The South Country by Hilaire Belloc

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.

Following Betty Ellis' 1920s Stroll

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.

On The South Downs

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!

To Build or Not to Build

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

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

The Burgh

Wisps of cloud like strands of a wise sage's hair hang loosely across a powder blue sky, as the river Arun glitters below like a necklace of silver. The chill of the winter morning has been usurped by an afternoon snatched from spring. 

Peppering Farm stands in splendid isolation above Burpham, secreted in a hollow in centre of the South Downs. Time stands still here where the roads ends, wide field margins and thick hedgerows sing with life, and below Arundel castle is cradled in the nook of the river.

When I first came to the Downs some fifteen years ago an old sign, burnt at one corner by a pyromaniac delinquent boasted that if I was very lucky I might see a buzzard here. These short years later I am surprised if I don't see the eagle-like silhouette riding the thermals across remote fields. Today twitchers gather in a small car park huddle, scopes peering out across the coombe. Somewhere here a rough legged buzzard  is wintering. In most years as few as five of these magnificent raptors visit the United Kingdom, and birders from far and wide have scanned the coombe, trying to pick out which of the four or five buzzards that soar above is the one they need for their tick list.

He appears as I reach the triangle of copse that forms the Burgh proper. A covey of grey partridge are flushed from the hedge row, in turn startling a flock of fieldfares. Dunnock patrol the hedgerows, nervously twitching their wings as they feed. 

Across the coombe all eyes are on the rough legged buzzard, I turn north east towards Rackham Banks, and from the neighbouring field the unmistakable chatter of a sparrowhawk fills the air, and the copse erupts with alarm calls. 

A tractor pulls up and a genial farmer chats about the buzzards, a marked contrast to the iron lady who, not far from here at a local private estate pulled up in her expensive car to chastise me for walking on the wrong side of the footpath not long ago. 


Here on this farmer's land much has been done to improve the lot of the local wildlife, and a sign at the entrance proudly proclaims a list of species to be seen here. 


The ancient flint trackway, polished by thousands of years of hoof and foot, starts to glisten as the sun turns the sky the colour of hot coals. Arundel Castle turns purple and then mauve in the haze and on the horizon the sea burns as the sun slowly sinks below the surface.

Arlington Reservoir

Crepuscular rays cut through net curtains of clouds like a golden rapier, a carrion crow, fingery wings silhouetted against the sun cackles by. Below, the water sparkles like a silver coin dropped in a downland hollow.

Flocks of common gull bicker like hormonal teenagers. The shrivelled remnants of rosehips attract clouds of chattering long tailed tits, and the occasional coal tit. Away to the south over the grey whaleback of the south downs rain heavy clouds rush by on a wintery westerly breeze.

On the reservoir wigeon  gossip happily among themselves, while a gravel voiced jay chases a straying squirrel from a small copse, before proudly preening himself on a sun streaked fencepost.

The sun is obscured and the waters turn the muddy brown of wealden clay, and the clouds lower and thicken with anger.

Coppiced woodland creaks and sways like the mast of ships port bound by woodland storms. Firle Beacon towers above, the highest point of the eastern end of the south downs, the northern escarpment shrinks away in shadow below the humped crown which kaleidoscopes from green to gold to grey and mauve.

A cormorant skims the surface of the waters, twisting and turning, feet inches above the choppy waves before rising off to the north and joining fifteen more forming a soldiery shoreside line behind a bemused corporal of a grey heron. They watch common and herring gulls wheeling in dogfights across the waters.

This place feels like what it is, forced and managed to the n'th degree, where signs welcome but guard against having too much fun. Algae and animals are out to harm us, and the mud is soft and dangerous, unless, it seems, one is angler or boatowner. In places black bags of dog shit decorate the branches of trees like the remains of some macabre Xmas celebration.

 As I leave a skein of canda geese honks its noisy arrival, and the sky comes alive with the fire of sunset

24.12.2011

Waltham Brooks

The fire still rages behind the Downs, the sky burns the orange of an early winter sunset.

A walk along the flood bank to a further field brings the solitude of a lone tree. Rushes abound on a small island, just south of the canal entrance, and a distraction here spoils a photgraphic opportunity when I rise over the bank to disturb a large male short eared owl with a water vole firmly grasped in his talons.

He rises up and scolds me as he seeks the cover of the shrubs 500 metres west. Clouds cover the sun and the colours change to tired greys.

The trouble with owls is that they are the colour of bark, and hide in trees.

I glass the length of the shrubbery for a  few minutes unsuccessfully before one, then a second, takes to the air. They dogfight over some imagined slight before one retreats, wisely chooing a hawthorn further west as his perch. Battle is spectacular, with twists and turns, screeching and aerobatics; all bluff and bluster, neither wishing to retire hurt on such fertile hunting grounds.

The kestrel keeps his solitary distance, drifting south, and higher, watching all the time.

 
Just before four the sun sets and the winds drag the clouds to the east. The sky burns again, and the fields empty towards homes with mince pies waiting for intrepid explorers.

20.12.2011

Waltham Brooks
 

The sky over the Downs glows, as if some unseen fire rages on the southern side, hidden from view by the grey whaleback slopes.

Waltham is still saturated with the rain of the previous few days and flocks of mallards chatter excitedly from the flooded meadow; here and there a gull swoops in to share the waters. Kicking up the soil near the old canal path reveals the foundations of the long-demolished lock keeper's cottage, the rain and vegetation indicating the rod straight canal locks running away towards the Arun.

The school holidays are here and the footpaths are busier than I am used to. Brightly coloured garb, excited chatter and barking dogs do nothing except drive the owls to the other side of the river. One shifts across by Greatham Bridge, and drops into the grass as a child squeals in excitement. Eventually he rises to a post where he can survey this stranger in his domain.

A kestrel quarters the field, settling on a hover near the brooks before plummeting from sight into the long grass.

Darkness brings a chill.