Sussex by the sea.

There are just so many towns along the Sussex coast which I have either never been to or not for aeons. Shame on me! On my birthday I managed to tick another one off the list and am now left wondering why it took me so long to visit. Destination Seaford. 

If you love being by the sea, but are not a fan of the whole 'seaside' resort and big crowds thing then this town might just be perfect for you. There are toilets and a couple of small cafes down on the front, but none of the classic attractions and not a funfair in sight. Even the parking is free. Other than oodles of blue sky what we did get down there was this beautiful memorial bench to Claire Sumners who was a local environmental activist and very highly thought of. After the bench was unveiled in 2025, there was a community beach clean held along with a celebration of her life. At the far end you come across the long Shoal community bench which weaves it way along the jetty at Splashpoint like a silver stream. Upon its seats are many fish shaped messages. Many are of too personal a message to share here I feel, but this punning one made me smile. It all felt a little fishy in tone to me🐟 Walk further up and you will see the Martello Tower which was built in 1808 and is one of 103 national examples. It cost in the region of £18k at the time and was put up to keep old Boney from invading. Nowadays it is seeing a second life as a museum, but was closed on our visit.

Having got ourselves orientated and with one of the heritage trails downloaded we headed off up into the town to continue our meanderings.

Any visit that I'm on will almost inevitably a visit to the local church. I'm such a good tourist that I had even contacted the parish office to check the opening hours😀

St Leonard's [the patron saint of sailors] was a Norman church [the arch at the bottom of the tower is one of the remaining features from that time. It was sacked by the French and then restored in 1485 with the tower rebuilt within the old walls. It retains some lovely features as well as some glorious modern additions. I thought the ancient carving of St Michael slaying the dragon most apt as I was born on St Michael's day.

Every church has its many memorials to the great and the good from the local vicinity, but this one to Dr William Pringle is of national interest because he was the first person to officially diagnose dyslexia in an article he wrote for the B.M.A in 1896. He had noted that one of his young patients was a bright lad, but had been struggling with reading and writing. Further investigations led Pringle to discover that the problem was not down to a lack of understanding, but an issue relating to visual perception.

The font is a modern one and although pleasant to look at from afar on its oak plinth it didn't exactly blow my socks off. My reaction changed upon seeing the bowl....a stunning enamelled piece made by Mel Howse💙🩵

Part of exploring always involves a cup of coffee if it's me. Opposite the church stood a cafe with this daft sign outside. We were intrigued and it was recommended to us by two of the patrons who were just leaving as we approached. Well I have to say it was one of the high spots of the day. It's small inside and was packed. The whole time we were there everyone was bantering back and forth with the owner who gave as good as he got. In the end I couldn't resist joining in and when asked if we were from around the area I admitted that we had crossed the county border. There's always a bit of rivalry between East and West and I was reminded that the West is the place where all the rejects from East Sussex and Hampshire are sent. I laughed my socks off and the coffee tasted amazing!

Here's a few of our after lunch treasures as we finished our walk. The frontage of the chemist is still the original one with that unusual contemporary combination of lamp post and dog bowl to be seen.

What a gem. We were made to feel very welcome.

Arilx

Oh the irony.

We have been doing fortnighly reptile surveys in a couple of fields at our local nature reserve for several months. Today was the last one of the season. In all that time we've seen beautiful field mice and voles, but only one slow worm. As we walked home what did we find sunning itself in the middle of the pavement....only a stunning metallic coloured baby slow worm. I didn't fancy its chances of survival there, so rescued it and released in a safer spot nearby. 

 

Arilx

Stony faced.

I love nothing better than seeing buildings either built from or faced with stone. It tells me that I am out of my local area and the minute it's flint I know that I'm either in East Sussex or within the South Downs National Park. It's rather clever the way this cottage's name has been picked out.

Spotted whilst out walking on the Downs with a friend. Have a great weekend.

Arilx

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Keeping abreast.

The good knitting folk of Warnham have not been deterred by the fact that the village postbox is now sporting a solar panel and therefore can no longer carry a topper. They've simply transferred their woolly works to one of the pillars outside the nearby church. I know not everyone is a fan, but this one carries an important visual message during Breast Cancer month.

Arilx

Not resting in peace.

Sussex has a handful of its own saints, but I suspect you won't be surprised to hear of those only one is female. We were near her base on my big recent birthday so I went to pay homage.

This is Saint Lewinna whose feast day is 24th July and as far as I am aware nobody marks it. She is said to have been a young virgin who was murdered in the 7th century by a heathen and at a time when Sussex was still transitioning to Christianity. Ours was the last county to be converted. Upon her burial accounts began to emerge of all sorts of miracles being attributed to her and by the 10th century Eadhelm, Bishop of Chichester [950-80], no doubt sensing a chance to make some money off the pilgrim industry, ordered that her remains should be exhumed. Her relics were placed within the church of St Andrew's in Bishopstone [another contender is Alfriston, but Bishopstone is thought to be the correct site] for people to come and venerate her. Her shrine was probably within in what you can now see is the porch, but was once a side chapel. I've seen porches of that size in East Anglia, but not round here.

