using it to confirm I am on the right track. I have often taken people on long mountain walks and they comment on how little I use the map.

But not everybody can do this, some people have a mental block, a fear of getting lost, or not understanding what they see on the map. I have been lost, on a couple of occasions wildly so, and I have kicked myself for my stupidity. It's often down to over-confidence, a case of 'oh this looks right', rather than digging out that buried map and making sure I am on the right track. Fortunately no harm has been done.

However, I think getting lost now and again is a good thing, it forces me to reconnect with navigation, and with my understanding of my position in the landscape. I am probably quite annoying to walk with, as once I have walked a route once I tend not to have to do much checking the next time. So getting lost, intentionally even, means that I have the opportunity to revisit those skills and put them into practice. As long as I am suitably equipped and don't walk off a cliff there's not much that can go wrong. So you might miss a train, or a bus, or end up somewhere new. That's all part of the fun.

When I teach people navigation I try to get them over this fear of being lost by explaining that they already navigate, albeit subconsciously. They drive home, or to their parents, they know that they live down the third street after the traffic lights. Navigating away from the built environment is exactly the same - there are just fewer man-made structures to rely on; so we look to natural features such as streams and crags.

Downland can be surprisingly remote, the South Downs are several miles broad, and places like Woolbeding and Ebernoe Commons, although close to habitation are easy to get lost in. It's important to be able to read the map, and retain a feel for where you are. It's also important not to panic. Sit down, have a drink and think things through. A panicked mind doesn't think straight and often offers up the worst case scenario. A rational mind, not hungry or dehydrated, will help you think through the process of how you got to be where you are.

As you walk make a mental note of things you see, this soon becomes second nature, you've crossed a stream, or maybe a minor road, you can hear a trainline, these are all things that may help you put yourself back where you want to be. Follow them on the map with your finger if needs be. Look out for the next symbol - if the map says you should be crossing a lane, or passing a stream and it doesn't happen, check your position again. It's like a little puzzle, and like all puzzles, with thought the clues can be put together and a solution reached.

The key is not to the let the fear of getting lost dampen your spirit of adventure. Venture out when you have plenty of time, when you are not pressed to get back by a certain time; relieve yourself of pressures that make becoming lost much worse than it really is. Walk slowly, think about the things you see, and remember to look behind you every so often. Things often look very different from another viewpoint, and if you are planning to return by the same path this will help you recognize the features.

The Sussex Downs have features you can use to navigate, so that, once you have mastered the art, you are not tied to the map. This frees you up to enjoy a more natural, connected walk. Think about these things. In good visibility there are several clues to your location. If you are up high you can probably see the sea, in Sussex the sea is generally to the south. If the sea is north of you, you have a problem that you may need to ring the coastguard to help you with. The Downs themselves run generally east-west. The major transport networks tend to run north-south or east-west with little variation. There are few major roads, if you can see these in the distance and tie them up with other features you can start to get a feel for where you are. There are high masts at Glatting Beacon and Truleigh Hill that can be seen for several miles; on good days the Spinnaker Tower at Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight can be seen, as can Chichester Cathedral spire, the Amex football stadium, the Belle Tout Lighthouse and Sussex Heights in Brighton. There are single masts on Whitehawk Hill and near Castle Hill in Brighton, and again at Findon, on the west side of the valley. At night these are lit. They can be seen from a long way away, as can the lights of major urban centres, so even walking at night shouldn't be too fearful

I don't use GPS devices, I don't know how to, nor do I care to. I have a back up on my phone that can give me a quick grid reference. I've used it once in two years. I'm sure electronic devices have their place and converts love them. But I think a map and compass is perfect. You need to be able to use one in case the GPS goes down for some reason. So why carry the extra weight?

The thing is to overcome that fear, in the South Downs you are never far from habitation, and while the public transport network can be a bit hit and miss there will always be something to fit with your map.

I'm always happy to help people take their first steps with navigating. Feel free to contact me, I come very cheap - my fee is usually hop-based liquid refreshment. I truly believe these skills are latent in every one of us, and just need a little help to surface.

I recommend 'Mountain Navigation' by Peter Cliff, it's the simplest text on the subject, and the fact it's been in print for a generation underlines how good a guide it really is.

All comments, even negative are welcome.

(c) Justin Norman 2011-12

In Praise of Picnics

2012-04-18T19:34:00.000+01:00

One of the best things about Downland is that despite being accessible it is often possible to walk just a short distance to find a sense of remoteness among beautiful surroundings.

Recently I've read a couple of books about the South Downs written in the 1920s, and much mention is made of the picnic. It occurred to me while reading that, despite it being a feature of every period drama, the picnic seems to have been left behind in a tide of gastropubs and fast food.

It seems that the picnic as we know it began in the early 19th century, and involved often quite large groups, with outdoor games considered an essential part of the day. Picnics became, in that century, quite a feature of life, art and literature from Dickens's 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' to Manet's painting 'Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe' (1865-66).

Of course, the most famous picnics is the Teddy Bear's picnic which entered it's most well-known version in the early 1930s and has been a staple of children's recordings ever since.

Summer will soon be here, despite what the recent weather would have you believe, and I think 2012 should be the year we revive the picnic as the purpose of the walk, not just as an incidental part of a day out.

In these times of economic uncertainty it's a cheap day out for all the family, and with a good walk can be a brilliant way to wear out those energetic little ones during the long summer holidays.

As for the weather - well, I'm not expecting anyone to repeat my effort of a few years ago where I climbed up the Long Man of Wilmington in crampons and ate cheese and pickle butties in a snow scrape sheltered by a gorse bush and surrounded by a pristine, virgin-white landscape - but seize the good days, pack the basket and step out into the countryside.

I have included five routes suitable for picnicking, mostly accessible by public transport, short and long, and all with somewhere nice to sit down, play frisbee and enjoy the best of Downland.

Each link is clickable.

The Henfield Rail and River Picnic Walk (6 miles)

The Cuckmere Haven Picnic Walk (3 miles)

The Kingley Vale Picnic Walk (3 miles)

The Chanctonbury Ring Picnic Walk (8 miles)

The Long Man of Wilmington Picnic Walk (2.3 miles)

Following Betty Ellis' 1920s Stroll

2012-04-17T17:21:00.000+01:00

The Arun drifts soothingly by, carrying chaotic thoughts to the sea, massaging a tired mind. It's one of those curious days where winter winds rub shoulders with summer sun; now the air feels chill, now it feels warm.

