Tag: Low Weald

A walk from Newick to Scaynes Hill. Low Weald to High Weald. Pasture, woods & commons. Trees, lichens, wild flowers and building. 16.03.26

I took the Compass 121 bus to Newick from Lewes (having got to Lewes on a Brighton and Hove 29 bus) and from Newich I walked through Newick Common, Fletching Common, Lane End Common, Warr’s Wood, an unnamed wood, Wapsbourne Wood, Hammer Wood, Hamshaw Wood .Scayne’s Common, and Costells Wood to Scaynes Hill. At Scaynes Hill I took the Compass 31 bus to Uckfield, and retuned to Brighton on the 29.

Warr’s Wood (1); the unnamed wood (2); Wapsbourne Wood (3); Hammer Wood (4); Hamshaw Wood (5), and Costells Wood (6) are all listed as ancient woodland by Nature England

Most of the walk was in the Low Weald, but Costells Wood [and Wapsboune Woods], is just within the southern boundary of the High Weald National Character Area (NCA), where it meets the Low Weald NCA. Woodland Trust Costells Wood Management Plan

Extract from Nature England National Character Area High Weald Context Map showing the boundary between the High and Low Weald. In reality, here is no hard and fast boundary between High and Low. Warr’s Wood clearly has a low weald biological and landscape character and Costells Wood has a high weald biological and landscape character with its ghyll; Wapsbourne Wood, although technically feels more interstitial

Low Weald character: Land use is still predominantly agricultural, and largely pastoral owing to the heavy clay soils … Most grassland has been agriculturally improved, but fragments of unimproved, floristically rich meadow and pasture are still present.

Fields are generally small and irregular, many formed by woodland clearance or ‘assarting’ in the medieval period and often bounded by shaws or formed from cleared land along woodland edges. Many of the especially species-rich hedgerows in this area may be remnants of larger woodland and often follow the pattern of medieval banks or ditches. …

Like the High Weald, the Low Weald is densely wooded … [with] Numerous and extensive blocks of ancient, semi-natural coppiced woodland … Oak is the principal tree and, despite centuries of clearances for settlement, transport and agriculture, significant areas of ancient woodland survive. Low Weald – National Character Area Profiles

Natural England on-line map of Ancient Woodland: Ancient Woodland (England) | Natural England Open Data Geoportal

Route taken from Newick to Warr’s Wood (pink line) OS online maps: Detailed maps & routes to explore across the UK | OS Maps

Route taken from Warr’s Wood to Scaynes Hill (pink line)

When I am walking I pay attention to whatever takes my eye so whilst this route was planned around visiting certain woodlands commons, I found interesting things on the paths between these.

Newick

The Newick C19 Water Pump.

Newick Common

Current OS Map Detailed maps & routes to explore across the UK | OS Maps

Not named on the map, Newick Common is the small lime-yellow triangle of land. Lime-Yellow in wooded areas of OS maps indicates areas of public access land. This may be National Trust, Woodland Trust or Forestry Commissions land, or it may be privately own land where there are still rights of common.

OS Six Inch Map 18302-1860 Georeferenced Maps viewer – Map images – National Library of Scotland Showing Newick Common as considerably larger than 2026

Newick Common is the triangle of land located between Newick Hill and Jackies Lane (outlined in red on the map below). It was originally much larger in extent, including a lot of the land between Jackies Lane and Western Road, but development over the years has meant that it has been reduced to its current size. A lot of small trees and scrub have grown up in this area, but we know from talking to people who grew up in the village that 50-60 years ago it used to be much more open. In conjunction with the Lewes District Council rangers, we are therefore trying to remove some of the trees and scrub, to restore a more varied habitat and increasae biodiversity Newick Rootz: Newick Common

On the common, there was Wild Garlic. Wild Daffodils and Early Dog Violet; that are often associated with ancient woodland

Fletching Common

I can find little on the history of Fletching Common. It is now continuously wooded. Part of it now a campsite, Wyld Wood Campsite, part of it is just woodland. The trees in the woodland were previously managed; as their are many old coppice hazel stool, and pollarded Pedunculate Oak and, curiously, coppiced Pedunculate Oak, some which appear to have no main trunks.

Interestingly Fletching Common is listed on the Government’s database of commons Copy_Common_Land_CPHs.xlsx but Newick is not; but on the OS maps, Newick is marked as public access land but Fletching is not

OS Six Inch Map 18302-1860 Georeferenced Maps viewer – Map images – National Library of Scotland showing the woodland of Fletching Common as Hangman’s Rough; here is no historic provenance for the name Wyld Wood; presumably the owners of it didn’t fancy a Hangman’s Rough Campsite!

Coppiced Oak

Pollarded Oak

What looks like an old Coppiced Pedunculate Oak with no main trunk:

There was very limited ground flora. The lichen flora was the common lichens you would expect on Oak

Flavoparmelia caperata, Common Greenshield Lichen

Ramalina farinacea, Oak Moss Lichen

Between Fletching Common and North Lane Common

This stunning old Oak pollard was in a field. Often the most spectacular trees are not in woodlands but hedgerows and fields. Field old trees are possibly relicts of cleared woodland, when trees are left for shade for famed animals

Lane End Common

Lane End Common is one of the five Chailey Commons. A Compact and dry woodland heath rich in insects and wood ants. Chailey Commons Society Five Different Commons

Southern Wood Ant, Formica rufa

Whilst Lane End Common is not designated as ancient woodland, there were some ancient forest indicator species in the wooded parts of the common, including Primroses, Bluebells, Wild Daffodils and Honeysuckle

In North End Common there is a lot of archaeological interest, including the medieval route on the NE boundary of the Common – known in the 17th century as the ‘Lewes to Grinstead Way’, probably 14th century or earlier, shown on a 17th century estate map, and on 1st edition OS map running NW/SE on the NE boundary of the Common to the old Ouse crossing, thought to be between Wapsbourne and Sheffield Bridge. It runs SE to Red Gill, Jackies Lane, Oxbottom, Cockfield Lane and eventually to Lewes (known as the pack horse way)  (GR TQ 404205) Chailey Commons Society – Archaeology

Other archeolgical featires of the common include:

  • Sunken lanes/braided tracks – 5 x parallel banks and dips (running SE/NW), bisected by the railway cutting and are likely to be earlier than the Lewes to E Grinstead Way.   Possibly animal migratory routes and post-medieval track-ways. Disappear in the mid-area of the Common, but emerge on the same axis in the Northern triangle point(GR TQ 405223).
  • Boundaries on the NE edge show an established bank topped by overgrown multi stemmed hornbeam with signs of coppicing and pollarding, and a ditch on the Commons side.
  • Ridge and furrow towards the West boundary opposite Lane End Farm – 6 or more parallel umbrella shaped ridges and furrow dips (N/S), medieval(?), manmade and possibly a system for managing the cycle for harvesting brakes, fern and ling and allocating in rotation? (GR TQ 402223)
  • Sand quarry, indicated by sandy soil, a deep cleft and spoil heap on the S boundary W of the car-park. (GR TQ 402222) Chailey Commons Society – Archaeology

Theses relate to the ancient rights of common: rights to collect bracken, fern, twigs and ling (or matted heather) for thatching and fuel (discussed on earlier walks). Chailey Commons Society Archaeology

OS Six Inch Map 18302-1860 Georeferenced Maps viewer – Map images – National Library of Scotland seemingly showing the the SE-NW banks and dips; as well as the Lewes to Eeat Grinstead Way.  

There were several attempts by landowners to enclose Commons and deprive Commoners of their rights.  For example, in the mid 17th century ‘anger resulted in physical harm to persons, when inhabitants of Fletching pulled down the fences Sir Henry Compton had erected around part of Chailey Common.  His stewards followed the men home and wounded one by gunfire.  This dispute was settled in the Court of the Star Chamber.’ Brandon (2003) p121. Brandon P (2003) The Kent and Sussex Weald, Phillimore. Chailey Commons Society Archaeology

E.P. Thompson (1963) The Making of the English Working Class)described the parliamentary enclosure movement in 18th and 19th-century England as a “plain enough case of class robbery,” fundamentally transforming the relationship between land, law, and the working class. 

Braded Trackways:

Huge Oak pollard:

Girth suggested an age of 300-400 years.

A completely decorticated dead Pedunculate Oak

Now a home for invertebrates:

and Cladonia parasitica, a lichen of decorticated wood

Warr’s Wood

Warr’s Wood is an example of typical low weald coppiced Hornbeam ancient woodland with some Pedunculate Oak; a frequent type of low weald wood. The boundary bank around it has coppiced and pollarded Hornbeams. The ground flora (in spring) is dominated by Bluebells

Boundary Bank

Bluebells

Coppiced Hornbeam

Lecanactis abietina, on Pedunculate Oak, an old woodland indicator lichen

Un-named Wood

This is a tree on the edge of the wood.

