Tag: standing stones

The Long Man of Wilmington…

On By Mick CanningIn folklore, history, legends, Long Man of Wilmington, South Downs, sussex, Windover Hill15 Comments

You have met before.

I’ve posted about him in the past in connection with the musical suite On Windover Hill by Nathan James, but here he gets to star in his own blog post.

There is a fine day’s walk to be had from Polegate, just north of Eastbourne, with a handy railway station, along to Folkington, then up onto the Downs and along past the Long Man and down to Alfriston. From Alfriston there is a very pleasant walk along the Cuckmere river to Litlington where one turns north and, after stopping briefly – say for about an hour – at Church Farm where the Long Man brewery is located, head east back up onto the Downs and another four or five miles back to Polegate, passing through Lullington Heath nature reserve (which always seems to feel a little wilder than most other parts of the Downs, or perhaps that’s just the weather I’ve encountered when I’ve passed that way) to Jevington, then along a mixture of roads and footpaths to finish. It’s a full day’s walk, but well worth the effort.

He’s called the Long Man of Wilmington, or the Wilmington Giant, although he sits on the side of Windover Hill.

The Long Man is a figure cut into the chalk of the South Downs, similar in that respect to the more famous Uffington White Horse and the Cerne Abbas Giant. Like those two figures it is not known when exactly this one was cut, but unlike them it is fairly certain it was comparatively recent. The first known mention of the Long Man was in an illustration drawn in 1710 when he also boasted a face and what looks as though it might be a helmet on the top of his head. It will be noticed that the position of the feet has changed through the years, too, although not dramatically.

I say he is cut into the chalk, although these days the outline is composed of bricks painted white sitting in the hollows of his outline.

The Long Man stands on the scarp slope of the chalk directly facing the village of Wilmington. On the edge of the village nearest him, there are the remains of a fourteenth century priory. It seems difficult to attach much significance to that, although it has been suggested he might have first been created by the monks to while away some idle time. I have to say, I didn’t think monks had that much spare time, though.

There is also a school of thought that thinks the Long Man is actually a Long Woman, suggesting the proportions of the body back this up. Personally, I don’t see this, either.

I’m very curious about the origin of the name Windover Hill itself. It is marked on the 1874 six inch Ordnance Survey map as Winddoor Hill, and in 1779 referred to as Windore Hill. Before this, I believe it was called Wyndore Hill, possibly from the Anglo-Saxon Wind Ora – windy bank. Another possibility involves an old name for the kestrel, which is Windhover, and there are certainly kestrels along the South Downs.

There are a number of theories about the two poles held in the figure’s hands. They would appear to be staves or poles of some sort, and it seems obvious that they were of some significance when the figure was cut. A 1776 drawing shows him with a scythe and rake, although this seems highly unlikely given that the 1710 drawing does not show this.

However, a resistivity survey done in the 1960’s does show disturbance around the tops of the staves, which might indicate either that the staves were originally longer than they are now or that there could even be some truth in the scythe and rake picture. It is always possible these had been added post 1710, I suppose. In 1925 Alfred Watkins published The Old Straight Track, in which he first proposed his theory of ley lines. Although maybe I’ll go into more detail about these another time, the essence of the theory is that many natural features of Britain are connected by invisible lines of power, and that ancient features such as standing stones or burial mounds, as well as more recent features such as churches and castles, were built on these invisible lines as a way of tapping into this power. Watkins talks a lot about how these lines would be surveyed by using two long poles as markers and mentions the Long Man in passing.

I think the jury is definitely out on that one.

Whatever the origins of the figure, though, it is certainly impressive both close up and viewed from a distance.

And another good reason to visit the area? The Long Man brewery at Church farm in nearby Litlington selling fine – nay, very fine – Sussex ales. You might have guessed I’d mention them.

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.

On Windover Hill and The Oddness of Time

On By Mick CanningIn Hill Figures, music, Review, South Downs, walking33 Comments

Yesterday, we joined a walk to the Long Man of Wilmington, on the South Downs in Sussex. The walk was led by composer Nathan James, and Justin Hopper, the author of The Old Weird Albion.

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The Long Man is a chalk figure etched through the grass into the hillside, below the summit of Windover Hill, revealing the chalk that lies beneath. When and why it was first cut is the subject of myth and speculation – and that brings us neatly to Nathan’s new composition.

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On 7th March, Nathan will premier his fantastic new choral work On Windover Hill at Boxgrove Priory, Chichester, Sussex. This has been inspired by the Long Man, its mythology, and the art that has arisen around it, as well as the written history and the geography of the surrounding land. It has a very English feel to it, in the tradition of Vaughan Williams or Holst.

Full details of the work and the performance can be found here. Tickets can also be bought by clicking ‘The Premier’ link in the sidebar there. We have ours, and it would be great to see it sold out!

This walk was by way of a taster for the concert, with a mixture of history and mythology imparted along the way, a poem from Peter Martin, read by himself, and extracts from stories read out by Justin, all of which referenced the Long Man. Also  Anna Tabbush sang two folk songs, one of which was the only song known about the Long Man, appropriately enough called The Long Man and written by the late Maria Cunningham.

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I’m not sure How many people I expected to see, but we were around forty, with a surprisingly large number being artists of one sort or another.

The weather was so much better than we had a right to expect – the forecast had been for clouds and rain, but the clouds cleared during the morning, and we had plenty of sunshine as we ascended, although it rather lived up to its name at the top, with more than enough wind for everyone.

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Here, the remains of prehistoric burial mounds sit overlooking the Long Man, and the rest of the surrounding countryside.

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Some landscapes seem to muck around with your perception of time, and Downland seems especially prone to this. I’m not entirely sure why this should be, but suspect it is a combination of factors.

It is a very open landscape, and other than the contours of the land and a few trees, frequently the only features that stand out are prehistoric ones, such as barrows and chalk figures. Due to the uncertainty around their origins, these have a timelessness about them, a fluidity when it comes to grasping their history. We see the long view, which perhaps works on our sense of time as well as space. The more recent additions to the landscape are usually in the form of fences, which can easily seem invisible as we look around for something less ephemeral than the open sky to fix our eyes on.

The Downs are an ancient landscape, in any case. When human beings recolonised what is now Britain after the last Ice Age, at first they kept to the higher ground which gave less impediment to travel and settlement than the marshy and thickly wooded lowlands. Most standing stones and burial mounds from the Neolithic or earlier are found on these higher areas.

I do not get these feelings in more recent landscapes. At a medieval castle or manor house, it is easy to imagine the inhabitants baking bread or sweeping corridors; activities as natural to us today as they were then. I feel a comfortable mixture of the old and the new, a recognisable timeline connecting the past with me.

But barrows, standing stones and hillside figures have a purpose alien and unknown to us. Step on the ground near these remains and you can feel the presence of the unknown. No wonder the belief in the past in faeries and elves who inhabited the underground, and who lived essentially out of time.

They offend our carefully erected sense of order and belonging and, perhaps, still pose a barely acknowledged threat to us today.

I might be imagining it, of course, but listening to the extracts from On Windover Hill on the website, I think I recognise that feeling in places, an unexpected musical response to my own feelings. And then Nathan’s description of his creative process on the website echoes some of this too.

I’m hooked!