Ripening rapeseed rustles in yellow bands scored through green fields of barley shoots. Above High Barn Buzzards ride the thermals, casting menacing shadows far below, twisting and fading and mixing with the clouds.

A derelict cottage and ancient dew-pond clogged with farm debris cut a sorry sight. Who would want to live in such a remote place today, cut off in the heart of Downland, like the old time shepherds? Over these ruins, known as Canada, a mist drifts, the ghosts of another time.

An isolated coombe, nestling in Downland's bosom, hidden, almost secret lifts any mood. Chalky paths, precipitous and deep-cut, worn with age land the other side of the escarpment in Amberley. Unspoilt, desirable, a place to slow the pace, tarry a while. Cottages bear testimony to old trades of bakers and nailmakers, long gone to retail parks and superstore counters, replaced by a new community.

Now fortified by Mr Knight's hoppy liquid a traffic clogged road, once crossed leads to a peaceful lane. In a deep coombe a hidden riverbed rustles with brimstone, peacock and orange-tip butterflies. Moorhen busy with feeding young, partridges patrol the field edges, set to flight by jumpy woodpigeon. Soon Peppering Farm is found again, hedgerows running with dunnock and house sparrows. Nearby summer's first swallow darts across the barley.

Burpham is reached, like Amberley changed little since medieval times outwardly, but the streets are silent, the pub is closed. The dormitory sleeps it's daytime slumber.

A drizzly end, past Splash Farm and into the Woodleighs, where bluebells are starting to peak through the dry soil, takes a path once used by a king to flee protestant pursuers, but now leads to a dice with death to reach Arundel station.

The detailed route for this walk can be found by clicking here.

Real England by Paul Kingsnorth

2012-04-15T11:44:00.000+01:00

The Battle Against the Band

Although written a few years ago now, and not strictly about Sussex, this book does follow another theme of mine, which is the preservation of our unique landscape.

The Real England pulls together a series of characters that are kicking out against the move towards a nation of identikit cities, streets and countryside. Contrary to what the media will have you believe they're not all unwashed hordes taking to trees and battling the police, the people we encounter here are striking because of their normality; their everyday-ness. The stand up to corporate giants like Tesco, and the faceless corporations that would have you believe your life is enhanced if you have a Starbucks on every corner, and two branches of Tesco in between.

There is a melancholy feel to the book, for as time as passed since it was written it is evident nothing has changed, other than the government, and that this drive, if anything, may have increased. The only check now is the economic downturn.

As I read the book, I started to wonder if the real battle wasn't against the move towards clone towns, but as much a battle against the blandness of people, who just accept that this is the way and are happy to spend their weekends queuing to park in huge out of town retail parks, or equally monolithic urban shopping centres; where the cost of parking is deliberately prohibitive to stop you straying too far from it's grasp.

The characters we meet in Kingsnorth's well-researched, and evocatively written book are striving against being eaten up by this sort of development. It's a cry for a Britain we all cherish, but few are prepared to fight to save from this creeping ruin. It puts me in mind of the best of past writings in a similar vein; Akenfield and Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay; while Kingsnorth's book is more national, the subject is similarly sad; that we are leaving behind a lot of the character of England in order to line the purses of the corporate fat cats.

As the MP, Jim Dowd puts it - ask people if they want to keep their local shop and they all agree, ask how many actually use it and the figures plummet.

As a historian I know that change is to some degree inevitable, and is often for the good; Kingsnorth seemingly agrees with this; it's not the development and the growth that is the issue, it is the manner in which it is done. The way in which progress is sold as a good thing, even when those it affects disagree, but are not given a voice to protest.

The theme here is really that place is an important part of our identity. Without a sense of place those things that hold communities together are broken down. After this book was published there were several days of rioting across the UK, and it is no coincidence that Real England talks about the alienation of people who, if they are not "consumers" have their rights and needs reduced. The drive to sameness destroys that sense of place, whether it's from disinterested staff in coffee shops repeating the 'five steps to customer satisfaction' mantras (I've been in here hundreds of times, you've served me, I know the sugar is behind me...) or the identikit estates that homebuilders want us to come home to and shut the door on the world around us.

The conclusion does offer hope though, I just fear that the people who read these books are already converts, and that we need to change the habits of the bland masses; the sheep that stream into the great concrete cathedrals to consumerism to spend, spend, spend and to hell with the consequences. I wonder if the oil tanker has gone too far and it's too late to turn it round before it hits the wall, however hard we stamp on the brakes. That's my fear, that we've gone too far, ceded too much power, worried so much about 'growth' and profit that all the words in the world probably won't slay the consumerist dragon.

I really urge anyone who has an interest in such matters to buy the book, preferably from an independent bookseller rather than a global corporation with a shady tax-paying record; or maybe see if your library has a copy.

The blog of the book can be found here Real England Blog; and more about Paul can be found here and here.

The Burphams and Tansy

2012-04-13T14:17:00.001+01:00

Downland is littered with evidence of prior habitation, from great Iron Age forts like that at Cissbury to smaller communities deserted in more modern history. There are a number of deserted medieval villages (DMVs as us historians call them), scattered across the landscape from the Manhood peninsula right across to the Kent border.

Burpham is one such site, but is unusual in that the community was apparently abandoned and moved lock stock and barrel a short distance north. In medieval times trade and profitability governed the success of a community and if a village was not profitable it was simply abandoned. This process may have been accelerated by famine, plague or in the case of a number of coastal communities they were simply washed away, or became victims of longshore drift. Sometimes the landscape was changed when landowners converted to sheep farming and simply razed the dwellings to the ground. It is erroneous to assume that all abandoned communities are as a result of the Black Death, as is often said, the circumstance is often far more complex.

Burpham's name tells us that it was one of King Alfred's Saxon burghs, and therefore must have been considered important at the time, and was fortified, probably to protect a notable crossing of the Arun, in whose crook it nestles.

