East Sussex (4) Rottingdean and The Devil's Dyke

A Seaside Village and a Geological Oddity

Although we now live 220 miles apart, I have seen more of my sister Erica in the last few years than for a long time. That is good, I enjoy her company and that of Peter, her new(ish) husband. We went to stay for a few days and this post covers the places we visited.

East Sussex

Peter and Erica live in Heathfield, pretty much in the centre of East Sussex. On previous visits we have explored the east of the county (links at end of post), this time we looked west. Lewes (next post), the County Town of East Sussex can be seen on the map southwest of Heathfield and continuing in the same direction brings you to the coast at Rottingdean

The County of East Sussex
Heathfield to Rottingdean is approximately 25 miles (40 km)

The map misleadingly shows Brighton and Hove as discrete dots. They are much larger than that and in 1997 were combined as a single unitary authority. In January 2001 they became the City of Brighton and Hove. By far the largest population centre in East Sussex, the city has 275,00 citizens and occupies the whole south west corner of the county, encompassing Portslade, Patcham and Rottingdean.

Rottingdean

Brighton & Hove

In the Kingdom of the South Saxons (now ‘Sussex’) in the late 5th century CE a group of Saxons following a man called Rota settled near the coast at the end of a dry valley, probably displacing the previous Romano-British inhabitants. The dean (valley) of the people of Rota had become Rotingeden in the Domesday Book (1086) and tried out various spellings over subsequent centuries before settling on Rottingdean. Yes, they had choices, and they chose Rottingdean!

Despite its name, Rottingdean is a pretty village in the local style…

Rottingdean

…with vernacular buildings of various ages sitting harmoniously together, though perhaps not looking their best on a cold, blustery February day.

Rottingdean

The main street ends at the beach where a seething, angry sea with an evident desire to invade the land, was thwarted only by a vicious undertow.

Rottingdean Beach

An undercliff path heads off to Brighton Marina, 3km away, and on a better day….

Rottingdean Undercliff Walk

The Grange

But it was not a better day so we headed inland. Rottingdean has more than just vernacular architecture, The Grange was built to replace the existing vicarage in the mid-1700s.

The Grange, Rottingdean

The Reverend Thomas Hooker lived here from 1792 to 1838. A popular and charismatic figure, he established the first village school and supported his parishioners in any way he could. Tea and brandy were highly taxed, and after a bad harvest the poor could make enough money to survive by smuggling these commodities into the country for the benefit if their richer neighbours. The Rev Hooker acted as an outrider for the local smuggling gang.

The Grange passed into private hands in the late 1800s, just as Rottingdean was becoming an artistic colony. In 1920 the owners employed Sir Edwyn Lutyens to enlarge and remodel the house, and Gertrude Jekyll to redesign the garden.

In 1992, a charity now called Rottingdean Heritage took over The Grange and maintain the building as a local museum. Unfortunately, the museum is closed on a Tuesday, but I am assured it is excellent on other days of the week.

St Margaret's Church

Built on the site of an earlier Saxon church, St Margaret’s dates from around 1400 with a heavy makeover by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1856. Like many churches locally and elsewhere in south east England it is built of flint with a stone dressing.

St Margaret's Rottingdean

The church is not particularly memorable, inside or out….

St Margaret's Interior

… except for the stained-glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones and built by William Morris. 

William Morris/Edward Burne-Jones stained glass

Burne-Jones was among the first artists to move to Rottingdean, and his ashes are interred in St Margaret’s cemetery, as are those of his wife Georgiana. Georgiana was one of the four remarkable Macdonald sisters; Alice was the mother of Rudyard Kipling, Agnes was a talented pianist and married Edward Poynter, later President of the Royal Academy, and Louisa was a writer and the mother of future prime minster Stanley Baldwin. What they could have achieved in their own right if women were less constrained can only be guessed at.

Peter, who has a wide musical taste and knowledge, was keen to tell us that Gary Moore is also buried here. Who he? I asked. Gary Moore (1953-2011) was an Irish blues/jazz/rock guitarist who might have achieved more success if he had decided which sort of music he wanted to play. He worked with Phil Lynott and was best known for repeatedly joining and then leaving Thin Lizzy.

