An Exceedingly Good House, A Stroll on the Downs and a Chalk Figure of Questionable Age
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| East Sussex |
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| The County of East Sussex Bateman's is near Burwash, 7m NE of Heathfield, Firle Beacon & Wilmington are 13m from Heathfield in the direction of Seaford |
Saturday was a major family party, my sister and partner, Peter, Lynne and I, the three members of the next generation with their
spouses, and the six children they have produced between them, five of them
under five. What could possibly go wrong? Actually, nothing did. The organisation
was superb (thank you, Erica) and everybody behaved themselves as was appropriate
to their age.
This blog is about travel, not family – they are too important for me to mess round with their privacy - so leaving Saturday with a faint if unmerited
glow of patriarchal pride, let us move on to Sunday.
Bateman’s
Once all members of the younger generations had departed, Peter drove the old codgers the 6 miles to Bateman’s near the village of Burwash.
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| Bateman's in the Sussex Countryside |
Now owned by the National Trust, Bateman’s is described as a Jacobean Wealden Mansion, Wealden being the easternmost District of
East Sussex. Constructed of sandstone, with two storeys and gables above, the main
eastern frontage was probably designed to be symmetrical, but whether the northern
wing was built and then torn down, or never built at all is unknown.
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| Bateman's main (east) entrance |
The house was built for John Langham, a lawyer in 1634 and fifty years later was the home of ironmaster John Britten. It later became
a farmhouse and sometime in the late 18th century acquired the name ‘Bateman’s’
though nobody knows why. It was in poor condition by the end of the 19th century.
Rudyard Kipling at Bateman's
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| Rudyard Kipling in 1895 (Public Domain) |
The house is old enough and interesting enough as it is, but it has a second claim to fame. Few become rich by writing, but
occasionally a writer catches something in the public psyche and, as a
by-product, the money comes pouring in. JK Rowling was such a writer at the end
of the 20th century, her equivalent 100 years earlier was Rudyard Kipling.
Born in Bombay in 1865, he was educated in England and returned to India in 1883 where he worked as a journalist, wrote in his spare
time and a started to create a reputation. He left India in 1889 and returned
to England via Burma, Japan and North America. In London He married Caroline
Balestier in 1892. They honeymooned in Japan, visited Caroline’s family in
Vermont and subsequently lived there until 1896. Kipling wrote prolifically
during this time including the two Jungle Books, and the Barrack Room Ballads.
Back in England the Kiplings searched for somewhere to settle down and in 1902 they bought Bateman’s. The house was in need of renovation - it had no running water upstairs and no electricity anywhere when they bought it - but they were to stay there for the rest of their lives. Rudyard Kipling died in 1936 and Caroline donated Bateman’s to the National Trust on her death three years later.
Inside Bateman's
Some rooms look more comfortable than others….
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| Inside Bateman's |
… but all look dark as the renovations included re-staining the panelling back to its ‘original’ colour. The dark panelling of 17th and 18th
century houses, at a time when the only artificial light came from candles,
always seemed perverse. It is now believed that the original staining had probably
been much lighter, but had darkened over time. Not knowing this, early restorers,
including the Kiplings, faithfully returned the panelling to a colour that had
never been intended.
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| Inside Bateman's |
The Kiplings decorated the dining room walls with 18th century English ‘Cordoba’ leather hangings, depicting birds and foliage.
Covered with silver leaf and varnished to glisten like gold, Kipling described
it as ‘lovelier than our wildest dreams.’ After attempting, not particularly
successfully, to recreate the original brightness and freshness in my
imagination, I struggle with Kipling’s description, but tastes are forever changing.
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| Dining room, Bateman's |
Bateman’s and The Kipling Family
The Kiplings had three children. The eldest, Josephine, was born in Vermont in 1892 and died of pneumonia in 1899.
A second daughter, Elsie, was born in February 1896, and a son, John, in August 1897. Both subsequently lived at Bateman’s with
their parents, but only John’s room is currently on show.
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| John Kipling's room, Bateman's |
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| John Kipling, 1915 (Public Domain) |
John was 16 when the Great War broke out. He attempted to join the Royal Navy, but was rejected because of his poor eyesight. He then
tried the army and was similarly rejected. Believing the war to be ‘a
crusade for civilisation against barbarism,’ his father pulled some strings and
John was commissioned Second-Lieutenant in the Irish Guards two days
before his 17th birthday. He was killed at the Battle of Loos in September
1915. His body was not identified until 1992.
Rudyard Kipling remained a supporter of the war but became a trenchant critic of the way it was fought. In Epitaphs of the War
he wrote:
"If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied."
Elsie married George Bambridge in 1924. The marriage made her mistress of Wimpole Hall, the largest house in Cambridgeshire, so she was hardly inconvenienced when her parents donated Bateman’s to the National Trust. She lived at Wimpole Hall until her death in 1976 and, having no children, bequeathed Wimpole Hall to the National Trust as well.
The Nobel Prize and the Garden
In 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the first writer in English to receive this honour and
remains the youngest ever recipient.
He had described Bateman’s as "a good and peaceable place" but when bought the house had substantial grounds but no garden.
The Nobel Prize funded the construction of a garden.
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| The lily pond, Bateman's garden |
The Mill
Beyond the garden is Park Mill, built in 1750 on the site of an earlier mill. The National Trust restored the building and milling
machinery in the 1970s.
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| The restored milling machinery, Park Mill, Bateman's |
But Kipling, being a practical chap, had not bothered with the mill, but installed a turbine so the mill stream could supply him with electricity.
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| Kipling's turbine, Park Mill, Bateman's |
From the mill we walked back through the grounds to the car park.