The subsequent construction of a castle at Arundel, strongly fortified the area and it is generally understood that this checked further development at Burpham, which became a farming community and moved away from the fortified site at around this time. The mound and associated lumps and bumps of this former community remain to be seen just south of the current village, which is a real gem in the Downland landscape.

One of Burpham's most famous residents was the Victorian apiarist and local vicar Tickner Edwardes. who wrote several volumes on his subject, many of which fetch high prices even today. He also wrote 'Tansy', a story of a Downland romance, which was very popular in it's day and was subsequently made into a silent film by Cecil Hepworth one of the British film industry's earliest directors. Hepworth eventually went bankrupt, and most of his film was melted down for the valuable silver nitrate to pay off his debts. A copy of 'Tansy' fortunately survived this disaster and is at the British Film Institute.

'Tansy' was filmed around Burpham, and used several local people as incidental characters. Because of the aforementioned lack of development of the area about Burpham many of the locations used are extant, and can be seen today.

In the book 'Sussex Pilgrimages', written by the great travel writer RP Hopkins, at about the same time as the film was released, a whole chapter is dedicated to a walk written by local resident Betty Ellis. Designed to take in the locations of the film and the book, it seems the walk, which is of around 12 miles is still possible today. In my next piece I intend to attempt to follow Betty's instructions, and recreate the walk.

Of special interest to me, is the fact that as long ago as the early 1920s she was complaining about 'arguments over access and rights of way at Amberley Castle, and although I have walked extensively in the area I am not familiar with the specific right of way she is referring to, but I look forward to seeing what became of it.

The reason I have chosen to wrote about Burpham is to follow from the earlier post this week To Build or Not to Build which discusses the impact and short-termism of current environmental policies. Burpham is neither accessible, nor on any major road. In fact, it's at the end of the road. There's not a great deal of parking, and bike, boat or foot are the best and easiest ways to get there. This doesn't prevent it from being a popular place to visit, and a real gem of this part of the world. The walk, as most of the places I describe here, with one or two exceptions can be, and should be, reached by public transport.

The Run of The Downs

2012-04-12T20:19:00.004+01:00

Rudyard Kipling was just one of many literary giants to make Sussex his home, and as the last of the poetry theme for now. I've included one of his many Sussex poems. "The Run of the Downs" is one of my favourites. I'm sure we'll meet Kipling again in this discourse.

The Run of the Downs

Rudyard Kipling

The Weald is good, the Downs are best-
I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.
Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
They were once and they are still.
Firle Mount Caburn and Mount Harry
Go back as far as sums 'll carry.
Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring
They have looked on many a thing,
And what those two have missed between 'em
I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.
Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down
Knew Old England before the Crown.
Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood
Knew Old England before the Flood;
And when you end on the Hampshire side-
Butser's old as Time and Tide.
The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,
You be glad you are Sussex born!

On The South Downs

2012-04-12T20:10:00.001+01:00

Francis William Bourdillon also wrote a poem about the south country, entitled "On The South Downs", albeit somewhat shorter than Swinburne's work, and in my opinon a little more accessible. Bourdillon lived at Easebourne, near Midhurst.

On the South Downs

Light falls the rain
On link and laine,
After the burning day;
And the bright scene,
Blue, gold, and green,
Is blotted out in gray.

Not so will part
The glowing heart
With sunny hours gone by;
On cliff and hill
There lingers still
A light that cannot die.

Like a gold crown
Gorse decks the Down,
All sapphire lies the sea;
And incense sweet
Springs as our feet
Tread light the thymy lea.

Fade, vision bright!
Fall rain, fall night!
Forget, gray world, thy green!
For us, nor thee,
Can all days be
As though this had not been!

On The South Coast

2012-04-12T20:04:00.001+01:00

Continuing in the theme of poetry about the South Downs, I thought I would add Algernon Swinburne's lengthy epic about the south country. Swinburne spent time living in Lancing in the 1880s, the poem itself I believe refers to Shoreham-by-Sea.

On the South Coast

Algernon Charles Swinburne

TO THEODORE WATTS

Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds,
Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds,
Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life diviner than lives in words,

Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim,
Change and brighten with hours that lighten and darken, girdled with cloud or flame;
Earth's fair face in alternate grace beams, blooms, and lowers, and is yet the same.

Twice each day the divine sea's play makes glad with glory that comes and goes
Field and street that her waves keep sweet, when past the bounds of their old repose,
Fast and fierce in renewed reverse, the foam-flecked estuary ebbs and flows.

Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with trunks of the wildwood tree,
Up from shoreward, impelled far forward, by marsh and meadow, by lawn and lea,
Inland still at her own wild will swells, rolls, and revels the urging sea.

Strong as time, and as faith sublime, clothed round with shadows of hopes and fears,
Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion of prayers and tears,
Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and waning years.

Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows,
Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows,
Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows.

Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or touched or neared,
Arch and vault without stain or fault, by hands of craftsmen we know not reared,
Time beheld them, and time was quelled; and change passed by them as one that feared.

Time that flies as a dream, and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed,
Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed,
Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed.

Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed:
These go by as the winds that sigh, and none takes note of them quick or dead:
Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here his pinions, and bows his head.

Still the sun that beheld begun the work wrought here of unwearied hands
Sees, as then, though the Red King's men held ruthless rule over lawless lands,
Stand their massive design, impassive, pure and proud as a virgin stands.

Statelier still as the years fulfil their count, subserving her sacred state,
Grows the hoary grey church whose story silence utters and age makes great:
Statelier seems it than shines in dreams the face unveiled of unvanquished fate.

Fate, more high than the star-shown sky, more deep than waters unsounded, shines
Keen and far as the final star on souls that seek not for charms or signs;
Yet more bright is the love-shown light of men's hands lighted in songs or shrines.

Love and trust that the grave's deep dust can soil not, neither may fear put out,
Witness yet that their record set stands fast, though years be as hosts in rout,
Spent and slain; but the signs remain that beat back darkness and cast forth doubt.

Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier than praise dare trace,
Fair as all that the world may call most fair, save only the sea's own face,
Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not, live by grace of their own gift's grace.

Dead, their names that the night reclaims alive, their works that the day relumes
Sink and stand, as in stone and sand engraven: none may behold their tombs:
Nights and days shall record their praise while here this flower of their grafting blooms.

