Category: sussex

May Day Mayhem

On By Mick CanningIn Beltane, caught by the river, Folk traditions, Jack in the Green, May day, summer, sussex33 Comments

The May Day festival, Beltane, is a survival, or revival, from the Iron Age, celebrated in Celtic communities – Scotland and Ireland particularly – and revived as a full festival in Scotland in the 1980’s by the Beltane Fire Society. Beltane was a fire festival, although nothing of that remains in the festivities carried out in England. Beltane was first mentioned by name in Irish writings from the late 800’s / early 900’s.

The English version of this festival involves cutting flowers and greenery and dancing around a maypole, which things are also carried out during Beltane, celebrating the beginning of Summer which begins on May 1st. When I was a child, dancing around the maypole was the chief, possibly only, activity carried out on May Day. I have a photograph of my brother, my cousin, and myself, dressed up for the May Day Fair at which there was maypole dancing, but no obvious indication of surplus greenery. Past generations in England celebrated May Day with a day of celebrations which while including maypole dancing as an important manifestation of encouraging the fertility of the soil (and the festival-goers!) would also have included plenty of food and drink and general gaiety.

Mayhem, if you like.

This year, I managed two May Day days out.

On Saturday, two days before May Day, I visited Kingston near Lewes, in Sussex, for the Caught by the River Mayday event. Caught by the River describe themselves as an arts/nature/culture clash and you can read all about them here. I have followed them now for several years, and this seems as good a time as any to mention that their coverage of arts, nature, and culture are second to none and if you’re not yet following them, well, you should be.

There was mask-making to begin with, especially to involve the children, the makers encouraged to incorporate flowers and greenery into their masks, and almost inevitably a certain amount of folk-horror found its way into some of these.

Nice, Richard.

This was followed by a promenade around the maypole, after which the activity moved indoors.

There were films, talks, and discussions, subjects including rivers, village life in the early eighteenth century, art, standing stones and the like, and the environment. After which, in the late afternoon, we all promenaded up the hillside to the Gurdy Stone.

This is the Gurdy Stone, a modern standing stone on a hillside overlooking Kingston. Here, Local Psycho (Jem Finer and Jimmy Cauty), held a gathering to encode the music of their Hurdy Gurdy song into the stone “To mark the 50,000 year return of the Green Comet and release of The Hurdy-Gurdy song on Heavenly Recordings.”

Throughout the day, naturally, we all had access to the pub.

And then on Monday, which was May Day, we went down to Hastings. It rather felt as though everyone in South East England must be in the town, either at the Jack in the Green festivities or watching blokes on motorbikes roaring up and down the seafront for no discernible reason. I don’t much like crowds, and some of this was very difficult. But away from the huge horsepower and testosterone nonsense, amongst the Jack in the Green celebrations the atmosphere was brilliant and the large numbers of people perfectly acceptable. Jack in the Green is a manifestation of the spirit of spring, related to the Green Man, a dancing figure covered in greenery.

The festival in Hastings has grown over the years into a large event involving musicians, dancers, Morris sides, huge figures in addition to Jack in the Green such as the Queen of the May, a witch, and others, plus any number of people joining in the procession around the town, all decorated with as much, or as little, greenery and/or flowers as they feel suitable.

There you go, a Morris side.

Followed by a large witch with a cat. Why the witch? I’ve no idea. Why not? I suppose.

And there you have it. Music. Drumming. Greenery. Crowd involvement. Summer is icumen in and winter’s gone away-o.

And there was beer again, of course.

In All Weathers

On By Mick CanningIn South Downs Way, sussex, walking53 Comments

We’ve been on the South Downs again.

That’s why you haven’t heard from me for a while. Here’re a few pictures.