Edward Burne-Jones and Rudyard Kipling

In 1880 Edward and Georgiana Burne-Jones brought Prospect House, the left-hand property of the trio below as a holiday home. Shortly afterwards they bought Aubrey Cottage, the middle dwelling, knocked the two together and renamed them North End House. They divided their time between Rottingdean and London until Burne-Jones died in 1898. Georgiana died in 1920, and in 1923 the new owners of North End House, Sir Roderick Jones and his wife, novelist Enid Bagnold, added Gothic Cottage on the right to the other two.

North End House, Rottingdean

They are now separate properties again with the former Gothic Cottage inappropriately named North End House.

In 1897, their nephew, Rudyard Kipling moved to Rottingdean and rented The Elms, a difficult house to photograph.

The Elms, Rottingdean

Kipling’s Garden is lovingly tended by volunteers...

Kipling's Garden, Rottingdean

… and is adjacent to Rottingdean Croquet club. I know of no other village with a croquet club.

Rottingdean Croquet Club

In 1902 the Kiplings moved to Batemans, some 30 miles away, where they spent the rest of their lives. Batemans features in East Sussex (2): Batemans, Firle Beacon and the Long Man of Wilmington.

Those who looked closely at the photos (i.e. almost nobody) might have noticed the walls in the churchyard, Kipling's Garden and several ordinary houses. Such walls are common in these parts but I have not seen anything quite like them elsewhere - perhaps they are unique to Sussex.

A closer look at a Sussex wall

The Devil’s Dyke

West Sussex

Mid Sussex District

Driving north and west around Brighton and Hove brought us to the Devil’s Dyke, just over the boundary into West Sussex. The South Downs are a range of low, rounded chalk hills stretching across East and West Sussex and into Hampshire. 1,627 km² (628 sq miles) of these hills were designated a National Park in 2010. Earlier national parks consisted of rugged terrain, but the South Downs are welcoming, well-mannered hillsides, as would be expected in the genteel south east of England.

The South Downs National Park with Brighton & Hove and the Devil's Dyke Marked
Map by Nilfanion using OS OpenData

The Devil’s Dyke Today

The road climbs onto a scarp, not quite at the southern edge of the downs. There was drizzle in the air and a cold blustery wind, so we moved swiftly from car to pub (the Devil’s Dyke, obviously) where a light lunch seemed appropriate.

Then we had to face the rigours of sight-seeing. Looking down the scarp, there should be (I think) a view all the way to the sea, but not today.

Looking towards the sea, though visibility was limited

The Devil’s Dyke itself is a steep sided dry valley on the other side of the scarp. It may not be the Grand Canyon, but it is a fair sized hole.

The Devil's Dyke

Given that the surrounding hills are not of great height and scarps are only of moderate steepness what happened here? The official answer is that it dates from the end of the last ice age, but was created by meltwater running over saturated chalk rather than carved by ice. The thaw-freeze cycle as the world began to warm reduced the chalk to mush and the meltwater swept it away. That sounds convincing, but the whole of the South Downs is made of chalk, if it happened here, why did it not happen everywhere and level the hills?

The Devil’s Dyke 120 Years Ago

Big game hunter and traveller H.J. Hubbard bought the Dyke Estate in 1892. The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway had built a branch line from Hove to the foot of the scarp in 1887, so he decided to turn Devil’s Dyke into what may have been the world’s first theme park.

He built a camera obscura, fairground rides, an observatory, two bandstands and more. The venture was phenomenally successful and on August Bank Holiday 1893, 30,000 people visited the Dyke.

In 1894 Hubbard opened the country’s first cable car to allow visitors to swing from one side of the dyke to the other 200ft above the valley floor. Three years later he added a funicular railway down into the dyke.

Funicular Railway, Devil's Dyke (Public Domain)

Success is ever ephemeral. In 1909 both the cable car and funicular railway ceased operation. Now there are just concrete footings to be seen and the remains of some of the amusements

Some of Hubbard's remains

The Devil’s Dyke Folk Lore

As I do not fully understand the geological creation of the dyke (my fault, not doubt), here is an alternative story. In the late 7th century, long after Rota had become established in his dean, the Kingdom of Sussex converted to Christianity. Being the last of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to convert, it caused the Devil much heartache. He decided to dig a channel from the sea to the heart of Sussex and drown its inhabitants.