Flower more fair than the sun-thrilled air bids laugh and lighten and wax and rise,
Fruit more bright than the fervent light sustains with strength from the kindled skies,
Flower and fruit that the deathless root of man's love rears though the man's name dies.
Stately stands it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar and near,
Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the seaboard here;
Downs that swerve and aspire, in curve and change of heights that the dawn holds dear.

Dawn falls fair on the grey walls there confronting dawn, on the low green lea,
Lone and sweet as for fairies' feet held sacred, silent and strange and free,
Wild and wet with its rills; but yet more fair falls dawn on the fairer sea.

Eastward, round by the high green bound of hills that fold the remote fields in,
Strive and shine on the low sea-line fleet waves and beams when the days begin;
Westward glow, when the days burn low, the sun that yields and the stars that win.

Rose-red eve on the seas that heave sinks fair as dawn when the first ray peers;
Winds are glancing from sunbright Lancing to Shoreham, crowned with the grace of years;
Shoreham, clad with the sunset, glad and grave with glory that death reveres.

Death, more proud than the kings' heads bowed before him, stronger than all things, bows
Here his head: as if death were dead, and kingship plucked from his crownless brows,
Life hath here such a face of cheer as change appals not and time avows.

Skies fulfilled with the sundown, stilled and splendid, spread as a flower that spreads,
Pave with rarer device and fairer than heaven's the luminous oyster-beds,
Grass-embanked, and in square plots ranked, inlaid with gems that the sundown sheds.

Squares more bright and with lovelier light than heaven that kindled it shines with shine
Warm and soft as the dome aloft, but heavenlier yet than the sun's own shrine:
Heaven is high, but the water-sky lit here seems deeper and more divine.

Flowers on flowers, that the whole world's bowers may show not, here may the sunset show,
Lightly graven in the waters paven with ghostly gold by the clouds aglow:
Bright as love is the vault above, but lovelier lightens the wave below.

Rosy grey, or as fiery spray full-plumed, or greener than emerald, gleams
Plot by plot as the skies allot for each its glory, divine as dreams
Lit with fire of appeased desire which sounds the secret of all that seems;

Dreams that show what we fain would know, and know not save by the grace of sleep,
Sleep whose hands have removed the bands that eyes long waking and fain to weep
Feel fast bound on them--light around them strange, and darkness above them steep.

Yet no vision that heals division of love from love, and renews awhile
Life and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of speech and smile,
Shows on earth, or in heaven's mid mirth, where no fears enter or doubts defile,

Aught more fair than the radiant air and water here by the twilight wed,
Here made one by the waning sun whose last love quickens to rosebright red
Half the crown of the soft high down that rears to northward its wood-girt head.

There, when day is at height of sway, men's eyes who stand, as we oft have stood,
High where towers with its world of flowers the golden spinny that flanks the wood,
See before and around them shore and seaboard glad as their gifts are good.
Higher and higher to the north aspire the green smooth-swelling unending downs;
East and west on the brave earth's breast glow girdle-jewels of gleaming towns;
Southward shining, the lands declining subside in peace that the sea's light crowns.
Westward wide in its fruitful pride the plain lies lordly with plenteous grace;
Fair as dawn's when the fields and lawns desire her glitters the glad land's face:
Eastward yet is the sole sign set of elder days and a lordlier race.

Down beneath us afar, where seethe in wilder weather the tides aflow,
Hurled up hither and drawn down thither in quest of rest that they may not know,
Still as dew on a flower the blue broad stream now sleeps in the fields below.
Mild and bland in the fair green land it smiles, and takes to its heart the sky;
Scarce the meads and the fens, the reeds and grasses, still as they stand or lie,
Wear the palm of a statelier calm than rests on waters that pass them by.
Yet shall these, when the winds and seas of equal days and coequal nights
Rage, rejoice, and uplift a voice whose sound is even as a sword that smites,
Felt and heard as a doomsman's word from seaward reaches to landward heights,

Lift their heart up, and take their part of triumph, swollen and strong with rage,
Rage elate with desire and great with pride that tempest and storm assuage;
So their chime in the ear of time has rung from age to rekindled age.
Fair and dear is the land's face here, and fair man's work as a man's may be:
Dear and fair as the sunbright air is here the record that speaks him free;
Free by birth of a sacred earth, and regent ever of all the sea.

Chanctonbury Ring - a few lines.

2012-04-10T14:35:00.000+01:00

"I can't forget the lane that goes from Steyning to the Ring
In summer time, and on the Down how larks and linnets sing
High in the sun. The wind comes off the sea, and Oh the air!
I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair.
But now I know it in this filthy rat infested ditch
When every shell may spare or kill - and God alone knows which.
And I am made a beast of prey, and this trench is my lair.
My God! I never knew till now that those days were so fair.
So we assault in half an hour, and, - it's a silly thing -
I can't forget the narrow lane to Chanctonbury Ring."

John Stanley Purvis, 1916

How oft around thy Ring, sweet Hill,
  A Boy, I used to play,
And form my plans to plant thy top
  On some auspicious day.
How oft among thy broken turf
  With what delight I trod,

With what delight I placed those twigs
  Beneath thy maiden sod.
And then an almost hopeless wish
  Would creep within my breast,
Oh! could I live to see thy top
  In all its beauty dress'd.
That time's arrived; I've had my wish,
  And lived to eighty-five;
I'll thank my God who gave such grace
  As long as e'er I live.
Still when the morning Sun in Spring,
  Whilst I enjoy my sight,
Shall gild thy new-clothed Beech and sides,
  I'll view thee with delight.

Charles Goring, 1828

East and west in drifting cloud
Fades the line of the South Downs
Here are no 'buses braying loud,
No crowds or smoke or din of towns
But only sunlit greens and browns
And the far flick of a hawk's wing;
A vast content his climbing crowns
Who stands by Chanctonbury Ring'

Unknown, earlier than 1928

To Build or Not to Build

2012-04-08T13:22:00.002+01:00

A local town needs a bypass, it wants a bypass. The roads are gridlocked, growth is hindered. The issue has periodically raised it's head for a generation. In fact, in a letter to the local paper a resident points out that twenty years ago it got so bad they built a relief road, but it's now gridlocked.