You might imagine that Lewinna might have had a few hundred years of resting in peace at least until the time of the break with Rome under Henry VIII. Alas she was soon on the move again. According to the historical sources a monk called Balgerus was due to be sailing from Flanders to Dover, but enroute he got blown off course and wound up in Seaford on Easter Monday 1058 where he stumbled across this very church. He decided that he rather fancied having a personal relic of his own from Lewinna, but the priest refused his request. This monk though was a wily old fox and he wasn't going to give up that easily. Instead he asked if he could spend the night praying and saying mass by her shrine. He appears to have laid his morals aside at this point and managed to break into the end of her coffin from which he stole all of her bones bar a couple of small ones. These he wrapped in a red cloth and made good his escape back to St Winoc's Abbey, Bergues [near Dunkirk] from whence he came. 

By 1224 Lewinna had her very own grand and shiny new shrine in the abbey, but by 1383 it had been sacked by the allies of Charles VI of France. The shrine was stripped of all the precious metals, but the relics remained until 4th July 1558 when the abbey was burnt to the ground by French Protestants. Only one of her ribs was left which by 1905 was still within the church of St Martin's [still in the same area]. Alas this church was bombed in WWII and upon its restoration no trace of the single rib remained. Now all we have is her name and echoes of her story stretching back across a thousand years.

This is not the only reason I stopped here as it has this rather fabulous Saxon dial above the porch. Upon it is etched the name of Eadric. No one knows who this mysterious chap was, but one theory is that the cross next to him may denote that he was a bishop.

I'll show you where I spent the rest of my day in the next post.

Arilx

Changing roles

There's a first time for everything and last weekend TYM led us on a walk that he had planned. Up to now the boot has been on the other foot, but it felt really good to let someone else be in the driving seat. Unusually for me I knew that we were going to Silchester and that was it. Hadn't done a scrap of research so went preparing to be surprised.

First off I didn't know where the location was. It turned out that we'd parked in Berkshire and yet within a few hundred metres we had crossed the county border into Hampshire. Of course, I had to do that thing where you stand in two places at once, but I resisted the temptation of a photo recording the moment. It's hardly on the same scale of being in two countries at one or both sides of the equator is it now😀 I was intrigued by that Camino Ingles sign. It turns out that for a short while we were on St James' Way which runs for 68 miles from Reading Abbey to God's House in Southampton and is part of the English Way [one of the official pilgrim routes crisscrossing the country]. It follows the old Roman road and therein lay my biggest clue....

By the early years of the first century CE the Iron Age Atrebates tribe had established a successful base called Calleva here which had passed into Roman hands within a few years of their invasion in 43CE. The Romans built upon the success of their forebears and over time it became a thriving town laid out on the classic grid system with temples, a forum basilica, dwellings, shops, places of work, public baths, a mansio [a type of rest house for travellers like the Travel Lodge of its day] by the South Gate and even an amphitheatre at the eastern end. The remains of the amphitheatre were far more extensive than I had expected. Having spoken to a chap who was exploring too he said that it used to be flooded. Back in the day it would have seen much violence with gladiatorial combats, executions and wild animal fights. Horse bones were discovered here.

For a place that was so successful it inevitably went into decline once the Romans left, but did not follow the more usual trajectory of such places. Often you will find that over a time a Medieval town would replace it, but by the time of Domesday it is recorded as being a Medieval village and even that had disappeared by 1400. All we have remaining today are the original Roman walls with a couple of its gates. You can walk round them looking down on the original site and the 12th century church of St Mary's. Naturally I took the opportunity to have a quick lap round...not much time to dally though with the chaps with me and most of the walk still to do!

It has a charming interior with 14th century wall paintings, a Jacobean pulpit with that rather impressive domed tester above it [it acts as a sound board], a 15th century wooden angelic screen with a modern stitched kneeler to match and the effigy of Eleanor Baynard [or possibly not]. I have included her accompanying notes as they contain some interesting information about her attire and details of her tomb for anyone who might be interested to read more.

All in all a most splendid of days spent together in our little family unit. TYM even took us out for a drink to the pub afterwards. It was lovely to spend a few hours together as these times don't come around very often. We were actually helping him to recce part of the walk that he's leading for a group next month. I hope that those on it enjoy it as much as we did. Although it's owned by English Heritage, it is free entry.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Arilx

Famous Last Words

Do you remember thoses famous words uttered by Sir Steve Redgrave immediately after he'd won gold at the 1996 Atlantic Olympics "Anyone who sees me anywhere near a boat again, ever, you've got permission to shoot me." As we now know he won his 5th gold in Sydney in 2000.

 I swore after making the wizard mask and remaking my own mask there would be no more (bar me doing the sewing David made the wren) and for two years I have stuck to my pledge. Unfortunately my busy brain spotted a gap in the market and decided it would be rather marvellous to have a green lady to accompany our greenman and she'd come in handy for a few of our stories. I checked with the Squire who was in agreement so here we go again. Having only myself to blame and knowing how difficult I find it to pin down a final design it's taken a few drafts to get there. Thankfully it all fell into place last week. The Squire is very happy with it so here we go again. There are many, many hours ahead of sewing to get it and her accompanying tatter jacket stitched. I am aiming to finish by the Spring. When will I ever learn eh💚

Arilx