Seeing the Devil making steady progress with his scheme, the holy hermit Cuthman of Steyning approached the Devil with a wager. If the Devil could complete his channel in one night, he could have Cuthman’s soul, if not he would go away and leave Sussex in peace.

St Cuthman of Steyning, by Penny Reeve (2000)
Photo:NeddySeagoon, used under Creative Commons

The Devil set to with a will, his mighty spade throwing up the surrounding hills, Chanctonbury Ring, Firle Beacon (see East Sussex (2)) and more while one spectacular heave sent the land that is now the Isle of Wight spinning into the sea. Cuthman bided his time. At midnight he lit a candle and placed it in his window, thus persuading the local cockerels that dawn had arrived. They started crowing, and the Devil, thinking he had lost his wager, threw down his shovel and stalked off for a massive sulk.

That is not very convincing, I struggle to believe the Devil was that easy to fool. If you click on Kanyakumari, my post about the southernmost town of India, you will find the story of Shiva being tricked out of marriage by the same device. Folk tales have a charming naivety, but finding very similar stories from so far apart, maybe tells us something about human nature.

Two humps in the bottom of the valley are said to be the graves of the Devil and his wife (who knew he was married?) Encouraging as it might be to know that the Devil is dead, the bad news is that he would be brought to life should anyone run backward five times round the humps while holding their breath. I don’t think I’ll fret about it.

That was enough sight-seeing in this weather; we got into a nice warm car, and Peter drove us back to Heathfield.

East Sussex

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)

Statues Without Plinths

A Collection of Plinthless Statues, Starting in the Caribbean and Moving East to the Shore of the China Sea

Introduction

There was a time when effigies of ‘the great and the good’ stood on plinths so pigeons could perch on their heads and the rest of us could look up to them. The ultimate was Admiral Nelson whose plinth – or column - is 52m high. The figure itself is over 5m, but for the sculptor (Edward Hodges Bailey) it must be galling to have worked so hard on something that very few people ever see properly.

Nelson's column, Trafalgar Square, London in November sunshine

I don’t know where or when the fashion started but I think I first saw statues of normal sized people standing on the pavement (or, in this case, sidewalk) in Tacoma, Washington (the western US state, not the eastern city) in 1998. The next summer, in the south of France, we found them in several towns; whichever side it started the idea had already jumped the Atlantic. Over the last twenty years it has spread to most corners of the Earth.

I like these statues. Most (but not all) are light hearted, and I appreciate being able to look a statue in the eye. So here is a selection of writers and musicians, ordinary people and eccentrics, cats, dogs and more. My (arbitrary) rules for inclusion accepts a pedestal up to knee height, but the figure must to be roughly life size. I also feel free to bend my rules whenever I want.

Cuba

No doubt I took some photos in Tacoma in 1998, but prints are so much easier to loose than digital photos, so I will start in the Caribbean, in Cuba to be precise.

Havana
(visited March 2020)

When not physically looking up at a sculpture, there is no pressure to metaphorically look up to the person portrayed, you just have to enjoy their company.

El Caballero de Paris outside San Francisco de Asís

El Caballero de Paris (real name José María López Lledín) stands outside the former Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi. Brought to Havana from Spain by his parents aged 11, he had mental problems in later life and lived on the street while believing he was a French aristocrat. Despite his loose grasp of reality, his charm and education made him a well-known and popular figure. He died in 1985 aged 85. Such statues, appreciate being touched and Lynne earned good luck, as many had done before, by stroking his beard.

Ireland

Dublin
(visited 25 June 2014 - Joyce and Famine Memorial)
24 June 2014 - Oscar Wilde)

The Prick with the Stick (more formally, James Joyce) is arguably the foremost writer in a city of writers, though he spent most of his adult life on the continent of Europe. I am overlooking his plinth as it is (just) below knee high.

Lynne and James Joyce, Earl Street, Dublin

His statue is one of four with rhyming nicknames. The Queer with the Lear is Oscar Wilde who sits on a slab of quartz (not a plinth) in Merrion Square Park opposite the house of his father, an eminent Dublin surgeon.

Lynne and Oscar, Merrion Square Park, Dublin

We missed The Tart with the Cart (Molly Malone) as she had been temporarily removed to allow for the construction of a tramway, and The Floozie in the Jacuzzi (Anna Livia Plurabelle, James Joyce’s personification of the River Liffey) due to my poor research.