And herein lies the problem. "Build it and they will come" applies to roads as much as circuses, and in twenty years the bypass will probably again be gridlocked. The road passes a station. It's a short walk to the town and there are good links with some, but not all, local towns - Dr Beeching saw to that.

The people who want the bypass say the gridlock puts people off coming to the town and drives away business. Perhaps while the cars are at a standstill the local council might survey the drivers, many of whom are alone in five seater vehicles, and establish how many are heading to the town and how many are just trying to get somewhere else? I wonder how many people are really put off by the traffic? Judging by the queues at local horse racing days traffic and boot fairs is rarely something that puts people off their journeys.

The favoured route for the bypass will punch through an ancient wood. When it was proposed to include this wood in the national park, the local county council referred to it as 'unremarkable.' The mainly Conservative council mentioned further on it's objection that, essentially, it's in the way of the bypass.

We must move faster, get there quicker, not have to wait. Time is money, and money is growth. We need a bypass to drive this growth, in the same way that we need to decimate even more countryside for a high speed rail link from Birmingham to London. We must shave off a few minutes. Time is money. We need the rail link because the motorway they built in recent memory is not enough, it's full. We can't expect people to get up earlier, only make necessary journeys, or travel together. We can't expect business men to use technology to have their meetings, via Skype and Videolink. No, it must be done face to face. The journey has to be made. Flesh has to be pressed.

The HGVs that pass the local town have to cross a rail bridge. Every few years it has to be strengthened. It's not up to the traffic. It crosses near the station, where the old goods yard is laid to waste and development land. We don't use the rail network for freight here. Even if it's use could be resurrected the network that once supported it is buried under such development or is wasteland. The short-sightedness of our forebears has come to haunt us. Roads are the answer. The only answer. Build them we must. Until every inch of unremarkable landscape is buried under concrete.

A letter in the local paper says wildlife can thrive on verges. So the bypass could become a haven for wildlife. Those that would want to enjoy it, of course, would have to take their lives in their hands foraging on the verge while trucks rumble by at umpteen miles an hour. Of course, the vergeside environment would support a different ecology to that of the ancient woodland, with it's coppiced beeches, medieval ponds, and historic oaks that would be lost by it's construction.

The local council will again fight a costly battle to argue for the bypass, already rejected once on environmental grounds, protestors will take to the trees. The new planning laws may even support its approval. Then millions will be spent on its construction. The traffic will come, and it will increase, and in time this road too will fill with cars.

The long term view, to use the money to change habits, support improvements to rural public transport, is not something we are used to taking in this country, especially when it comes to transport policy. What we need to do, for the greater good, for the benefit of the vocal minority - the business leaders, the corporations who's only link with the area it's to rumble blindly through - is build on anything unremarkable.

Until all that is left is the remarkable. Remarkable because it's still there.

Above Amberley

2012-03-28T14:55:00.000+01:00

The sun beats down onto soil baked as hard as a late summer's day, yet it is but March.

The river sparkles and along its muddy banks moorhen prints lead to and fro, markers of the industry of nest building. Of the bird itself there is no sign.

Toward Coombe Wood a solitary buzzard circles, riding high thermals, before plunging down into the wood itself. The path contours the hill before skirting the wood. Each footstep explodes with small clouds of dust. It has not rained for weeks. In Coombe Wood a woodpecker drums out a rhythm to a chorusline of finches and tits, and to the left a field of larks compete for volume.

As the path drops into farmland the song of the larks rises to a crescendo; occasionally a bird lis flushed from the rape field, rising higher and higher as his soprano song fades into the distance. Heads of ripening rape tremble as bees land.

Above Bignor Hill a second buzzard circles bisecting the towers of Glatting Beacon, before speeding down into the hangers on the quickening air currents, effortless and graceful.

The return path through Houghton Wood is alive with brimstone and peacock butterflies, dancing in the sun among yet to bud stands of beech coppice. The lack of foilage serves to accentuate the bright yellow of the brimstones as they jig through the branches.

A shaded pool, dark and stinking provides a cooling bath for a panting terrier, hotly pursued by a red-faced owner.

Along the way the first bluebells stretch for the spring sunlight.

The path drops into Houghton, occasionally hugging the busy main road, before a way is found to the riverbank again and the ancient towpath, leading back to Amberley.

The route for this walk can be found at - http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1503596

In Defence of Local.

2012-03-24T17:28:00.000Z

I've been away for a while, I'm wounded and haven't been able to get out much. I thought I would blog on something I am passionate about though, in the interim and in the hope it would sustain some interest in the blog while I'm awaiting a return to good health.

I'm a member of the South Downs Society, formerly the Society of Downsmen. Our primary concern is the protection of the landscape of the South Downs, and has been since formation as the Society of Downsmen in 1923. In my voluntary role as an Area Access Officer I look after a group of parishes on the borders of the new South Downs National Park, regularly walking the footpaths and bridleways and ensuring they are in a useable condition. I also watch planning applications that would impact on these rights of way and report back to the Society on the impact of any development.

The Society is not reactionary, which is part of the attraction for me, as as historian I accept that everything changes, and nothing can be expected to stay the same forever.

However, what bothers me, and increasingly so, is not organic change, but change that sucks out local identity, turning Britain into a patchwork of identikit towns.

Take, for example, another favourite subject of mine - beer. I mean real beer. Not yellow fizzy generic chemical mixtures, but ale.

I grew up in East Anglia. I liked my local ale. It had a taste of where I lived. Now I can buy it where I currently live, some 200 miles away. Of course, it's not the same beer. It doesn't taste quite the same. Ale doesn't travel well, so they apply some chemistry and, while it tastes a bit different, I can drink an approximation of it. I guess that's what the brewer strives for, brand loyalty. They rely on the fact that while I know it's not going to taste quite the same, it's a brand I know, so I'm more likely to buy it than risk something I don't know. Especially as the brewers have now become so big they can churn it out for a couple of quid a pint in a chain pub, run by a PubCo, that offers no alternative in terms of ales. Lagers - pick any one of several from all over the world. Beer? No demand, sir. No demand? Or no choice?