This tree shows lichens of the Mature Mesic Bark Community (Pertusarietum amarae) on Oak

The Pertusarietum amarae are shade tolerant communities on rougher bark, with Pertusaria species dominant. They are particularly characteristic of Beech and Ash, but also on less damp Oak bark. The basic community is composed of widespread species particularly Pertusaria s. lat. species: Pertusaria albescens, Lepra amara (Pertusaria amara f amara), Pertusaria flavida, Pertusaria hymenea and Pertusaria pertusa along with Phlyctis argena and Ochrolechia subviridis. This is a common community in drier areas but gets displaced by moss dominated communities in strongly oceanic areas. . British Lichen Society Lichen Communities

On this tree I saw Lepra amara (previously Pertusaria amara), Pertusaria hymenea and Pertusaria pertusa; all very common, plus others I didn’t have time to fully investigate. I used my UV torch to search for Pertusaria flavida, as it reacts to  UV light with bright orange fluorescence. I only got the dull orange of Pertusaria hymenea and P pertusa. I also tested any likely candidates of Varicellaria hemisphaerica (previously Pertusaria hemisphaerica) with sodium hypochlorite spot tests; but I did not get the characteristic red reaction. I do these tests as I have found P. flavida and V. hemisphaerica on trees with Mature Mesic Bark Community elsewhere in Sussex

Pertussaria hymenea

Lepra amara

Pertusaria pertusa

Pertusaria pertusa biofluorescent dull orange with UV light

The blue florescent lichen(s) remains mysterious

Between the unnamed wood and Wapsbourne Wood

Ditches bordered by coppiced Hornbeam. What are they?

They are on the land of the WoWo campsite, part of Whaspsborne Manor Farm see. The name Wapsbourne is the modern version of the older Sussex names of Whapplesbourne, Werpplesborne and other derivatives. The name means ‘a track by the stream’. This track leads you from Lewes to East Grinstead, right past the Elizabethan Manor house built in the late 15th C. Wapsbourne was once part of the Sheffield Park Estate, auctioned into private hands in 1953 when the estate of several thousand acres was broken up. The Farm – Wowo Campsite

On the WoWo site there is a camping space called “Lower Moat” in the central field surrounded by a moat, this field also becomes home to the ‘WoWo village’ in the summer months. Wowo Campsite, Uckfield, East Sussex – 2026 from £24/nt

But it is not a moat; it is a Pondbay and Overspill Channel.

The monument south-west of Wapsbourne Farm includes a short length of earthen bank, a low-lying area beside the bank and a long L-shaped ditch leading eastwards and then northwards from the bank. These are the remains of an iron-working site dating to the 16th-18th centuries and perhaps earlier, where already-smelted iron was heated and beaten using water power to drive the bellows and hammers. The remains were formerly misinterpreted as those of a medieval moated site. The most distinctive feature of the monument is the well-defined L- shaped ditch which measures 270m in total length and which averages 12m from side to side. It is embanked on the more northerly side. The purpose of the ditch was to carry floodwaters safely away from the principal industrial area and to prevent erosion of the dam itself by overflowing water. At the western end of the ditch is a 20m stretch of earthen bank 12m wide at its base which increases in height as the land slopes downward, so achieving a constant level at its crest. This is the southern end of the pond bay which formerly extended across the shallow valley, damming the stream and ponding back sufficient water to drive a water-wheel. The northern five-sixths of this pondbay, outside the scheduled area, has been flattened to allow the cultivation of the field. Where the stream cuts through the former pondbay there is a marked basin which probably indicates the location of the principal water-wheel. The 20th century culvert at the western end of the ditch and the field drain outlet to the south of it are both excluded from the scheduling. Post-Medieval Pondbay and Overspill Channel, Wapsbourne Farm., Chailey – 1013405 | Historic England

And just north of Pondbay and Overspill Channel, is the magnificent farm

My photo does not do this building justice, so he is a photo from the WoWo website The Farm – Wowo Campsite

Probably the most interesting house in Chailey Parish. Early C17. The Victoria County History says that the date 1606 was once legible on the pendant of one of the gables. Tall L-shaped timber-framed building with squares of plaster infilling. The west and south walls are of red vitreous brick. Horsham slab roof. Casement windows with diamond-shaped leaded panes. The north gable end has a bay window on the ground and first floor, that on the first floor consisting of 2 tiers of 5 lights with old glass, and above an oversailing gable containing an attic window of 2 tiers of 4 lights. The east gable end has a carved pendant. The south wall has an immense brick projection consisting of 2 chimney breasts side by side, each with 3 diagonal brick stacks. These breasts were probably added in the mid C17. Three storeys. Not more than 2 windows to any front. Contemporary staircase. Wapsbourne, Chailey – 1352974 | Historic England

It is thought that there has been a building of some description on the site of Wapsbourne Farm since Anglo Saxon times. It was known at Domesday time as Werpesburn, which in Sussex vernacular later became Wapses Boorn. During the period known as the ‘second great rebuilding’ in the 17th century it was reduced in size and the timber framing on the South and West sides the weather fronts were covered with fine brickwork, with the magnificent chimney stacks erected. A notable feature of the chimney stacks is that they were constructed to present a corner angle to the prevailing wind. The Farm – Wowo Campsite For more information on the building see: The Manor House – Wowo Campsite

Wapsboune Wood

On entering Wapsbourne Wood, the feel of its ancient past remains; with some beautiful ancient Oaks

The mauve-grey of this Oak, is not the colour of its bark; it is the lichen Dendrographa decolorans

Dendrographa decolorans is the most widespread of a series of grey-brown to whitish usually sterile sorediate species that grown on dry bark in the south and west and probably depend on dew for a good deal of their water. These can be separated by subtle colour differences and by spot tests with Dendrographa decolorans lacking any positive spot tests. It is quite distinctive when younger, with mauve-grey to pale lilac-grey neat punctiform soralia on a slightly darker thallus. Dendrographa decolorans | The British Lichen Society It scatches Orange Photobiont: Trentepohlia (characterized by orange scars). Lichens marins – Dendrographa decolorans (Turner & Borrer ex Sm.) Ertz & Tehler = Schismatomma decolorans (Turner & Borrer ex Sm.) Clauzade & Vezda

The orange scratch test is not definitive as all the former Schismatomma genus lichens lichens scratch orange

Dendrographa decolorans was previously Schismatomma decolorans, the other former Scismatomma genera lichens i.e. Sporodophoron cretaceum; Snippocia nivea and Schizotrema quercicola, all scratch orand.

The only way to be 100% that this is Dendrographa decolorans would have been to use para-phenylenediamine spot test; it would have not responded But as para-phenylenediamine is mutagenic, allergenic and may be carcinogenic, I choose not to use it. I think trading off not being absolutely sure that this Dendrographa decolorans with potentially getting a cancer is a good trade off.

Much of the south part of Wapsbourne has Oaks, Hornbeams and Bluebells.

However, walking further north there is much replanting and the quality of the woodland declines as much of the wood is replanted.

Hammer Wood on OS Map; but called part of Wapsbourne Wood on the Nature England database)

There are many Hammer Woods in the weald and the name indicates connection with the Weald iron industry. But most of this ancient woodland is replanted with conifers; as in many places in Sussex. The land owners of many ancient woodlands in Sussex are not primarily interested in stewarding ancient woodland; but in making money out of it.

Hamshaw Wood

This not named on the OS map but is named on the Nature England Ancient Woodland; and is designated as ancient and semi-natural woodland

Ancient Woodland (England) | Natural England Open Data Geoportal

A stable at Hamshouse Stud with the right of the door covered in Psilolechia lucida lichen. Note that it here favours the chemical nature of the bricks not the mortar (abotioc zonation)

An old gate; a perfect substate for lichens that like worked wood. Hamshaw Wood behind

Cladonia parasitica, fertile with red apothecia (fruiting bodies) on the top of podetia (tubes of the thallus (body)) of the the lichen

Hypogymnia physodes Hooded Tube Lichen

Flavoparmelia caperata, Common Greenshield Lichen

Coppiced Ash

Wild Daffodils and a concrete sheep in part of the ancient woodland captured as the private garden of a large house

Concrete sheep amongst bluebells and planted (non-native ) rhododendron; how the High Weald is spoilt

Much of the High Weald now feels like a middle class landscape of leisure rather than a landscaper of employment. This house would never have got planning permission if it wasn’t on the site of a previous building, presumably a farmhouse

Scaynes Hill Common

Photo © Simon Carey and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence from the Geograph Website

Map (n.d.) showing Common from Scaynes Hill Village Community Website

Much of the south of the common has been lost to development. Scaynes Hill Common used to be Henfield Common and looks like a typical edge green of a woodland common such as you still find in the New Forest. It retains an archaic acid grassland flora David Bangs (2018) The Land of the Brighton Line: A field guide to the Middle Sussex and South East Surrey Weald p.212.