The Famine Memorial stands beside the River Liffey. Most of the statues in this post are light-hearted, but not this one. The group of ragged people and their equally thin dog stand on the quay, almost staggering to the point of embarkation. Dublin has plenty of public art, much of it very good, but this is at another level. You can almost feel these people's misery as they embark on a journey they may well not survive. For some it will be the gateway to a new and better life, but as they stand here, on the very edge of Ireland, they have few dreams and little hope.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

And here is a photo from behind - I felt the sculptor wants us to see them this way, too. They stand facing the sea with their backs to their old lives knowing there can be no return as the cringing dog realises that he will be left behind.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

Galway
(visited Jul 2016)

Meanwhile, over on the west coast, the city of Galway also has an Oscar Wilde. He shares a seat with his Estonian contemporary and near namesake Eduard Vilde. They never met and as far as I have been able to ascertain, their lives had little else in common. The sculpture was a gift from the people of Estonia when they joined the EU in 2004.

Lynne with Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde, Galway
The original (minus Lynne) is in Tartu the 'intellectual capital' of Estonia

United Kingdom

I have a 2013 post entitled Commemorating Comedians in Caerphilly, Morecambe and Ulverston - which I whole-heartedly recommend (well I would, wouldn't I). It consists of statues of four comedians and their background stories. One of them has a plinth, the others would be appropriate here but I don't wish to repeat myself, so please click on the link.

Edinburgh
(Visited July 2021)

Greyfriars Bobbyis by far the oldest work in this post. He has stood patiently, with an ever-shinier nose, atop a substantial plinth since 1873. Only it isn’t really a plinth, it’s a double drinking fountain, people at the top, dogs at the base. As Bobby is a small dog, he needs a plinth or passers-by would trip over him.

Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh

Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier. After his owner died in 1858 the dog kept a vigil at his graveside in the nearby Greyfriars Kirk cemetery, until his own death 14 years later. This demonstrates the heart-warming loyalty of man’s best friend - or perhaps the pathetic neediness of dogs; a self-respecting cat would have raised its tail and stalked away

Burwash, East Sussex
(Visited Sept 2021)

For most of his adult life Rudyard Kipling lived in house called Batemans (currently owned by the National trust and open to the public) just outside the village of Burwash. He now sits in perpetuity on a bench beside the main road through the village.

Lynne and Rudyard Kipling, Burwash

Kipling had the instincts and attitudes of any man of his class born in the latter half of the 19th century. As an unabashed imperialist and the Poet of Empire, he should be out of fashion, but isn’t. He cannot be blamed for the circumstances of his birth, but he should be celebrated for the humanity which shines out of so many of his works. People may argue about his qualities as a poet, but he was undoubtedly one the greatest versifiers in the English language.

Portugal

Loulé
(Visited Oct 2022 and many times previously)

We have been frequent visitors to the Algarve, and for many years Loulé market was our first stop, directly from the airport. In 2006 and 2007 we found the market closed. When it reopened the familiar handsome neo-Classical/Moorish façade fronted a bright, clean and airy new market. Everything was back as it was, only its soul was missing. Revisiting Loulé in 2023 for the first time for several years we found a market trader from the old days, sitting on the steps outside, wondering what had happened to it all.

Bewildered market trader, Loulé

North Macedonia

Stepping lightly from one side of Europe to the other we arrive in a land that was once part of Yugoslavia.

Skopje
(visited May 2015)

Nikola Gruevski (Prime Minister 2006-16) initiated the‘Skopje 2014’ project and ‘Antiquization’. These were exercises in nation-building, promoting a Macedonian identity with unbroken continuity since antiquity and involved, among other things, the building of many large, nationalist statues and memorials. There were two problems. The Macedonia of antiquity, the land of Alexander the Great, was Greek and modern North Macedonians are mostly descended from the Slavic tribes who settled here some 900 year later. Secondly, he spent a great deal of money the city did not have. He resigned after riots in 2016, was subsequently charged with corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. He fled to Hungary and claimed political asylum.