There's safety in globalization. If you spend £7 on a PubCo lunch you get the same meal whether you're in Workington or Worthing. The portions will be the same size, and if you've liked it in Worthing, you'll like it in Workington. Your lamb Sunday lunch will likely have travelled hundreds of miles in the back of a truck, partially made up, ironically passing thousands of local sheep, in local fields, before coming straight to your plate courtesy of a few minutes in the microwave. But it's safe. You're going to get what you expect. There's no danger in handing over your £7 and not really knowing what's coming. It's nice and safe. And they'll never run out, you'll never be disappointed, or forced to choose something different. The freezer is jammed full.

But what if you took a risk with your £7? What happens if you find a free house, or a pub not tied to a PubCo like The Fountain at Ashurst, and try the Sussex smokey? What if they'd run out and you'd have to choose something else? You might not like it. Does that matter? It depends on your point of view. The herbs have come from the back garden, the fish is local, and you can wash it down with a beer brewed just down the road. That £7 might not have filled your belly, but it goes someway to sustaining your wider community. It doesn't disappear into the pockets of an anonymous suit in a glass and brushed aluminum office somewhere hundreds of miles away. You can always try something else next time. If the pub is still there.

One of my favourite pubs in the Lake District is the Woolpack in Eskdale. When I first visited 20 years ago it was a spit and sawdust place, run down, shabby but welcoming. No-one gave a toss about your wet trousers or muddy boots. Why would they? The only customers were walkers and farmers, and as long as you're spending money you're welcome. Even if you only buy a pint and stay a couple of hours, sheltering from the rain. Last year I took a friend to the Lakes. I offered to take her in, but felt the need to warn her it was a bit run down. Imagine my suprise to find the newly painted brushed plaster walls, the big screen TV and the children's play area. Behind the bar though, reassuringly, were beers brewed over the hill, the lamb came from the farm over the road - literally. It could have walked there itself. It might have been tidied up a bit, and the bespoke B&B next door opened up, but the new owner had kept the essence of the place. It was proof that change can be for the better, that change does not need to mean stripping out the heart of a community and shovelling scampi and chips down it's neck and washing it down with a pint of fine American lager, brewed under licence in Wrexham.

A PubCo recently bought two pubs in a local Sussex community. They spruced them up, and lovely they look. Now you have a choice. You can drink the same beer in either of the pubs. They look different, the menus are slightly different, but they're tied to the same PubCo. The landlord is tied to a contract to buy from a certain brewer, and if you like the beer, which has rattled its way to you from 150 miles away, then all well and good. But is that choice? The PubCo will tell you they're reacting to demand. But if you can only chose their beer that's not real choice is it?

There are many good things hidden away in the Downs, you might have to stumble across them, they don't have the budget to sponsor football teams, or take out full page ads to tell you that if you bring your Mum in on Mother's Day she eats for free. What they do is sustain age old local industries like fishing, brewing and farming. They keep local people in work, they preserve the identity of the community, they preserve a national identity. For the pub is the synonymous with being British.

Likewise with coffee shops. I live in a seaside town. On the main drag are a handful of franchise coffee shops. Set a bit further away is one run by a local lady. She works there too, and she employs some local girls. They're at college, or bringing up families. She juggles their hours sympathetically. The coffee is good, the sandwiches tightly packed, and in winter the soup is delicious. The bread and pastries come from a local baker, who also employs local people. My lunch might help half a dozen people work. In the franchise, I can buy a coffee that doesn't taste any different, and a pre-packed panini, trucked a hundred miles or more, and costing the same as my sandwich. The staff are on a salary. They work long hours for little pay, they call them 'baristas', but they're generally from eastern Europe, struggling to make their way here and happy to put up with whatever conditions as long as they have a job.

The panini is dumped limp on the plate, with no accompaniment. The sandwich in the local cafe comes with a bit of salad, and maybe some crisps. But, again, there's a risk. You peep in the door. How big is the coffee? Is it instant? Are the sandwiches good? You can only afford one lunch out a week because your budget is squeezed, so it's safer to spend it on what you know. Something safe. Something that's the same in Workington and Worthing; in Washington and Wisconsin. You buy a brand, and somewhere another brushed aluminum office goes up.

I could rant on about this forever, and you'd wilt away, thinking I'm a Luddite, a reactionary, someone who is anti-change. I'm not, change can be a good thing - the Woolpack opens early in the morning for bacon butties, it's probably been saved from being turned into a holiday lets by the spirit of the new owner with such innovative ideas. The Fountain flourishes, you really should visit, you might have to wait for a table, queue to order, or find they've run out, but does it matter? Just once this month though, don't go for safe... risk your shillings and try something local.

I've borrowed the term PubCo from Paul Kingsnorth's excellent book 'Real England', which, by coincidence, I started to read as I was putting this post together. I hope to get back to writing about the South Downs in the near future. As always, please comment. The blog only improves in response to criticism, so of course, it's welcome.

Solvitur Ambulando

2012-02-10T12:14:00.002Z

Whenever there is a crisis in my life, I have walked. I stuff a pack full of things and take to the hills. As far back as Roman times this was recognised as a way to deal with your problems, and the phrase 'solvitur ambulando' has been something of a motto for my life. It means, roughly, it is solved by walking. This is not perhaps completely true for the reality is that the problem or situation doesn't go away, but the act of walking seems to put distance between you and the situation, a distance that allows it to be viewed with fresh eyes.

On occasions where I have been so overwhelmed with a situation I have often found that being away for a while, in a situation where my senses are filled with the sights and sounds of the countryside the problem I have left behind, shrinks in size, it's magnitude retracting with every step. I often wish I'd worn a pedometer on my walks, I tried once but lost it within a few hours when I climbed a chalk cliff that got in the way of where I wanted to go. I could gauge each problem or situation by the number of steps it took to recede. A large bill could become a 5000 step bill, a relationship ending maybe a 50000 step situation.

I'm often swamped by urban life, I grew up in semi rural environemnt, and I have never been suited to the sensory overload of towns and cities. As I get older this situation has deteriorated; I actively avoid places like London and even Brighton; the noises and sounds of the city are often too much for me, and within a few hours I long for the wilder, open places. The feeling of claustrophobia and restricted vision I have in London is overwhelming, something I can only bear for a few hours before I long to escape.