Forge on the common. Photo from Scaynes Hill Village Community Website

Old School House on the edge of Scaynes Hill Common

Costells Wood

Costells Wood is part of a larger continuous woodland that include Henfield and Nashgill Woods. It is the only part of the wood that had public access.

Costells Wood is a 21 hectare (53 acres) site on the edge of the village of Scaynes Hill, West Sussex, just within the southern boundary of the High Weald National Character Area (NCA), where it meets the Low Weald NCA. Woodland Trust Costells Wood Management Plan

An “avenue” of planted planted Pedunculate Oaks from Costells Manor into Costells Wood

A very typical High Weald Oak: one side moss; the other, the lichen Lecanactis abietina, an old woodland lichen

Bluebells

Pedunculate Oak

Hornbeam

A Pedunculate Oak covered in Usnea cornuta

Requiem for a Landscape: the destruction of Low Weald countryside around Freek’s Lane, Burgess Hill

Music composed by David Fanshawe for David Gladwell’s film 1975 Requiem for a Village.

Tree felling (out of sight) at the Oakhurst (Countryside Homes, The Hill Group) building site, Freek’s Lane.

A Pedunculate Oak that has thus far survived the felling; right outside the information kiosk/show home. I don’t think it will be felled, as it helps  Countryside Homes (The Hill Group) to delude people that they are not buying a house on a new estate that has destroyed Low Weald countryside; but they are buying a house in the countryside.

Lichens on this tree:

Oak trees have long had a reputation for supporting a lot of other species but until recently we had no idea just how many and what those species were. Recent work has listed 2300 species associated with oak, of which 320 are only found on oak and a further 229 species are rarely found on species other than oak. James Hutton Institute Decline of Oak

In the Oakhurst (Brookleigh, Countryside Homes, The Hill Group) information kiosk (in show home):

Me: how much is the cheapest house in Oakhurst?

Salesperson: £425,000

The average household income in Burgess Hill is £59,100 p.a. The cheapest house in Oakhurst is 7 x that; more than most mortgage lenders are prepared to lend. The average annual salary of agricultural worker in the South East of England is £25,000. The cheapest house in Oakhurst is 17 x that. In 2023, Andy [Hill, CEO of The Hill Group] remarkable achievements were recognised in the King’s New Year’s Honours List, in which he was awarded an OBE for services to affordable housing. https://www.aru.ac.uk/graduation-and-alumni/honorary-award-holders2/andy-hill#:

Me: I need to think about that.

Salesperson: You’d like it here; its like living in the countryside

The outline planning application was approved by Mid Sussex District Council in October 2019. Brookleigh will deliver approximately 3,500 new homes, 30% of which will be affordable. Delivering Growth & Prosperity, Burgess Hill

The Hill Groups accounts 2023-24

  • Turnover: Reached a record £1,145.9 million (compared to £716.1 million in 2022).
  • Profit Before Tax: A record £70.1 million (compared to £65.6 million in 2022).
  • Net Assets: Increased to £368.9 million as of March 31, 2024.
  • Net Cash: £86.4 million, with £70 million drawn from a £220 million revolving credit facility.
  • Operational Performance: Delivered 2,886 homes during the period.
  • Development Pipeline: Stands at over 27,000 units, with a potential revenue exceeding £10 billion. https://www.reports.hill.co.uk/annual-review/2023-24/financial-overview/

Andy Hill’s, the CEO of the Hill Group, personal wealth is estimated at £520 million. And he has re-entered the UK rich list. Building.co.uk  https://www.building.co.uk/news/familiar-names-on-rich-list-as-housebuilder-remains-constructions-wealthiest-man/

Building Oakhurst:

David Gladwell’s 1975 film Requiem for a Village, a poetic meditation on how the modern world’s rapid acceleration buries the past and with it the traditions, skills and knowledge that were at the heart of British life and its relationship to the landscape and countryside.  Frank Collins 2011 British Cult Classics – Requiem for a Village / BFI Flipside Blu-ray Review

The film is currently available from on BFI Player (subscription required)

The destruction of the rural landscape of the Low Weald started with the coming of The London & Brighton railway, resulting in large population growth. The building of the railway started in 1838 and cut through several farms including Peppers Farm in Lye Lane (Leylands Road), Yew Tree Farm, Anchor Farm and Burgess Hill Farm. Between 1850 and 1880 the area changed from a relatively quiet rural backwater into a country town with a population of about 4500. … From 1952, when Second World War (1939-1945) controls on building were lifted, and strict planning and building regulations came into force, large scale expansion once more began. This process has continued with no significant break to the present time. The population almost doubled to 14,000 between 1951 and 1961. Much of Burgess Hill’s residential housing dates from this time History of Burgess Hill, Burgess Hill Town Council retrieved 23.01.2026. Of late, the amount of development in the countryside around Burgess Hill has accelerated greatly, and will increase further with Labour’s obsession that empowering private developers to build, build, build, will produce affordable housing. It has not done so but Labour has facilitated building property developers; profits.

Today I walked along Freek’s Lane to the Oakhurst Estate; currently being built with some show homes open to view. But I could only get so far as the footpath (right of way), a former Roman Road – lined with hedgerow with superb ancient Pedunculate Oak – was closed to facilitate the building of the estate.

A restored barn nearby at Lowlands (formerly Freeks) – a name derived from the local rough woodland or Ferghthe as it was spelt when the land was first settled in the Anglo-Saxon period.

Earlier History, restored barn Lowlands Farm

All the land on the east part of the town, east of Keymer Road and Junction Road, was … . all part of the great wood of Frekebergh which stretched north to what is now Worlds End. It was privately owned and actively managed by the lords of Keymer and Ditchling manors. The earliest farms they allowed (from around 1250 onwards) were on either side of Folders Lane and along the edge of Ditchling Common. The rest remained as woodland and coppice for much longer. A small farm lay at its northern end, its land reaching up as far as Janes Lane, which the lord of the manor kept in hand. It was mentioned in 1580 as having ‘a little house’ in it and its old well is still there in two front gardens in Stirling Court Road. This connection with the lord of the manor gave rise today to the local school name, ‘Manor Field’. Old hedgerow oaks, remnants of this once enormous wood of Frekebergh are still a strong feature within the St. Andrew’s Road housing estate. A small brick and tile business had grown up by the early 1700s on a site near the top of Cants Lane – at a slight remove from where the Keymer Brick and Tile Company was later developed. Burgess Hill Heritage and History History Association: Earlier History

The are only a few fragment of the Frekebergh Wood left; one being the Bedelands LNR Big Wood (which is a minuscule fragment of the Anglo-Saxon wood). Until recently much of the area around Freek’s Lane was woodland and wet meadow. Now much of the land around the lower part of Freek’s Lane is homogenous, hideous, unaffordable housing for the rich

Freek’s Farmhouse Burgess Hill Heritage and History History Association: Earlier History

The housing developments that are currently being undertaken around Burgess Hill include:

  • Oakhurst at Brookleigh (Countryside Homes): Features 2, 3, and 4-bedroom homes designed for modern, energy-efficient living.
  • Brookleigh (Northern Arc): A massive, long-term development on the north side of town, incorporating new schools, community infrastructure, and road improvements.
  • Fairbridge Way (Places for People/Ilke Homes): A 307-home development focusing on sustainable, factory-built
  • Kings Way (Persimmon Homes): A 480-home site in development with 30% affordable units,
  • Kings Weald (Croudace Homes): Located at the former Keymer Tiles site, this 475-home project is well advanced, with phases 1 and 2 completed and phase 3 in progress.
  • Templegate (Thakeham): Located between Keymer Road and Folders Lane, offering 2-4 bedroom homes

The Ordnance Survey Map, for 1872-1914 shows the former woodland and farmland around the railway line. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/

What was left of farm and woodland around 20 years ago

Surviving relicts of this wooded landscape:

Medieval hedgerow with Hornbeam, Pedunculate Oak and Wild Service trees. (Bedelands LNR)

Bedelands retains a little of what has been lost.