Gruevski’s statues have enormous plinths, but Skopje also has several plinthless statues. A necessary antidote to Gruevski’s bombastic monstrosities, they exemplify a pleasanter and more approachable side of the Macedonian character. The Musicians can be found near ‘Warrior on a Horse’ (under an agreement with the Greeks it is not called ‘Alexander the Great’)

The Musicians, near Macedonia Square, Skopje

While The Divers are on one of the piers of Skopje’s 6th century Stone Bridge. Not great sculpture, perhaps, but it makes you smile, and that is good enough for me.

The Bathers, Stone Bridge, Skopje

Lithuania

Vilnius
(Visited July 2011)

I am always surprised how far east the Baltic States are. Vilnius is actually east of Skopje, but never looks it on a rectangular 2-D map.

After achieving independence from the USSR in 1990 Lithuania had a wealth of statues it no longer wanted, so Lenin and friends were retired to a park near the Belarus border. New statues were raised to various medieval heroes and, in a car park beside an anonymous apartment block in a residential area near the city centre, to Frank Zappa. The bust was erected in 1995 after funds were raised by civil servant Saulius Paukstys. A man blessed with an individual world view and a keen sense of irony, Paukstys commissioned the sculptor of many of the Soviet heroes, to produce the bust. Zappa has no connection with Lithuania, has never visited and before the bust was largely unknown, but the project caught people’s imagination as a wryly ironic gesture in a country that had seen enough of political monuments. (Rough Guide)

Frank Zappa,Vilnius
I know he has a plinth (or column?) but, like Greyfriars Bobby, he would be a trip hazard without it

Armenia

Yerevan
(Visited July 2003)

Mesrop Mashtots (Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց) (362 – 440CE) sits outside the Matenadaran (Մատենադարան) at the top of Mashtots Avenue, one of Yerevan’s main throughfares. The positioning is appropriate, the Matenadaran is a museum and research institute specialising in ancient Armenian manuscripts, and Mashtots is the man credited with inventing the Armenian alphabet (examples above). The (rather weathered) 36 letter alphabet is engraved on the stela to his right.

Mesrop Mashtots, Yerevan

The Fat Cat. I am breaking my own rules here, the plinth is small enough, but the figure is many times life size, but if you are going to portray a Fat Cat it has to be a very large and very fat cat. I hope this is a political statement, but I don't know if fat cat has the same meaning in either the sculptor's native Colombia, or Armenia.

Fat Cat, Yerevan

Georgia

Tbilisi
(visited August 2014)

The Tamada.

Modern Georgia includes the ancient land of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts rowed to steal the Golden Fleece.

The myth of the Golden Fleece has historical origins. Many of the streams flowing down from the high Caucasus bear gold, and it was traditional extracted by damming the flow with fleeces so the shiny metal adhered to the sticky untreated wool. This practice may date back to the 3rd millennium BCE, and archaeologists have found huge quantities of golden grave goods, many of which can be seen in the National Museum in Tbilisi. Among them is a seated figure, less than two centimetres tall, holding a drinking horn.

Tamada and us, Tbilisi

The supra (feast) is an essential part of Georgian culture and every supra need a tamada, (toastmaster) who proposes toasts for others to elaborate upon and so keep the wine flowing. Cast in bronze, many times the size of the original, the little fellow has become Tbilisi’s permanent honorary toastmaster. Every visitor to the city poses with him, those small enough sitting on his lap.

China

With a long eastward leap we reach the final country of this post, and two very different cities.

Pingyao
(visited Sept 2014)

600km southwest of Beijing, Pingyao is an old, walled Qing/Ming city, an artfully pickled oasis among the usual Chinese urban sprawl. We visited during the mid-autumn holiday when the town was packed and the Chinese tourist machine was turned up to eleven.

During our perambulation on the city wall we met the night watchmen…

The Night-watchmen, Pingyao city walls

…and the city governor holding a writing brush and about to get down to work. Nothing is taken too seriously here.

The city governor gets down to work, Pingyao

Hangzhou
(visited Nov 2016)

200 km southwest of Shanghai, Hangzhou is the centre of a metropolitan region of over 10m inhabitants. It is the home to Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies and the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. If Pingyao is China’s past, Hangzhou is its future. Street statues here are not primarily to amuse, though they may make older people smile.

Workers, Hangzhou

For many they are images of a past they do not remember.