I used to think nothing of walking twenty or thirty miles in a day, often walking in a mild daze, words crashing around my head, thoughts tumbling around like raffle tickets in a tombola; ideas running like a torrent over a waterfall. It was only recently that I found I was not as alone as I thought in this act. There is a lengthy literary history of great walkers. As I move along my path I encounter Thoreau, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Jeffries, and Baker. Even in modern literature Olivia Laing commences a journey at a time of crisis, a symbolic crossing over from one path in life to another. I envy their ability to convey this to others, whether in prose or poem, their ability to juggle language to take a reader into their mind, to see what they see, and to feel their surroundings as if they are a companion on the author's journey.

In June I had an accident, innocuous at first, where I fell several feet onto a dry river bed in the Lake District. It seemed relatively minor, and I continued walking and climbing that day; but by the next day I was having issues with mobility. I crept up the tourist route on Sca Fell Pike, mainly to ensure that someone else's trip had some meaning, some achievement, but within a few days I was struggling with the pain. Since that time I have commenced what the NHS have referred to in that awful modern language as 'a patient journey'. This seems to be defined by months of physiotherapy, mind stifling drugs regimes and no real move towards a diagnosis.

The benefit though is that my walking is restricted to shorter journeys. I move more slowly, three to five miles, with a long stop in the middle is about where I am. I tread more softly, I rest more frequently, and this seems to have bought me much more in line with my environment. As I crawl through the landscape I disturb less, make less noise, and am generally less visible to the world about me. I have come face to face with deer, stood so close to goldcrests I could have reached out and touched them (if only they would stay still for a few seconds), and on one memorable occasion near Midhurst I watched a fox cub chasing leaves around a forest glade for some 15 minutes before he realised I was there.

So it seems that, as that cliched proverb goes, every cloud has a silver lining. I might not be marching out in search of 5000 step solutions to problems, but I am connecting more with the world around me. Curiously at this time this fits with my situation, this connection is more powerful to me than any drug. I get more from thirty minutes walking about Ebernoe Common than I do from an hour in the hospital gym. It's better for my soul and for my mind; but while the GP can now prescribe books from the local library to help a heal a soul we're still some way from the day he writes 'solvitur ambulando' on your prescription and hands you a map and some walking boots.

To The River by Olivia Laing

2012-02-09T06:37:00.001Z

The River Ouse looms large in Olivia Laing's life, and like so many of us she navigates towards the familiar when she finds herself in the middle of a 'minor crisis'; deciding to walk the course of the river from it's source to the sea as the year ticks past the changing-time of midsummer.

Solvitur ambulando, is the Latin phrase - it is solved by walking, and Laing sets out on this forty-two mile pilgrimage with this foremost in her mind.

What follows is a tale of journeys, several journeys. Each meanders around the other, flowing like tributaries, following their own winding path to the river that is the whole. The past flows into the present, and slides dreamily on into the future - the author absorbed by her surroundings in such a way that other people are inconsequential - half-heard conversations harsh in their profanity clash markedly with the softness of the beautifully observed landscape.

She reflects on the futility of man holding back the tides with ill-judged plans to restrict the freedom and flow of the river, and how doing so clogs up the sewers and floods the modern towns with shit - a metaphor maybe for the way modern life clogs our freedom of thought and expression - leaving it to run unencumbered allows it occasionally to overflow; the indescribable beauty of which is left to Virginia Woolf herself to reflect upon.

The title of the book itself draws heavily from Woolf's own To The Lighthouse with Virginia and Leonard Woolf casting their long shadows over the text; for this is the place they lived, loved and eventually died. Woolf was famously consumed by the very river she loved, and Laing returns to the couple over and again, as her writing tumbles out; thoughts and emotions flowing now fast, now slow, like the changing pace of the tidal river itself.

Only someone who has walked for long periods in solitude could connect with Laing's outpouring of thought; words collide and seemingly unrelated and disjointed topics flow into each other, beautifully and seamlessly joining the apparently unrelated in an almost subconscious flood of wonderfully descriptive language. Laing manages to convey this perfectly.

There is also some reflection on the impermanence of man, that no matter what the expense, or the how great the effort; no matter the course of our journey we are here for only a tick of the clock. Man and everything he creates reduces eventually to nature, weeds recolonise, walls fall down and all man's marks are consumed by that he tries to tame.

Laing's background in herbalism is evident as she effortlessly names every plant in the hedgerows and verges in a manner that suggests it is done with the merest of glances as she passes through; in that easy way that those confident in their environment do as they move through the landscape.

There is a certain melancholy, as there always is at a time of change, and a sense of loneliness and solitude; but as the river quickens towards the sea, its route now fixed and straightened so Laing's solitude becomes almost joyous. The recounted memories move from the regret of not taking a house with her then love, Matthew; through a separation of her parents so complete she is almost unable to imagine them together to recalling a friend singing in the beauty of Southease church.

As she crashes into Newhaven ugly modernity litters the roadsides, and the freedom of the Downs, however neat and parcelled off they may be, is replaced by the fear of the hemmed in urban pathway. The restriction of vision created by high hedges and ugly council estates forces Laing to break into a brief run, as if the restriction itself is too much to bear after the freedom of the prior days walking. Once free of Newhaven again and back in the open she describes herself as 'as purely happy as I have ever been'.

Had this been a walking guide to the Ouse I would have dropped it like a hot coal, but it's so far removed from that. I know this path well, but I also know the journey Laing takes to the freedom of the hills, and unrestricted thought, where the fragile joy can be snatched away by the presence of other souls.

Laing comes across as a bright, reflective author, with an intelligent and reflective personality, the kind of complex character that would make a walk interesting. I wonder if she's done the Arun yet.

To The River takes it's place alongside Mabey, Baker and Jeffries as a classic of a genre of writing about a place I call the 'edgelands', that place that is neither wild nor urban but somewhere in between. But this is not a book about natural history, or wildlife, it is a book about just "being"; and gorgeous it is too.

http://www.olivialaing.co.uk/

The Last Trees Standing

2012-02-07T12:21:00.000Z

Titnore Woods

This woodland is ancient, one of only two such sites left in this borough, and for years has been marked for 'development' while brownfield sites rot and fester in the nearby town.