We began walking from Amberley this time, and on the first day the weather was pretty meh. It was either raining or starting to rain or just deciding when to rain. But, as always, the Downs looked fantastic. This view reminded me of a Roland Hilder painting:

But it got steadily wetter throughout the day. We took a very welcome break in the Frankland Arms in Washington and if I was writing a pub review it would get five stars – especially as it served Harvey’s Old Ale. But I only allowed myself one of those, as we still had some serious mileage to do. And it was, as noted, getting wetter. We approached Chanctonbury Ring:

And as we began the descent from the top, the saddest part of the journey. We walked among a large number of ash trees, all of which were dead or dying from Ash Dieback disease. It looked like a picture of the Somme.

The next day was dull, but at least it was dry. We walked past the Devil’s Dyke which I never seem to be able to get a good picture of, no matter which angle I take it at. The Devil’s Dyke is so-called because for some reason the Devil wanted to destroy Sussex, and got talking to Saint Dunstan and asked him the best way to do it. Why he did that I can’t imagine. Never ask a saint for advice if you’re the Devil. It won’t end well. Anyway, Saint D suggested he dig a channel through the South Downs and flood it. Right, thought Old Nick, and set to work. Saint D let him toil away for a few hours and then caused all the cocks in Sussex to crow. Thinking it was morning, Old Nick threw down his shovel, twirled his moustaches and hissed ‘Curses, foiled again!’

Alternatively, it might have been caused by melt-water during the ice age, but why spoil a good legend?

And the best weather? During our rest day in Lewes. And, oh look! There’s the Harvey’s Brewery! What a good rest day.

The following day was dull again as we left Lewes, and by now quite a sharp wind was blowing – into our faces too, unfortunately. But we had a pretty decent day and passed this church in Southease, one of only two (I think) in England with a round tower outside of Norfolk. The other is in nearby Lewes.

The final day began sunny but again with a sharp and unkind wind. We left Alfriston with its church on the edge of the village by the river and headed towards the coast. On the South Downs away to our right we passed a white horse carved into the chalk.

Soon we were up onto the Downs again, for the final walk into Eastbourne over the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head. I tend to forget how tiring this leg can be, going continually uphill then downhill for the best part of six miles. For some reason, although we could see the Belle Tout lighthouse in the distance, it never seemed to get any nearer. Once I could do this leg of the walk easily, but…getting a little older…

An always fantastic view, though. Here we’re looking back across the Seven Sisters towards Seaford Head.

After all that, we could do with a holiday.

Shorelarking at Rye

On By Mick CanningIn larking, sussex, walking28 Comments

We went down to Rye harbour in Sussex, a few weeks ago, on a beautifully sunny but bitingly cold day. The actual harbour entrance is in the middle distance of the above photo with Dungeness Power Station just visible on the horizon in the distance.

This red-roofed hut sits on the shingle on the approach to the harbour and has become the iconic image that everyone photographs. I resisted the temptation this time, but took this one a few years ago. No one seems certain when it was built, but it was certainly in use from the early 1900’s onwards and was used to store fishing equipment.

The salt marshes behind the harbour constitute a nature reserve and are an important place especially for migrating birds. We walked around the marshes for an hour or so and did see quite a few birds, especially when we spent some while in a hide with the binoculars we’d brought. No close-up photos, because we were too far from the birds and I only had my pocket camera that day, but especially noticeable was was a group of some forty to fifty cormorants.

One of the tasks of the Environment Agency here is to continually move shingle in trucks westwards along the coast to shore up (pun intended) the sea defences. Due to the prevailing winds, longshore drift continually moves shingle eastwards along the coast and without this intervention it would choke the harbour mouth and undermine the sea wall at Pett (to the west). They load up the trucks with shingle from the shore, the trucks drive west and tip it out on the shore. The sea washes it eastwards along the coast again. The trucks load up with shingle from the shore…It almost feels a pointless exercise, but I suppose there’s no real alternative.

But longshore drift means that the shorelark on the South coast of England has a chance of finding rocks and stones (and all sorts of other things) that originated further to the west, and we spent some while searching among the stones here to see what we might turn up.