Street market, Hangzhou

I have more, but this as probably as much (or more) than most would want at one sitting, so I shall stop. I do like these statues, I like to see who or what the locals wish to commemorate, or how they view their past. Most are not intended to be taken too seriously while one is very serious indeed, but all add to the interest of the towns or cities they call home. And can I have a bonus point for for a post which references Greyfriars Bobby, Frank Zappa and Alexander the Great?

Possibly also of Interest

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

Sculptors and Dates of Installation (when known)

Liverpool
Duke of Wellington by George Anderson Lawson, 1865
Havana
El Caballero de Paris by José Ramón Villa Soberón, 2001
Dublin
James Joyce by Marjorie Fitzgibbon, 1990.
Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne, 1997
Famine Memorial by Rowan Gillespie, 1997
Galway Wilde and Vilde by Tiiu Kirsipuu, 2004
Edinburgh
Greyfriars Bobby by William Brodie, 1873
Burwash
Rudyard Kipling by Victoria Atkinson, 2018
Loulé
Market Trader by Teresa Paulino and Pedro Felix
Vilnius
Frank Zappa by Konstantinas Bagdonas, 1995
Yerevan Mesrop Mastots by Ghukas Chubaryan, 1968
Fat Cat by Fernando Botero
Tbilisi
Tamada by Zurab Tsereteli, 2013

East Sussex (3): Battle and Hastings

A Famous Battle, the Place Named after it, and the Place it is Named After

East Sussex

We spent a few days in Heathfield with my sister Erica and her partner Peter. They kindly took us for a day out.

Anyone brought up on the sort of school history I enjoyed might imagine there is an error in this post’s title, surely it should read ‘Battle of Hastings’. Everyone knows about the Battle of Hastings and anyone who remembers at least one date from history remembers 1066. My recollection (which may not be entirely accurate) tells me I heard the story in Infants School, complete with the tactics of William the Conqueror, and Harold getting an arrow in the eye. I recall the engagement also being referred to as the Battle of Senlac Hill. Google maps tell me Senlac Hill is 6 miles from Hastings, on the edge of a town called, not entirely coincidently, Battle.

Battle and its Abbey

In 1070, Pope Alexander II instructed William to do penance for the many killings involved in his conquest of England. William vowed to build an abbey on the site of the battle with the high altar of its church on the spot where King Harold fell. He started building, but medieval construction was slow work and he died in 1087 with it incomplete. Work continued under his son William II and the abbey church was consecrated in 1094.

The County of East Sussex
In this post we travel southeast from my sister's home in Heathfield to Battle (12m) then to Hastings (6m)

The town that grew up around the abbey became known as Battle. In the 17th century it was renowned for producing the best gunpowder in England, or possibly Europe. It is now a collection of linear developments straggling along 5 roads that converge where the Hight Street leads up to the abbey. I have found no evidence of an industrial estate or a major employer, but Hastings is within easy commuting range. The population is around 7,000 and the town looks prosperous in a Sussex-y way, the High Street having more than its fair share of attractive old buildings, all in a good state of repair.

Battle High Street

Battle Abbey Gatehouse

The Abbey gatehouse is in the High Street.

Battle Abbey gatehouse

Once through the gatehouse the obvious thing to do is climb the stairs to its roof where the information board tells us ‘William the Conqueror granted the monastery all the land within a radius of 1.5 miles of the abbey’s High Altar. The abbot had power over both church and secular life within these estates and the abbey was one of the richest in medieval England. The town grew up to serve the monastery and many of its residents were employed there. By the 14th century, Battle was the largest town in East Sussex. The centre of the town retains its medieval road plan and many of the buildings date from the Middle Ages.’ (slightly abridged)

Battle from the gatehouse roof

Turning 180° gives a view over Battle Abbey School. An independent School founded in 1912 and now with 360 students, it moved into the former Abbot’s quarters in 1922.

Battle Abbey School

Senlac Hill

Descending, we joined a guided tour led by a pre-elderly (i.e. the same age as me) enthusiast. After an introduction he took us round the perimeter wall…

Around the Abbey wall, Battle Abbey

…to look down Senlac Hill. Like the ridges at Thiepval and Passchendaele centuries later, Senlac was a minor geographical wrinkle destined to play a major role.

Looking down Senlac Hill

The job of historians (whatever the popular press may think) really is to rewrite history as they add to our knowledge and understanding of the past. I was, thus, a little surprised to find the simplified outline I had been taught in the 1950s stands unchanged.