To enter a woodland is to cross over, from a modern world to an ancient one. For centuries woodlands cradled man. Trees provided the fires that heated and cooked, the power for industry and the ships that protected the shores. Our folklore is full of tales of woodland life, from Robin Hood to Red Riding Hood, and it's place even in relatively modern children's tales such as Winnie the Poo and The Wind in the Willows remains strong; it drives our continuing perception of these places as on the periphery of things magical.

To me woodlands have always seemed at the edge of something, like the gateway to another world. Here is the stuff of childhood fantasies, of elves and sprites; toadstools and the Magic Faraway Tree, which, as a child, I once looked for in a road atlas.

The trees wear bootees of melting snow, which runs into rutty rivers, feeding bootprint lakes. I rest against the trunk of the ancient oak, his bark furrowed like an old man's brow; this tree has stood for centuries, it watched King Charles II fleeing to France and ducked away from German bombs during the last war. Now, in his dotage he provides rest and shelter for the tired traveller.

How long before this land becomes a sea of concrete, homes for the upwardly mobile, eaten into what little we have left of the places that formed us; torn up to line the pockets of the few?

* If you're interested in preserving ancient woodlands then The Woodland Trust is the place to start. For more about the campaign to preserve Titnore Woods visit this blog or here.

Life in the Freezer

2012-02-02T18:57:00.001Z

RSPB Pulborough Brooks

A feeble sun, risen barely above the horizon casts long shadows on hard frozen ground. On the south part of the brooks, in the lee of the wind there is such silence that every sound is amplified; from the blackbirds turning over leaves under almost ever hedgerow to the sound of the stoat tip-toeing along the bank of a frosty ditch. I feel like I am the only person here.

A solitary cloud breaks up the endless ice blue of the sky, moving meekly along above a threadbare willow that creaks lazily in a gentle breeze. The ground is concrete hard, and most of the flooded meadows have succumbed to Jack Frost. Lapwings, driven from the water's edges, forage busily in fields for insects, mingling with flocks of nervous wigeon, arrived from Russia, to whom the temperatures must seem positively balmy. Two snipe hunker down in a nearby ditch, before a tiff send one shuffling unhappily off to a less favourable spot. A shoveler looks on from the water's edge, unmoved.

Behind a hedgerow a large herd of black fallow deer gather, some lazy with sleep, others jumpy. I move downwind of them, and away from a chattering group of birders. As I expected the deer are driven further along and closer to me, so close I can see the long lashes of a doe above sad looking eyes. We watch each other for quite some time, before a far away dog barks and the startled herd flee away to the north.

A goldcrest fusses acrobatically about the willows, watched by a curious squirrel. Somewhere nearby another calls, and then another. While the goldcrest flits from branch to branch a treecreeper, white breast flashing in the dappled light, contents himself with the grubs that have moved into the light on the trunk.

Even the larger meadows are given over almost in their totality to ice, a freeze that seems to have happened so suddenly that ripples have frozen into the surface of the water. Far away a flock of greylag geese, with a few white fronted geese secreted among feed contentedly, ignoring the presence of a juvenile peregrine tiercel who preens himself on a molehill. There are few waterfowl for him to drive up, a solitary shelduck huddles up on a frosty bank, an injured wing folded awkwardly across his back.

Everywhere groups of tits flit back and forth between trees, coal, blue, great and long tailed are much in evidence; as are numerous house sparrows.

Above the fields to the north east a kestrel hunts, now hovering, now swooping, circling and hovering again.

On the path leading back south a cacophony of cackles erupt from a flock of fidgety crows, and the falcon peregrine is driven up and away at great speed; arcing round in a loop she flips upside down, a flash of black and white streaked underbelly, yellow talons as sharp as daggers lash out and she is gone behind the tree line.

Breath forms clouds in the air, and the chill works its way into the bones. The cafe's bread pudding and warmth calls me inside.

The Enchanted Wood

2012-01-31T17:14:00.000Z

Ebernoe Common

Heavy snow-laden clouds seem to be propped up by the tall birch trees around the small Victorian red-brick church, and the occasional flurry of snow litters the car park with flecks of white.

To the east of the church a path runs south and then south east, made up in that ancient way of compacted rubble, slippery with mud, ice and beech mast. To the left is Furnace Field, in warmer times a favourite haunt of adders. Now, nervous fieldfares bolt out of hedges to snatch morsels from the iced-fingers of grass.

Further on, across a stream-bottomed valley there stands a restored brick kiln, a reminder that this which nature has reclaimed was once a centre of industry, where the sounds of hammers echoed for miles around, while ther forests flickered with fire.

More evidence of this industrial past lies south-west of the church where a frozen furnace pond supports a small flock of mournful looking mallards. The pond sparkles like glitter has been strewn across it surface, and each clumsy mallard footstep echoes from bank to bank.

Great clouds of blue, coal and great tits engage in what appears to be a competition to throw over the largest leaf as they forage among the beach mast. Suddenly an old English sheepdog appears and sits obediently at my side. For a while we stand together in silence watching the birds before the voice of an unseen mistress calls him away, and with a glance over his shoulder he is gone.

Bemused I turn back to find the tits have left, and a solitary grey squirrel sits where they foraged, clasping a beech nut. I hear what I initially take to be a jay mimicking a buzzard, as they are known to do, when the call rises in volume, incessant and repetitive.

I scan the skies, the squirrel scampers up the nearest tree, and above two common buzzards appear. One is noticeably smaller than the other, who calls constantly. They glide only for short periods and at a low altitude, the cold air probably lacking the thermals they need for their familiar soaring displays.

It is easy to see why in Scotland they are known as the 'tourist's Eagle' with their long fingery wings and gliding flight. After fifteen minutes or more of calling and circling they fly west into the weak sun and are lost over the beech trees.

Across the forest the repetitive beat of a drumming great spotted woodpecker sounds out, loud but unseen, pausing occasionally, waiting for an answer that never seems to come.

Paths criss-cross this ancient forest, tempting the explorer. They are the remnants of trackways that lead to the industrial sites that were once common here, some are hollow-ways, hundreds of years old. It is easy to get lost here, happy care-free lost of a child in an enchanted forest. Following any of the paths north leads to the church, or if not the road that leads to the church, where a welcome flask of soup waits in the car.