Shorelarking? It’s like mudlarking, but on the seashore. ‘Larking’ in this sense means looking for…well, anything. Coins, interesting rocks, anything lost or old or, preferably, both. Not that we found much, not that we ever find much, but we don’t do it as seriously as some folk. And as nice as it would be to turn up the sort of finds some people find in the mud of the Thames, we’re not that dedicated. But in the past I have found bits of flint tool while fieldlarking, and usually come home from a walk with an interesting stone or two.

We did find a couple of interesting things that day – they don’t look much, do they? But the grey stone in the centre is possibly a Mesolithic hammer stone, used for shaping flint tools while the nail had a tiny piece of wood still attached, but this crumbled away as soon as I picked it up. How old is it? I’ve no idea. Nails like that were in use from the 1800’s through into the 1900’s but it’s impossible to pin it down further. My immediate thought was it could be part of the beach groyne, but when I looked they seem to be constructed entirely with rivets. Maybe it is from an old shipwreck. The rock at the bottom is simply a lump of sandstone from further west along the coast, a piece of what was called Hastings Sandstone when I studied geology, but now known as the Ashdown beds. Nothing special, again.

Just an interesting few finds on the beach on a cold sunny day before we headed off for a warm drink.

Apocalypse Deferred Just A Tiny Little Bit

On By Mick CanningIn kent, sussex, walking, Weald37 Comments

Yesterday, I went for a walk around parts of Sussex and Kent. The sun shone – Hooray! I managed the whole walk without aching too much afterwards – Hooray again! I said good morning to some sheep and patted a very nice horse. I just knew it was going to be a Good Day.

At one point I went along a footpath I haven’t used for several years, and was delighted to see this:

And then another four miles or so later there was this:

The council have made this area a Designated Roadside Nature Reserve. Established for several years now, it has a rich variety of wildflowers and grasses, and is fairly humming with insect life.

Perhaps there is a little hope for us, after all.

The Sussex Downs Murder – Not Really A Review

On By Mick CanningIn Fiction, Review, South Downs, sussex10 Comments

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For anyone who loves the English South Downs – and whodunnits – this book makes an interesting read.

On the one hand, it is a fairly average 1930’s detective murder mystery, although I have certainly read much worse, but on the other it provides some marvellous insights into the South Downs in the area specifically around Chanctonbury Ring in that time, which is really what took my interest.

Personally, I prefer murder mysteries involving ‘normal’ people, rather than the typical country house full of assorted Colonels and ladies and royalty and such-like, so popular at the time – other than the thought of bumping off the Upper Classes, of course! But this book delivers in that it is set on a downland farm, where the farmer goes missing, believed murdered. It even has, as a cover, an adaptation of one of the fabulous Leslie Carr railway posters of the 1930’s – what’s not to like?

The introduction mentions its ‘sense of place’, and the writing seems to me especially good at conveying an accurate feel of the landscape. One thing that comes over very strongly is the emptiness of the countryside at that time. The Downs have been sparsely inhabited since Roman times; before then, much of the population chose to live on the higher, drier, lands of the chalklands of South and South East England, away from the forested and frequently marshy lower areas where travel was difficult and clearance very hard work. After the arrival of the Romans, however, all this changed, and since then the chalklands have been left largely to a small population living mainly by farming sheep.

We now have many people visiting for leisure purposes and on fine days popular routes such as the walk to Birling Gap from Eastbourne (or from convenient car parks much closer!) may easily see hundreds of visitors striding along the footpaths and hanging off the edge of the cliffs taking selfies (other stupid ways to kill oneself are available). On the same day, though, nearby footpaths may see no visitors at all. It is still a sparsely populated area.

John Bude evokes this sense of emptiness well. His descriptions of the roads and paths on and around the area really allow the reader to feel this. His characters walk the lanes and roads of the downs frequently without meeting anyone else on their journeys. Farms and houses are ‘isolated’, and even at a time when most people would travel by public transport to cover any distance, the population is so small that when questioned by the detective on the case, a bus conductor can remember who was on his bus several weeks before.