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| Bateman's and surrounding grounds |
Kipling in Burwash
Peter drove us up to nearby Burwash, where Mr Kipling can be found warming a bench beside the High Street. He looked away from Lynne
when she set next to him, but it was not rudeness, he just has a stiff neck.
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| Lynne and Rudyard Kipling, Burwash |
When our daughter saw the picture, she said ‘I hope you told him to stop writing that terrible doggerel.’ Our daughter’s MA in
Literature Studies convincingly outranks my qualifications for discussing poetry, but nonetheless
I would (nervously) claim Kipling was a first-rate versifier, not a writer of
doggerel.
As the ‘Poet of Empire’ Kipling ought to be out of fashion, but he isn't. His novels are in print, his stories are desecrated by
the Disney Corporation and If is regularly voted the ‘nation’s favourite
poem.’ He may have been a colonialist, it was intellectually impossible for an
Englishman (indeed any European) of his time not to have been, but his colonial
attitudes were always tempered by humanity and we should not blame him for the
date of his birth. Popularity can be fleeting, but any writer being read 85
years after their death, is more than just ‘popular’. All right, I will come clean, for all his faults, I am a closet fan – well I was, now everyone knows.
When we, quite literally, took the road to Mandalay I wrote a post on his poem Mandalay (Click here for that post). The poem is ill-served by the familiar song simplifying and distorting Kipling’s intentions, but I admit that there is much wrong with it. Kipling’s geography is woeful and several lines sound impressive but mean little, but other lines are simply a pleasure to hear, and some say so much more and say it so eloquently.
From Burwash we returned to Heathfield for lunch, one of Erica’s fresh and innovative salads which I liked very much.
Later Peter drove us south to Firle Beacon.
Firle Beacon
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| Wealden |
My last visit to the South Downs, was in 1962 - I was eleven and at Scout Camp. The Downs, with their long and regular wave-like shape were, I decided,
rollers from the English Channel that had continued onto land. I remember us scrambling
up the sides and running along the top like we were on the roof of the world,
though they typically rise to only about 200m. Were we young enough to then roll down
to the bottom?
Firle Beacon, 15km north east of Eastbourne and within the relatively new South Downs National Park, was closer to Rudyard Kipling’s
description of "Our blunt, bow-headed whale-backed Downs" than
my 60-year-old memories, though not too far from either.
This time, though, we did not scramble up the side, we drove along a minor road to a car park near the top. Then, we did not run
along the whale-back, we walked, at a good pace, for just over a mile to
the highest point, the Beacon at 217m, and then back to the car. Nobody
suggested rolling down the side.
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| Peter and Lynne follow Erica and me towards Firle Beacon |
It was a lovely walk, gently rising on the outward leg, over short grass, springy underfoot and past several earthworks, assorted tumuli and barrows according to the OS map. The only disappointment was that the slightly misty conditions spoiled the views across the surrounding land and the sea.
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| A disappointing view from Firle Beacon towards Cuckmere Haven and the sea |
Wilmington
Back at the car park we descended to the A27, drove 3 or 4 miles east and found our way to the village of Wilmington which faces,
Windover Hill, the next but one along the line from Firle Beacon.
The Long Man of Wilmington
The chalk downs of southern England have always been irresistible to those wishing to create a landmark. The oldest, the Uffington White Horse in
Oxfordshire (we visited
in July 2014), is late bronze/early iron age, the most recent, the Fovent Regimental
Badges, are 20th century. White horses were popular in the 18th and 19th
century, but there are only two human figures (other than riders), the Cerne Abbas
Giant in Dorset and the Long Man of Wilmington.
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| The Long Man of Wilmington |
Both were believed to be ancient, but as there is no written evidence for either before the 17th century they have been reassessed. Most
chalk figures consist of trenches cut in the turf and backfilled with chalk rubble.
Optically stimulated luminescence testing (no, I don’t know what it is either,
but I am sure it is very clever) has suggested the Cerne Abbas figure may well
be over a thousand years old. The Long Man may have started as chalk rubble,
but now consists of whitewashed breezeblocks (which need a bit of a clean-up)
so dating is problematic. The 70m high figure, drawn to look in proportion when
seen from below, may have iron age, or even Neolithic, origins but it its
earliest mention was in 1710.
The best view, more distant but with more context, is from the path leading from the village.
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| The Long Man and the path from Wilmington village |
Wilmington Priory, Parish Church and Yew Tree
Wilmington Priory was founded in the mid-11th century as an ‘alien cell’ (a small overseas off-shoot) of a Norman Benedictine Abbey. Enlarged
in 1243 it became a grange for the local Benedictine held lands. Alien cells were
suppressed in the 100 Years’ War and the Priory passed to Chichester Cathedral
and then to the Sackville family after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Today
it is owned by the Landmark Trust and consists of a few broken down walls and a 14th-century
house used as a holiday let.
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| Some remains of Wilmington Priory |
The Church of St Mary and St Peter was built in the late 11th century as a combined Priory/Parish church. It has inevitably seen much
restoration and some rebuilding in 800 years’ service to the community.
The massive yew tree outside the church is even older, dendrochronology suggesting it has been growing here for some 1,600 years old.
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| The 1,600 year old Wilmington yew tree |
It is not looking too bad, considering.
That finished the days sight-seeing. The convivial evening involved another fine dinner, featuring duck legs - always a favourite.
Part 1:Bodiam and Rye (2020)
Part 2:Bateman's, Firle Beacon and the Long Man of Wilmington (2021)
Part 3: Battle and Hastings (2021)
Part 4: Rottingdean and The Devil's Dyke
Part 5: Lewes and Charleston (coming soon)
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