Bedelands and Freek’s Farm’s meadows, lags (wet meadows), ancient woods, riverine hangars and glades have magic most of all where the Roman road fords the young Adur, TQ 316 211. It is just as the Romans would have known it, though the only emperors to be seen are Emperor Dragonflies, with red and blue damsels, and Beautiful and Banded Demoiselles.

Heavy, May-scented Wild Service blossoms overhang the almost-stilled little river that is guarded by steep, wooded clay banks above grassy riverside plats. It only lacks Wild Boar prints in

In Freek Farm Wood, TQ 316 210, overlooking the fording, the Wild Service Tree is the most frequent remember seeing it, clustered along the bank top. All around in the wood are very tall Sessile Oak poles. I am used to seeing Sessile Oak woods in the High Weald… but here? in the Wealden clay vale? The wood has been managed for its Oaks, though there are remnants of struggling coppice of Hazel, Hornbeam and Holly. It is a shady, tranquil wood of Bluebell and Anemone with many other old woodland plants, like Field Rose on the boundary with Freek’s Farm meadow, TQ 316 209, which is archaic and colourful,

Big Wood, Watford Wood, Long Wood, and Leylands Wood, all on the neighbouring Local Nature Reserve, have many of the qualities of Freek Farm’s woods, but benefit from the management of the District Council and the Friends of Burgess Hill Green Circle. The Bluebells of Big Wood are a wonder.

Freek’s Lane is the direct descendant of the ramrod straight it to weave in more relaxed fashion between huge old straight Roman road, but 1,800 years of traffic have led it to weave in more relaxed fashion between huge old oak trees and rich hedgerow. They prompt no complaint from me. I feel blessed to have spent time there, and angry that anyone even think of building on any of this complex, rich and ancient landscape (2013). Dave Bangs2018 Bedelands and Freek’s Lane’s Meadows and Wood Between Hayward’s Hath and Burgess Hill in The Land of the Brighton Line: A field guide to the Middle Sussex and South East Surrey Weald pp. 222-223

It is the farmland to the west of Freek’s Lane that is being built upon. The ancient woodland of the Big Wood (Bedelands Farm LNR) and Freek’s Farm Wood (marked with a flag) will be squeezed between the existing housing east of the railway line and the new development west of Freek’s Lane

Woodland around the top of Freek Lane; Freek’s Farm Wood

MID SUSSEX DISTRICT COUNCIL DISTRICT WIDE PLANNING COMMITTEE
4 OCT 2018 extract

The Councils Ecological Consultant goes on to state “There is likely to be a need for protected species licensing from Natural England for a range of species. However, subject to appropriate mitigation design then, if MSDC considers there to be an overriding public interest case for granting consent (including reasons of a social or economic purpose), then it is likely, in my opinion, that licences will be obtainable.” Given the fact that this site is allocated for housing development this is a clear case where there is an overriding public interest in granting consent.

The Councils Ecological Consultant has advised that there will be additional visitor pressure on Bedelands Local Nature Reserve and that mitigation for this may need to include financial contributions to assist in its management and monitoring of visitor pressure. It is considered that this could be properly controlled by a planning condition that requires details of a management plan to be submitted to the LPA for approval. If the management plan requires off site works at Bedelands Local Nature Reserve (which might involve financial contributions) there should be no reason why these can’t be carried out because the District Council is the landowner of Bedelands.

The Councils Ecological Consultant concludes by stating that in his opinion, there are no biodiversity policy reasons for refusal, subject to conditions. Your officer has no reason to dispute his conclusions. It is considered that a suitably worded condition can ensure that the necessary ecological protection, mitigation and compensation measures are provided thus complying with policies DP37 and DP38 in the DP and the aims of the SPD’s in the Masterplan.

So even if you disregard the value of the farmland to be built on, the development will impact upon protected species and will add visitor pressure on Bedelands Nature Reserve (an island of ancient woodland in the middle of urbanization) but according to Mid Sussex District Council this is a clear case where there is an overriding public interest in granting consent.

What is the public interest in building homes that no-one in Burgess Hill can afford and enrich already rich property developers at the expense of nature and farm land? If the state itself was building social housing for social rents there may be a public interest to build on farmland.

Local and central government disregard for nature was written about by Larkin in 1972

Going, Going, Philip Larkin, 1972

I  thought it would last my time –
The sense that, beyond the town,
There would always be fields and farms,
Where the village louts could climb
Such trees as were not cut down;
I knew there’d be false alarms

In the papers about old streets
And split level shopping, but some
Have always been left so far;
And when the old part retreats
As the bleak high-risers come
We can always escape in the car.

Things are tougher than we are, just
As earth will always respond
However we mess it about;
Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:
The tides will be clean beyond.
– But what do I feel now? Doubt?

Or age, simply? The crowd
Is young in the M1 cafe;
Their kids are screaming for more –
More houses, more parking allowed,
More caravan sites, more pay.
On the Business Page, a score

Of spectacled grins approve
Some takeover bid that entails
Five per cent profit (and ten
Per cent more in the estuaries): move
Your works to the unspoilt dales
(Grey area grants)! And when

You try to get near the sea
In summer . . .
It seems, just now,
To be happening so very fast;
Despite all the land left free
For the first time I feel somehow
That it isn’t going to last,

That before I snuff it, the whole
Boiling will be bricked in
Except for the tourist parts –
First slum of Europe: a role
It won’t be hard to win,
With a cast of crooks and tarts.

And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There’ll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.

Most things are never meant.
This won’t be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.

Larkin predicts the Grey Belt; not an actual policy until Labour invented it: Labour’s “grey belt” policy, introduced in 2024, identifies low-quality, “under-utilised” areas within the protected Green Belt—such as disused car parks, neglected scrubland, and petrol stations—for accelerated housing development. This strategy aims to deliver up to 200,000 homes by easing planning restrictions on these specific sites. BBC 8 July 2024 What is the ‘grey belt’ and how many homes could Labour build on it?

In practice, the government’s “grey belt” policy has not been about building on petrol stations but an existential threat to the protections of the Green Belt. Our latest research shows that the policy is vague, subjective and misleading to the public. Its lack of clarity has been good news for large housebuilders but bad news for everyone who loves the countryside. Council for the Protection of Rural England 

Being drawn toward the past (and the future): A walk through the (Low) Weald from Fittleworth to Bedham. 08.10.25

The Weald (the High Weald, Low Weald and Greensand Ridge) was known, by Latin speakers, as Anderida Silva (Wood of Anderida), after Anderida (present-day Pevensey), a Saxon shore fort, as then woodland covered most of Sussex and surrounded Anderida. When the Saxons settled Sussex from the 5th century, the Weald was initially called just Andred (Saxon Chronicles 785 and 893); and then Andredesweald (Andred’s Wood) (Saxon Chronicles 1018). Following the Norman Conquest, the name was shortened just to The Weald (used in the Doomsday Book 1068). Sources: Peter Brandon (2003) The Kent and Sussex Weald, Ch6. The Saxon and Jutish Andredesweald and Marc Morris (2021) The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: Ch1 The ruin of Britain

The geomorphology of the Weald is defined by its geology. See R W Gallois (1965) The Wealden district. British regional geology. 4th edition. London: HMSO’ accessible on-line at: https://webapps.bgs.ac.uk/memoirs/docs/B06880.html

The Low Weald is the eroded outer edges of the High Weald, largely coinciding with the outcrop of Weald Clay but with narrow bands of Gault Clay and the Lower and Upper Greensands which outcrop close to the scarp face of the South Downs. Natural England. National Character Area 121: Low Weald

All of the UK’s landscapes are under threat from development in a growth-focussed political climate, but the Low Weald is particularly vulnerable to development as it sandwiched between the High Weald National Landscape (previously called the High Weald Area of Outstanding National Beauty) and the South Downs National Park; both of which have higher levels of protection from development: HM Government: Areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs): designation and management. Counterintuitively the area of low weald between Fittleworth and the Mens, mostly land in the parish of Fittleworth, is within the South Downs National Park. The vast majority of the low weald is not in the South Downs National Park. AONBs [now National Landscapes] … have the same legal protection for their landscapes as national parks, but don’t have their own authorities for planning control and other services like national parks do. Instead they are looked after by partnerships between local communities and local authorities. National Parks UK: National Parks Are Protected Information Sheet However, having planning determined by the South Downs Authority does not necessarily lead to the protection of nature. The SDNPA gave consent to the Towner Gallery’s plan to develop an arts centre on the Black Robin Farm site at Beachy Head, which is likely to harm nature through greatly increased carbon emissions from transport to and from this new venue.

