On Tumuli

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?

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.

Changing of The View

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—A Spring Evening

 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

"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

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.

To The River by Olivia Laing

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/
 

Life in the Freezer

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

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.

The Suburban Park

The Suburban Park

The park is all that is left of extensive agricultural lands and market gardens which have all vanished within the last 150 years or so as the built environment and ribbon development ate away unchecked at the rural landscape.

Since then it has been chipped away at, with public service buildings eating away chunks of land and blocking out the light. Amenities built for the young result in large areas of tarmac. Ponds have vanished under an epidemic of health and safety legislation; and at night sodium lights glare from among the trees.

Recently the local council dispatched some workers who summarily beheaded every living thing on the west side to a height of six foot or so, lest their leaves should fall onto the expensive but rarely used tennis courts, or drift onto the highway.

Yet for the careful observer life thrives here. In the south a clump of trees houses three squirrels who perform acts of derring do on a trapeze of branches, while magpie chuckle their appreciation. A pair of shy jays live here, emerging only to chase away the odd rook who covets their prime position in the high branches.

Each morning a chorus line of great, blue and coal tits sing the sun up over the houses, and occasionally a sparrowhawk drives them into great clouds of wing and beak.

Those that pass through, and they are many, would do well to stop for a minute, and breath the air.

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