After defeating the King of Norway and his own brother Tostig at Stamford Bridge near York on the 26th of September 1066, Harold marched 300 miles to meet the invading Normans on the 14th of October. He placed his (presumably tired) army of infantrymen behind a shield wall on the top of Senlac Hill. William, whose army including cavalry and archers as well as infantry approached from the bottom of the hill.

The battle started at dawn, and for a long time the Norman attacks had little success. Needing a new tactic, William ordered his men to make a frontal assault, then, at a signal to break and run as though giving up the fight. Thinking themselves victorious the Saxons gave chase but at a pre-arranged point the Normans turned and fought. Harold had stood firm on the top of the hill, but with the shield wall gone the result was inevitable. By dusk it was all over.

The Dorter

Despite its symbolic importance and despite (or because of) its wealth, Battle Abbey did not survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Henry VIII gave the Abbey and its lands to Sir Anthony Browne who destroyed the church and the cloisters and repurposed the Abbot’s quarters as a country house.

Parts of the dorter remain standing.

End wall of the dorter, Battle abbey

Coming from the same route as dormitory, the dorter was where the monks slept and also socialised, in so far as monks were permitted to.

An enthusiast shares his knowledge, inside the dorter, Battle Abbey

Tree ring analysis in 2016 suggests the timber was sourced locally and there were two phases of building in the early and later 15th century.

The Abbey Church and the Death of Harold

The Abbey church is long gone, but the ground plan is known. In the background is the parish Church of St Mary, built by Abbot Ralph in 1115 for the people of the village that had grown outside the Abbey walls. He could not know that one day his church would contain the alabaster tomb of Sir Anthony Browne who ruined his Abbey.

The Lay-out of the Abbey Church, Battle

King William had promised the High Altar of the Abbey Church would be on the spot where Harold fell, and there is a (modern) inscribed stone as a memorial. It might be in the right place; the spot where Harold’s body was found was probably marked but whether that marking lasted long enough to guide the construction of the church is anybody’s guess.

King Harold's Memorial Stone, Battle Abbey

Harold rex interfectus est - King Harold is killed

Everybody knows Harold got an arrow in the eye. The story comes from the Bayeux Tapestry, actually an 11th century embroidery, telling of the battle and the events leading up to it from the Norman point of view, though it was actually made in England. 70 m long, by 0.5 m tall, it is beautifully displayed in Bayeux in Normandy and is well worth seeing (Lynne and I have been there twice but long before this blog). Scene 57 shows the death of Harold. A figure, surely, has an eyeful of arrow, but is he the central character in the panel? Did the embroiderers actually know how Harold died, or is this a general battle scene offering a couple of possibilities. Who knows?

Brunch

I am an old man but not a grumpy old man, usually….. leaving the abbey, we walked to a pub at the end of the High Street. Erica had made a booking – this has become a wise precaution during Covid, although on this occasion we almost had the place to ourselves. She had booked lunch but we were offered a ‘Brunch’ menu, it was what they did. Erica was not pleased, it was lunch time and tarted up breakfast food was not what she expected or wanted, but we already had our drinks and inertia persuaded us to each find something to order. I have no idea what the purpose of Brunch is, I like my breakfast when I rise and a light lunch around 1 o’clock. A snack at eleven, maybe, coffee and a biscuit, but how does Brunch fit into a sensible schedule? It is a nonsense. Grump over.

Hastings

Hastings

After lunch Peter drove us down to the coast at Hastings.

A Battle and a Castle

William the Conqueror landed at Pevensey, 11 miles to the west and encountered Harold Godwinson on Senlac Hill, 6 miles to the north. Strangely, the ensuing fracas is called the Battle of Hastings, though the town’s only connection with the events of October 1066 was that William may have camped here. Clearly their publicity department was on the ball that day – I am unsure if they have ever been so alert since.

The Normans did build a castle at Hastings a little later, probably on top of a Saxon earthwork. The remains stand on a hill to the east of the modern centre and west of the old town.