The South Downs National Park Authority records the habitat types of the land in the Parish of Fittleworth, the parish through which my walk passed.

The dark green areas on this map are all, according to the South Downs habitat map, semi-natural broadleaf woodland. This is probably because the Natural England ancient woodland database says they are. But when you walk through them this is clearly not the case. The Mens and Hammonds Wood are Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland (ASNW), which is largely of natural origin; however Fittleworth Wood, owned by the Stopham Estate, is very clearly not, it is Ancient Replanted Woodland, as Natural England designates Felxham Park, which is exactly the same Sweet Chestnut planting as Fittleworth Wood.

When I travel on busses across the Low Weald, which I do frequently, I see large numbers of unaffordable housing developments which have destroyed ancient woodlands and archaic pastures of the Low Weald.

Being drawn toward the past

All cities are geological. You can’t take three steps without
encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We
move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw
us toward the past. Chtcheglov, ‘Formulary for a New Urbanism’

I would argue that these landmarks exist in the rural landscape too. As long as there is a level of habitation, or the memory of it, we stake a claim to these places. And when the memory is too distant, we interpret. We tell stories of place. Legends attach themselves. … Sites where memory can no longer be directly accessed are such enigmatic places. These stories held in reserve require an interpreter. Someone willing to look at and interrogate place, to unpack and retell the stories. Sonia Overall, 2016 Walking Backwards: psychogeographical approaches to heritage. A paper delivered at Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) Conference: Rurality 2016. University of the Highlands and Islands

The route of my walk:

The extracts of Ordnance Surveys in this blog are screen shots from Explore OS Maps on-line

In Fittleworth Wood: my heart sinks; but the past pokes through.

Walking north of Fittleworth along the Serpents Trail, you soon pass through the southwest part of Fittleworth Woods, around Sellings; owned by the Stopham Estate. There is no public access to this land apart from the paths that run through it; over and over again signs tell you that the woods are private

Here, as in many areas of Sussex, ancient oak, beech, hornbeam and other native trees have been felled and replanted with Sweet Chestnut. The main Chestnut area in Great Britain is concentrated in the southern counties of Kent and Sussex, where extensive stands of commercial coppice, amounting to some 18,000 hectares were planted in the mid 19th century. . Everyday Nature Trails: Sweet Chestnut

When I walk through this soulless replanted woodland, I try to imagine its former age-oldness

In this mostly monocultural desert, relicts of the past can still just be seen, and they help me imagine what this landscape was like.  Medieval boundary banks, with Oak and Beech growing on them (naturally regenerated from previous planted Beech and Oak, coppiced as was the traditional practice in planted boundary banks) and a few maiden (un-pollarded) Pedunculate Oaks poke through the coppiced Sweet Chestnut monoculture.

Coppiced Sweet Chestnut monoculture:

Ancient boundary bank:

Maiden Oak amongst the Sweet Chestnuts

Lithersgate Commons

Walking north from Sellings/Fittleworth Wood, I walked through Lithersgate Common. There are no signs that tell you that you are walking through a common and can thus leave the path and wander; you can only know that by looking at the OS map and seeing its name and seeing it is marked as Access Land. Access Land in Woodland Areas is often land that still has common rights. But it is very hard for the general public to know what those rights are.

OS Map Key

All land in England and Wales, including common land, is privately owned. Indeed, larger areas of common land may have many different owners. It’s a widely-held misconception that citizens at large or “commoners” own common land. Instead, what makes the land “common” is the common rights attaching to it, not its ownership. Most common land is now “open access land” giving public right of access to it.

In many cases, rights of common do not just include access. The rights attaching to common land vary depending on the rights granted to the commoners in that particular place. These rights typically reflect the historical needs of the rural poor. They may include rights of:

  • Pasture for animals;
  • Pannage – the right to allow pigs to feed off acorns and beechnuts;
  • Stray – grazing rights for cattle;
  • Piscary –the right to fish;
  • Estovers – the right to take wood;
  • Turbary – the right to cut peat or turf for fuel;
  • Soil – the right to remove minerals or soil;
  • Animals – the right to take wild animals. BLB Solicitors: What is Common land and What are Rights of Common

First enshrined in law in the Magna Carta in 1215, Common Land traditionally sustained the poorest people in rural communities who owned no land of their own, providing them with a source of wood, bracken for bedding and pasture for livestock. Over one-third of England’s moorland is common land.

At one time nearly half of the land in Britain was Common Land, but from the C16th onwards the gentry excluded Commoners from land which could be ‘improved’ through agriculture. That is why most Common Land is now found in areas with low agricultural potential, but areas which we know hold value for high conservation significance and natural beauty.

Common Land now accounts for 3% of England, but this includes large tracts of our most well-loved and ecologically rich landscapes. Foundation for Common Land: A guide to Common Land and Commoning

To find out what Rights of Common a common has, you need to make an appointment to see the Register of Common Land held by the Local Authority in which the land is located; for Lithergate Common that is West Sussex County Council. If I owned a few pigs and I wanted to take them to Lithersgate Common so they could munch acorn and beech mast in Autumn I would need to check the West Sussex Commons Register to see if I could do that!

Before the enclosure of lands (which started in the medieval period but greatly accelerated in the 17th and 18th centuries), there was much common land, and ordinary people knew their rights of local commons. Now there is little common land, and few people know where commons are and even fewer know what rights are attached to that common land and who can use those rights.

But even the tiny bit of land with common rights left is constantly threatened by modern-day enclosures. An online search revealed that the status of Lithersgate Common as a common was disputed in 1978 by Captain Sir Brian Walter de Stopham Barttelot, Baronet. The fact that Lithersgate Commons is still marked on the OS map as Common Access Land implies that Captain Sir Brian Walter de Stopham Barttelot’s dispute was not upheld.

The lands of the Bartelots of Stopham are a paradigmatic example of the continuity of aristocratic ownership from the Norman Conquest to the present day of much of the Sussex landscape.

… the Barttelots of Stopham have been ‘remarkably stationary both in place and condition’. It is more than likely that they descend from the Norman, Ralph, who held the manor at the time of the ‘Domesday’ survey in 1086. Stopham was one of numerous manors in Shropshire and Sussex granted by William the Conqueror to his close associate, Roger Montgomery. Roger had been keeping the peace at home at the time of the Conquest, but had been rewarded for his patience with the earldoms of Arundel and Shrewsbury. He in turn had distributed various manors among his own followers. Stopham was allotted to one Robert, who sub-let it to Ralph. Barttelot of Stopham and Westgate of Berwick, Men of Agincourt – A Quest for the Oldest Families in Sussex

The Stopham estate has degraded much of the ancient woodland it owns by replanting ancient woodland with Sweet Chestnut and vines; and they prevent public access to most of their estate, to promote game shooting of pheasants. Vineyards are monocultures reducing biodiversity, and use agrichemicals, as the South Downs National Park acknowledges Viticulture Growth Impact Assessment Aside from the immorality of shooting, the government classify pheasants as a species that cause ecological, environmental or socio-economic harm. Pheasants and partridges gobble up native vegetation, insects and reptiles, and they leave their droppings all over sensitive habitats. When they are dead, they are feeding foxes and scavengers, which then eat other protected species. Mark Avery, co-founder of Wild Justice quoted in Patrick Barkham (2020) The Guardian. Pheasant and partridge classified as species that imperil UK wildlife

What is the purpose of pheasant shooting and viticulture? Shooting days and English wine are expensive products that are only affordable to those on a high income; but they deliver profit to businesses owned by the landed gentry.

One might ask:

  • is it just for large areas of Sussex to be owned by the landed gentry simply because they have inherited it; especially when that land was originally taken from its previous owners/users a 1000 years ago
  • if you own ancient woodland should you be allowed to degrade it by replanting it for profit
  • if you own ancient woodland should you deny public access to it

As the South National Park Fittleworth Parish Habitat Survey, 2015, acknowledges, north of Fittleworth is very influenced by the estates which surround it; Barlavington, Stopham and Leconfield in the immediate vicinity, and beyond Cowdray, Goodwood and Arundel. All of these estates bar public access to much of their land, often because they run pheasant shoots.

In the words of Gerard Winstanley (1609 – 1676) leader of the “True Levellers” (Diggers): the Gentrye are all round; on each side they are found, there wisedomes so profound, to cheat us of our ground

Around Brinkwells: melancholia and folklore

From Lithersgate Common I walked to Brinkwells and explored the land around it. Brinkwells lies to the north of Fittleworth, to the East of Bedham

This is the route to Brinkwells, suggested by Elgar to a violinist friend, in a hand-drawn map of 1921. Map reproduced from Fittleworth Miscellanea. Map is in the collection of the Royal College of Music.