There are four lime kilns near Washington, on the edge of the area described in the story, which I suspect were the inspiration for the lime kiln featured on the farm in the book. No spoilers, but you might well guess their relevance to a murder mystery.

But it is the descriptions of the roads and paths that particularly take my interest, roads and paths virtually empty of footfall or traffic even during the day, emphasising how lightly populated the area was, and still is today, to a degree. Other than popular footpaths such as the long distance South Downs Way, and those footpaths running between popular tourist spots, it is still easy to find solitude in this quiet area of the otherwise heavily populated South East England.

Strolling in Sussex (1)

On By Mick CanningIn England, environment, flowers, footpaths, sussex, UK, walking36 Comments

Yesterday, I went for a bit of a walk. The oppressive humidity of the previous day had lessened, fortunately, and it was an overcast morning with a cool breeze.

Just the way I like it.

I decided to take the train a few stops down the line, where I could get out at one of those stations that bears the name of a village a mile or so away but stands on its own in the middle of the countryside. The nearest building (other than the station itself) is a farm. Hopefully I could have a day’s gentle walking with nothing more demanding around me than birds, insects, trees and wildflowers.

I really, really, needed to do that.

It seemed a good start at the station. A good omen. While waiting for my train to draw in, my eye was drawn to a single large, white, bindweed flower in the tangle of brambles and vines and bushes, trees and garden plants escaped and gone native that serves as a barrier behind the platform.

Most gardeners hate bindweed. I suppose we do, really. Once it gets into the garden it grows at a ridiculously rapid rate and strangles any other plants in its way. And even pulling it up doesn’t get rid of it. It just regenerates. I tell you, come the end of days it will just be scorpions, cockroaches and bindweed left.

But this flower looked lovely. The largest, pure white, bindweed flowers often remind me of the calla lily, only a calla lily that is not so…let’s say…excited. One of my favourite artists is Georgia O’Keeffe. I’ve probably told you that before. But O’Keeffe was particularly known for painting large flower paintings, many of them more than a little ‘suggestive’. And the calla lily was one of her favourites. I’d show you one of hers but, you know, copyright and all that. I’ll leave you to look it up if you wish to.

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So, here’s the bindweed flower.

Anyway, I got on my train and later I got off at the correct station and began walking along the footpath and got shouted at by some sheep.

Really, there’s no other way to describe it. On one side of the footpath were a couple of dozen sheep in a field where the grass had been cropped very short and there seemed to be very little left for them to eat. As soon as they saw me, they came rushing over to the fence bleating loudly. Obviously demanding to be re-housed in the field on the other side of the footpath.

In that field, thick lush grass was being munched by a couple of dozen quite contented sheep. I didn’t hear a (Bo) peep out of them.

‘Really sorry,’ I told them. ‘I can’t help you.’ I walked on feeling oddly guilty.

But I got over it.

 

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For the rest of the morning I walked slowly through fields and along lanes, stopping frequently to look at flowers and insects and, really, just enjoying being where I was.

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Bridge over the railway

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I was just beginning to think it must be lunchtime when my path took me through a field of long grass.

This field lay between a stream I had just crossed, and a wood where I was heading. The wood stood a little higher than the surrounding fields, and the long grass of the field I was to cross was thick and green. The breeze caught the top of the grass, so it waved like the sea or a large lake and as I began to wade through it, it really did feel as though I waded through water.

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And there was the drag of the grass against my legs, and the top of the grass sparkled a little in the breeze, just as wavelets would. And there was also the sense that I was not quite sure what I might suddenly step upon. Just to complete the illusion, there were also some lovely blue damselflies darting around.

Then I finally stepped ashore at the edge of the wood, walked up a slight sandy slope that might have been a beach, and sat down to eat my sandwich.

Now, I have to tell you that this was the best sandwich in the world, and I won’t brook any disagreement. Thick wholemeal bread, cheese, several large slices of raw onion, and several thick slices of tomato. Perhaps it was my mood, and the setting, but it was damned good.

And then it was time to explore the wood.