Hastings Castle is on the hill behind me

Hastings as a Fishing Port

Fish Market at Hastings Beach, JMW Turner

Hastings became one of the Cinque Ports, indeed the town’s arms are a variation of those of the Cinque Ports, the single complete lion allegedly indicating Hasting was the chief Cinque Port. I find this a little odd as Hastings is a port without a harbour. Off-loading cargo without a dockside might be difficult, but it raises fewer problems for a fishing port. JMW Turner came here in 1810 to paint the fish market on the beach. The adjacent reproduction is in the Public Domain, but if you want to see the original you must visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Hastings, like Oz, seems a long way from Kansas, and still has the UK's largest beach-based fishing fleet.

Between the old town and the sea are the Net Shops. In the days when ropes and nets were made of natural material, dry storage was essential to prevent rotting. Fishermen originally used an ad hoc collection of huts and upturned boats between the cliffs and the sea – a much smaller space in Victorian times than it is now. The unique Net Shops, tall, narrow wooden buildings, all painted black standing in neat rows on the beach were built in response to Hastings’ 1835 town plan to make best use of the available space. 39 remaining shops form a group of Grade II* listed buildings.

The Net Shops, Hastings

Hastings as a Seaside Resort

In 1769 Scottish physician William Buchan’s popular Domestic Medicine advocated the practice of sea bathing. In 1789 George III bumbled into the sea at Weymouth hoping to aid his recovery from a bout of porphyria and soon everyone who was anyone was doing it.

The whole Sussex coast (east and west) was perfectly positioned to take advantage of this new enthusiasm. The well-healed stayed at the large hotels and, when the railway arrived, Sussex was in daytrip territory for Londoners of all classes.

Hastings built itself a pier and the requisite beach huts which have become a more versatile, if stationary, version of the Victorian bathing machines.

Beach huts and pier, Hastings

It planted some inappropriate vegetation to pretend the climate is balmier than it really is…

Hastings in wannabe Torquay mode

…and in 1891 built a funicular railway up the hill to the castle.

Different resorts developed different personalities. Brighton went for the day trippers while Eastbourne concentrated on attracting wealth retirees. Over time the resorts have had to adapt; their shingle beaches and iffy weather cannot compete with Spain, Greece or Turkey for beach holidays, but they retain the advantage of proximity to their market.

Brighton now considers itself a bit racy and a little bohemian, and since 2010 has elected and re-elected Parliament’s only Green MP, with an ever-increasing majority. Eastbourne remains God’s Waiting Room and Hastings…. well, I am not sure it ever really decided what it wants to be. There is still some fishing, it has areas of desirable housing but also areas of deprivation. The town attracts its share of those who experience difficulty fitting into modern society, a group which tends to gravitate to seaside towns, but it has never seemed to specialise.

I may have been overly unkind to Hastings and there is more to explore, but time was limited and Lynne was already sickening for a bug that would lay her low for the next two weeks.

Back to the Normans

Distracted by what appeared to be the neck and head of an iron bird emerging from the beach we interrupted our stroll along the promenade....

Lynne on the Promenade, Hastings

... and plodded across the shingle to take a look. Close up it is obviously the prow of a ship of sorts. There is lettering on one side, but we could make no sense of it.

The Landing, Hastings Beach

Sussex World informs me that it is called The Landing and represents a Norman ship, like those that landed at Pevensey 950 years ago. It is the result of a collaboration between local sculptor Leigh Dyer and the British Artist Blacksmiths Association.

In July 2016, ten mobile forges were set up near the Net Shops and blacksmiths from all over the country gathered to demonstrate their craft and. among other things, forge the pieces of The Landing. Galvanised, assembled and embedded in a sturdy foundation, the sculpture was unveiled in September 2016, the mysterious lettering the initials of donors who made the project possible. Beneath is a time capsule to be opened in 2066

Alan Turing

Before we left, Lynne insisted on Peter following an uncharacteristically uncertain sat nav in search of Bastion Lodge, the house where Alan Turing spent his childhood. This took us into St Leonard’s, once a separate town (as it is shown on the map above), but long ago absorbed into Hastings. The lodge did not make a great photograph…

Bastion Lodge, St Leonard's

…but it fulfilled some need of Lynne’s.

Alan Turing's Plaque, St Leonard's

And Finally

And so, we returned to Heathfield for another of Erica’s fine dinners. Next day it was time to head home.

Finally, a big 'thank you' to Erica and Peter who put us up (and put up with us) fed us royally and drove us around to interesting places.

With Erica and Peter in Hastings

East Sussex

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)