Brinkwells: Cottage. C17 or earlier timber-framed, refaced with stone rubble. Hipped thatched roof. Casement windows. Two storeys. … Sir Edward Elgar lived in this house from 1917-1919. He composed his cello concerto while living in the house. Historic England listing: Brinkwells He also composed there the Piano Quintet in A Minor, Op. 84 in 1919, the same year as he started the cello concerto.

[T]here’s a deeper side to Elgar’s music- a sense of introspection, loneliness, and even melancholy. This is what we hear most strikingly in the Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. It was Elgar’s last significant work, written during the summer of 1919 at “Brinkwells,” his cottage near the village of Fittleworth, Sussex. The summer before, he had been able to hear the sound of distant artillery in the night, rumbling across the English Channel from France. The Listeners Club: Elgar’s Cello Concerto: Elegy for a Vanishing World.

I know Elgar’s cello concert well; Jacqueline du Pre’s recording was played by my parents in my childhood house often. The introspective and elegiac nature of the concerto is profound, contrasting with the grand, confident style of his earlier works. Elgar withdrew from London for the quiet of the Sussex countryside, where the natural landscape restored some of his peace of mind. There, in the summer of 1919, he produced a late flowering of chamber works along with the Cello Concerto, all marked by a new simplicity and restraint. Nashville Symphony Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 Nature and landscape inspired Elgar’s music. Is the relationships between landscape and music bidirectional? Could our emotional experience of a location be influenced by our experience of music inspired by that location.

Just to the north of Brinkwells, the replanting of the ancient woodland with Sweet Chestnut was inhibited by an area of undulating land, produced by a series of streams emanating from natural springs, making replanting difficult, so veteran beeches and oaks are the dominant trees. Spring Farm just to the north of the springs takes its name from them but none of the land around the springs is farmed.

The landscape of this area of springs

Elgar’s wife Alice suggested in her diary that the Quintet was inspired by a local legend about impious Spanish monks who, having engaged in blasphemous rites, had been struck by lightning and turned into a grove of withered trees near the cottage. Alice speculated that the Quintet’s “wonderfully weird beginning” represented those sad and sinister trees. Elgar himself described the first movement as “ghostly stuff.” It begins with an eerie introduction: an austere piano motif that is interrupted repeatedly by muttering strings, followed by a sighing motif and a plaintive rising phrase from the cello. Barbara Leish Piano Quintet in A Minor, Op. 84 (1919): Program Notes Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival

Human-tree transformations, as a result of human transgressions, are common in mythology, for example in Ancient Greece it was believed that the beautiful nymph Daphne who rejected the love of Apollo and is turned into a tree as a punishment. There are no Ancient Greek written sources for this myth, just later Hellenistic ones e.g. Parthenius, 1st century BCE and the more well-known Roman poet Ovid’s version in his Metamorphoses 8th century CE.

Apollo and Daphne (ca. 1470-80) by Piero del Palaeopole (1441 – ca. 1496) oil on wood. in the National Galley, London

I can find no sources for a folklore tradition around Brinkwells concerning Spanish monks turned into trees. It is possible that Elgar’s wife created the story of impious Spanish Monks, in the context of long standing folklore traditions that trees were more than just biological components of the landscape. [I]n Anglo-Saxon culture, trees were more than just elements of the landscape. They were powerful symbols and played an active role in myth and ritual. Legends in the Leaves: Unveiling the Mystical Folklore of UK Trees

Extensive tree folklore, makes it is hard to approach trees in wooded landscapes, without the multiple uses of trees in folklore colouring our perception. On walks, we can be creative. When I see a particularly interesting tree sometimes I make up a story about it; those stories are always influenced by my knowledge of tree folklore; but you can always add a creative twist of your own, as probably Mrs Elgar and possibly Ovid did. As Sonia Overall, 2016, says: Sites where memory can no longer be directly accessed are such enigmatic places. These stories held in reserve require an interpreter. Someone willing to look at and interrogate place, to unpack and retell the stories.

Geology and landscape types of the weald

The perseverance of the small area of old woodland north of Brinkwells, that may have inspired Mrs Elgar to retell or create a legend, through the non-replanting with Sweet Chestnut there, is a function of the presence of the springs of that area, and their impact of the springs on the area’s geomorphology. Springs result from the particular geology of their location. An understanding of geology is essential to understanding the landforms of the weald.

Unusually diverse rocks and soils … underlie the exceptionally varied Sussex landscape. … Such are the rapid alterations in the geological canvas that even a short journey introduces the traveller to a number of individual scenes each with a different human imprint. These extend even to the finer details of domestic architecture or hedgerow patterns so that the study of the evolving Sussex landscape is like tracing every thread of a complicated tapestry. As S. W. Wooldridge lucidly demonstrated in The Weald, the geological map is “par excellence our guide and key” to the differing historical development of the traditional Sussex landscape. Peter Brandon (1974) The Sussex Landscape p. 19

Springs formed here north of Brinkwells where permeable sandstone (here sandstones of the Hythe Formation) meets impermeable clays (here the Atherfield Clay Formation); and they are common in the low and high weald.

If you want to know what the underling geology of where you are in Sussex, the days of getting out a paper geological map, as I did when I studied geology in 6th form (1978-80), have gone, and have been superseded by online maps that can be accessed from a smart phone anywhere you are: as long has you have reception: British Geological Survey: Geology Viewer

From Springs Farm to Bedham: Walking along a sunken trackway through the Greensand Ridg; in the footsteps, hoofsteps and trottersteps of medieval farmers and their livestock.

This part of a ‘C’ road that links Springs Farm with Bedham is a now metalled, but it is sunken trackway of medieval origin, with coppiced and pollarded beeches along its banks. Its physical depth may evoked a sense of deep time. A growing body of research suggests there are myriad psychological benefits to feeling small in the face of nature’s vastness: it dampens the ego, and can foster feelings of humility, reciprocity and generosity. Most of these studies have focused on the physical world – boundless landscapes or the enormity of the cosmos, for instance – but one recent paper, by Matthew Hornsey and colleagues, showed there are also upsides to experiencing smallness in time.  Richard Fisher (2025) The benefits of thinking about deep time in psyhce online; accessed 10.10.25

Wealden Greensand landscape … is essentially a medieval landscape with a small scale, intimate and mysterious character which is in striking contrast to the openness of the rolling chalk hills of the neighbouring South Downs. Its varied and complex landscape is comprised of a combination of clays, sand and sandstones which have produced an undulating topography of scarp and dip slopes, well wooded with ancient mixed woodland of oak, ash, hazel, field maple and birch. … Many narrow winding lanes are distinctively deeply sunken lined with trees whose exposed twisting roots grip chunks of sandstone. These lanes evolved before road surfacing and were eroded through the ages by weathering and the passage of foot, hoof and trotter as farmers drove their pigs up to the High Weald’s woodlands to feed them on
the abundance of acorns (examples of transhumance and the practice of pannage). THE WEST SUSSEX LANDSCAPE Character Guidelines Local Distinctiveness
Wealden Greensand Character Area

The light and dark areas of this geological map show the greensand ridge; which produces the high ground on which Bedham sits

Bedham School: A picturesque ruin and a reminder of rural poverty and depopulation

Walking along the ancient route from Brinkwells to Bedham Manor Farm, on the summit of the Greensand Ridge, you reach the start of a footpath heading northward through Hammonds Wood. Just a little way down that footpath, on the left is the ruin of Bedham Church

Built in 1880 as a church and school, this Bedham Church was built as a place of worship and education for the remote hamlet of Bedham. At its peak it had 60 pupils and 3 teachers. Derelict Places: Bedham Church

Standing just over two miles to the east of the small town of Petworth, in West Sussex, is an English hamlet on lands that hide a haunting ruin of a building and the story of how it came to be vacant, and almost vanished. The name of this hamlet is Bedham, and on its lands there once stood a farm, a number of houses scattered among the trees, and a school, Victorian by design. … In the midst of this green woodlands, there barely stands a church. Its history began in 1880 with a man named William Townley Mitford. A Victorian Conservative Party politician by vocation, William is tagged as the man behind this Victorian church that is erected in honor of Saint Michael and All Angels. But besides serving as a church, this structure was also used as a school. …  During Sundays, the school became a church. All of the school materials were removed, and the chairs were turned so that they faced east. Then came the rector of the small village of Fittleworth to hold the service. He was always accompanied by a lady who played the melodeon. The rest of the weekdays, the building took its regular role of a schoolhouse.

Back in the days, there were around 60 pupils–the younger pupils were children to the local charcoal burners–and no more than three teachers to take care of them. The interesting thing about this school is that it educated both children and adults. A mere curtain separated the groups. …This enchanted forests surround Bedham school and church. But over the years, the need for a school as well as a chapel slowly faded until it was no more. The end, according to some researchers, came around 1925. Brad Smithfield Vintage News: Bedham School and Church: A ghostly shell of Victorian days

Ruins and trees is a common motif in picturesque painting and literature of the 18th and 19th century. See Anna Elizabeth Burton (2017) Ruins and Old Trees: Silvicultural Landscapes and William Gilpin’s ‘Picturesque’ in the Long Nineteenth-Century Novel Picturesque is an idea introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770; travellers were urged to the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty.

The idea of the picturesque informs the way we see landscape. It is clear from the many internet blogs and articles on visits to Bedham church/school that it is a perceived as a picturesque landscape: Spooky but charming Sussex Live Reclaimed by nature, the ruins of Bedham Church and School are as beautiful as they are eerie. Experience Sussex

Seeing the ruined church school in stunning woods at Bedham is a picturesque visual pleasure; even if an eerie pleasure. It’s the sort of place that you might expect to find Sir Gerwain’s Green Knight, although the Green’s Knight’s Green Chapel was a barrow. (There are many Bronze Age burial barrows in Sussex, but they are found on the Downs not low weald; perhaps the most famous is Cissbury Ring)

In addition to a picturesque lens, Bedham Church could be seen through a sociological lens. Rural depopulation in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and rural poverty, was mostly a result of the end of the capital utility of previous forms of country employment. The psychogeography exposed by Sonia Overall in Walking Backwards: psychogeographical approaches to heritage, is based upon the political philosophy of Situationist International. Activities like walking the city aimlessly were reimagined as statements against a society that demanded production, The Art Story: Situationist International. You could see at the ruins of Bedham as a symbol of the savagery of the capitalist focus of production in causing poverty. The children left when their parents had no work and had to relocate because the capitalism had no need for the production of charcoal any more

West Sussex was a classic zone on the receiving end of the increasing economic divisions … Turmoil in rural Sussex had been rife at the turn of the century, marked by harvest failures, disorder and protest about food monopolies and inflated prices. Eric Richards  ‘West Sussex and the rural south’, The genesis of international mass migration: The British case, 1750-1900 (Manchester, 2018; online edition, Manchester Scholarship Online, 19 Sept. 2019), https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9781526131485.003.0004, accessed 9 Oct. 2025.

Hammonds Wood (a cathedral of beech)

To reach the Mens from Bedham you walk through Hammonds Woods. This wood is mostly tall forest woodland of Beech and some Pedunculate Oak, with an understory of Hawthorn, Field Maple, Yew and a great deal of Holly. Hammonds Wood is part of the Natural England The Mens SSSI and is managed as part of the Sussex Wildlife Trust The Mens Nature Reserve. The Mens is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I and a Special Area of Conservation. An area of 166 hectares (410 acres).

A cathedral of trees is a oft-used metaphor to describe awe, reverence, and the natural beautify of woods. It also suggests that nature itself can be a sacred space. Walking through Hammond Wood did fill me with are of its natural beauty; it had the feel of walking along the nave and aisle of a Romanesque (Norman) cathedral.

like Chichester’s Romanesque/ Perpendicular nave

Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On the way back to Fittleworth; the sound of a pig

On the way back to Fittleworth from Hamonds Wood I walked down the lane to the west of the Serpents Trail

I heard a snuffling sound whilst walking down the lane, and looked over a hedge and saw a pig thoroughly enjoying acorns that had fallen from a pedunculate oak in a field. The pig was not in common pasture woodland; it was in a field; it was not a native species, it was probably a Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig; it was not livestock, it was probably a pet; but the sight and sound of a pig enjoying acorns from an Oak in the countryside strangely drew me more toward the medieval past of the landscape than any other experience of the day. In the medieval period the dominant economy was pasture: the low weald was a landscape of tracks for driving pigs and other livestock to commons, where pigs nibbled acorns in the autumn and winter – the common right of pannage.

Notable vascular plants of medieval woodland shaws north-west of Cowfold, West Sussex. Low Weald. 23.10.25

Above: South-facing edge of the east-west rectangle and the weest facing edge of the north rectangle of the L-shaped unnamed shaw

Below: Shaw shown with pink line. OS Maps © Crown copyright as accessed 22/10/25

This shaw has no name. I visit it frequently because it has a special charm; it encapsulates the essence of the small parcels of ancient woodland in the Low Weald; a landscape that has preserved its medieval patten of fields, hedgerows, shaws and woodlands. To get to it I walk through Bushygrove and Bakers shaws, named shaws of a similar character to this unnamed shaw. I take the 17 bus from Brighton to Cowfold to reach it.

A shaw is a strip of woodland usually between 5 and 15 metres wide. Shaws mostly form boundaries between fields. They are usually composed of semi-natural woodland and often have diverse woodland ground vegetation similar to other semi-natural woodlands in the area. In the Low Weald shaws may be the relicts of former larger woods, or they may have developed from narrower hedgerows. A look at the Natural England map of ancient woodland shows how many shaws in West Sussex are semi-natural ancient woodland

Map from DEFRA Open Data Ancient Woodland

All sections of text in italics are quotations; sources given at the end of the quotes.

Most of the Wealden hedgerows – including shaws (narrow belts of woodland remaining when fields have been cut from woodlands) – are likely to date from the time of medieval assarts (fields derived from the general, unplanned clearance of woodlands and unenclosed commons by individuals). In Mid Sussex, as elsewhere in the Weald, there are relatively few hedgerows stemming from the formal enclosure of fields. The Weald appears to have a significant proportion of species rich/ancient hedgerows, revealed by the frequency of indicator species such as field maple, spindle and hazel. However, the data is not yet available to assess with any degree of accuracy the number, length and type of hedgerows in Sussex and its Districts. Mid Sussex District Council (2005) A Landscape Character Assessment For Mid Sussex.

Shaws are important relicts of long-lost woodland: In 1210 Beeding Manor had outlying farms in Cowfold and in 1256 the Bishop of Chichester’s chase extended down the whole East side of Cowfold Parish across to the Southwest corner and from there to near the centre of the northern boundary of the Parish. By 1257 the Cowfold tenants, customary and free, formed a distinct group. A large proportion of the Parish was woodland or orchards and remained so until the mid 18th century. Cowfold Parish Council. (2024) Cowfold Neighbourhood Plan 2019-2031. p.9

I am writing this post to “big-up” the biological importance of small, especially unnamed, shaws: to draw attention to the beauty of small patches of woodland. They are greatly under threat from development. There are many new housing development in-between the South Downs north of Brighton and the High Weald, in the Low Weald, transacted by the A281 (Pyecombe to Horsham) and the A273 (Pyecombe to Haywards Heath. As I travel on the 17 bus on the A281 or the buses 270,271, or 272 on the A273, I see the continuous building of new housing, and plans for housing are continually presented to planning authorities e.g. The Argus (21/02/25) Plans for dozens of homes near Cowfold are revealed

Sussex sits between two immovable features—the coast of the English channel and Greater London. In many places, it is the only ribbon of truly green land preventing unbroken concrete from connecting the two. … we have a legal commitment to net zero, but we are building homes in the middle of nowhere whose occupants are wholly reliant on a car to go anywhere. Andrew Griffith MP Arundel and South Downs Hansard Housing Developments: West Sussex Volume 679: debated on Monday 7 September 2020

The Low Weald lacks the higher level of protection of the South Downs, which is a National Park, and the High Weald, a National Landscape (area of outstanding natural beauty), not that that necessarily offers between protection in practice to the South Downs and High Weald

I became aware of this shaw from a map of Wild Service Trees

in Dave Bang’s excellent book.(2018) The Land of the Brighton Line: A Field Guide to the Middle Sussex and Southeast Surrey Weald 018  ISBN: 978095486382

This unnamed shaw has large maiden trees – Wild Service, Pedunculate Oak, and Ash – with an understory of Field Maple, Hazel, Hawthorn, Wild Cherry and Midland Thorn. Wild Service, Midland Thorn and Wild Cherry are ancient woodland indicators.

It’s ground flora includes the ancient woodland indicators Bluebells and Wood Anemone, in the Spring, and Butchers Broom, all year round. In a nearby stand Spurge-Laurel and Wood Spurge can be found.

This blog does not attempt to be a full survey of the vascular plants in this shaw; it is just the things I found particularly noticeable.

Ancient Woodland Indicators visible in Autumn

Sorbus torminalis Wild Service Tree

Trunk. This trunk of a maiden Wild Service Tree is covered in lichen so it hard to see the trunks morphology

Most Wild Service Trees have few lichens from my experience, but on the side which gets most light this tree had abundant lichens.

This trunk in the shaw shows the typical bark of Wild Service Tress; many Wild Service Trees in the Low Weald have been coppiced into two trunks. (e.g. the large Wild Service Tree in Furzefield Wood nr. West Grinstead and the numerous Wild Service Trees of West Wood nr. Burgess Hil)

Leaves and fruit

Crataegus laevigata, Midland Thorn

Trunk and leaves

Fruit

Midland Thorn has two (or more) seeds in their haws, whereas Hawthorns have only one

This Midland Thorn Flower on 29/04/25; with twin stigmas

Prunus avium Wild Cherry

Wild Cherries can be identified just by their trunk morphology which is so characteristic. However, in spring their white flowers are very characteristic; and in summer so are their berries. However, ripe berries are almost immediately eaten by birds; if you are lucky enough to see them, they make a very nice fruity snack on a walk

This species mostly develops single, straight trunks with a thin, smooth purplish-grey bark that becomes grey-brown with horizontal fissuring and peeling when old. Tree species | European Atlas of Forest Tree Species – Prunus avium

Wild Cherry flowers from a tree in Baker’s Shaw; 400m south of this (unnamed shaw) in the Spring

Malus sylvestris, Crab Apple – Fruit.

Theses crab apples trees were in Bushygrove Shaw. Crab Apples are easiest to identify in Autumn when their fruits are on the forest floor; just look up and you’ll see the tree(s) they came from. This autumn is a “mast year” when fruits from trees are abundant.

Ruscus aculeatus Butchers Broom

Butchers broom is a shrub which grows under trees in ancient woodlands; it’s leaves and flowers are very characteristic. Butcher’s broom leaves are not true leaves but are actually flattened stems called cladodes, with sharp spikes on the ends of the cladodes. Its flowers bloom in very early spring; and female flowers produce berries in Summer, which persist into Autumn

Butchers broom is known as an ‘ancient woodland indicator’. This is because it doesn’t colonise new habitats or spread easily to new woods; where it is growing, the wood has usually been there for a very long time. … Look beneath the deciduous trees, even in the more shaded areas.

Butchers broom is quite unlike any other British plant. It is a short evergreen bush growing up to about two feet high and all the leaves end in a pointed spike; one of its old English names is ‘knee holly’. In early spring, the tiny, pale green six-petalled flowers sit in the middle of the leaf and show that these leaves are, technically, flattened stems.

Butchers broom was used to scour butcher’s blocks until the nineteenth century. The spiky leaves seem ideal for getting into the cuts of old wooden blocks to clean them. New Forest National Park Butchers Broom

Fruit:

Ancient Woodland Indicators seen on other visits:

Euphorbia amygdaloides Wood Spurge seen on 29.08.24 in Baker’s Shaw; 400m south of this (unnamed shaw)

Anemonoides nemorosa Wood Anemone 16.04.25

Carex sylvatica Wood Sedge – seen on 29.08.24 in Baker’s Shaw; 400m south of this (unnamed shaw)

The locations of Bushygrove and Baker’s Shaws

Map above from iNaturalist community. Observation of Euphorbia amygdaloides from Cowfold, Sussex observed on 29/08. Exported from https://www.inaturalist.org on 25.10.25 showing Bushygrove and Bakers Shaw

Detail of Bushygrove and Bakers Shaw

Hyacinthoides non-scripta Bluebell in Spring 29.04.25

Daphne laureola Spurge-Laurel

In Baker’s Shaw; 400m south of this (unnamed shaw)

Mercurialis perennis Dog’s Mercury – viewed 29.04.25

Other vascular plants in the Shaw

The large maidens, with “white” lichen-covered bark, are Ash, Pedunculate Oak (and Wild Service)

The understory is Hawthorn, Field Maple, Hazel, Holly (and Midland Thorne)

Quercus robur Pedunculate Oak

Pedunculate Oaks leaves and acorns in autumn are very distinctive. In some areas of the Low Weald, especially on the Greensand Ridge there are Sessile Oaks, e.g. at Rakes Hanger, near Liss (hanger in West Sussex)

A useful guide from Natural Resources Wales

Pedunculate Oak; tree with yellow-brown leaves

Trunk of Pedunculate Oak. The sides of trunks which receive most light are often covered in lichens. This maiden Oak is on the edge of the shaw

This Oak also has a beautiful fingus growing on it:

Phaeotremella foliacea Leafy Brain

Fraxinus excelsior Ash

This maiden Ash, on the edge of the Shaw, is typical of an Ash with Ash Dieback Disease, with no leaves (in October, whilst Ash is deciduous, you would except to see some leaves)

When Ash has leaves their leaves are very characteristic; as are their samaras.

Samaras are the winged, single-seeded fruits, commonly called “ash keys, that can be seen in Autumn and Winter within the shaw were healthier Ash showing these features:

Ash is an extremely important tree for lichens; it is the tree species with the second highest diversity of lichens, according to the British Lichen Society

Ash dieback will kill up to 80% of ash trees across the UK. At a cost of billions, the effects will be staggering. It will change the landscape forever and threaten many species which rely on ash.

Varicellaria hemisphaerica is a rare UK lichen, and it is on the Ash on the south-facing edge of the shaw; this Ash is dying

Acer campestris, Field Maple

Crataegus monogyna, Hawthorn

Corylus avellana Hazel

Taxus baccata English Yew, in Baker’s Shaw

A Pin-Head lichen, ancient trees, and spring flowers at Marstakes Common, South Chailey. 22.04.25

“Markstakes Common is a small nature reserve with a mix of landscapes; grassland, ancient woodland, wood pasture and mire. Past use is likely to have been bracken harvesting, rough pasturage and ad hoc extraction of timber” Friends of Markstakes Common

I first visited Marstakes Common in the winter of 2022: Markstakes Common & Chailey Commons. Tress, Fungi, Bryophytes, Lichen and Slime Molds. 06.12.22

Marstakes us a wonderful location with much biological interest; this post focusses only on lichens and vascular plants.

The most interesting thing I saw was Calicium viride; a pin lichen, growing on Oak. I saw it just outside the boundary of the commons in ancient woodland between   It’s apotothecia is ca. 1-2mm long and is pin shaped. Theoretically “common” but incredibly difficult to see. On acid barked broad leaved trees in ancient woodland. Look out for bright green granular thallus – looks like Psilolechia lucida, but P. lucida on grows on rocks. So, if you see something like P. lucida on a tree, it might be C. viride. Pin 1-2mm long so probably need 20x hand lens or macro camera.

Soon after entering Marstakes Common, I saw a huge ancient birch, Fagus sylvatica. On it was the tiny lichen, Enterographa crassa

“A distinctive species often dominating large areas of trunk in pure mosaics of small interlocking waxy brown thalli, spotted with small dot like apothecia, which often line up in dendritic patterns. Very common in south western and Irish woodlands on humid shaded trunks. Rare to the north and east” British Lichen Society Enterographa crassa

Enterographa crassa is very difficult to see, as it is the colour of bark. It often occurs in large patches. It’s tiny apotothecia form in lines that look like lirrelate apothecia (writing-like apothecia), but they are lines of dots 0.1-0.2mm across.

Marstakes has many beautiful trees, including  Ancient Oaks, Birches, Hornbeam, Wild Cherry and Midland Hawthorn. Hornbeam (when in the middle of woods, not a boundary tree), Midland Hawthorns and Wild Cherry are ancient woodland indicator plants.

Wild Cherry (Gean), Prunus avium

Ancient Hornbeam, Carpinus betulus

Midland Hawthorn, Crataegus laevigata, with Bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, another Ancient Woodland Indicator Plants

Flowers of another Midland Hawthorn

Midland Hawthorn has two styles; ordinary Hawthorn only has one. A style of an flower is an organ of variable length that connects the ovary to the stigma. 

A stunning ancient Pendunculate Oak

and a huge Goat Willow, Salix caprea

Marstakes Common and its adjacent wood Grantham’s Rough; had a variety of ancient woodland indicator plants

Bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta

Wood Anemone, Anemonoides nemorosa

Bitchers Broom, Ruscus aculeatus

and Wood Spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides