Kirdford Tales

With more comfortable temperatures over the weekend I fancied doing a morning walk locally which would leave me with the afternoon free to get other stuff done. A three miler from nearby Kirdford exactly fitted the bill.

Now I really rather like this small Sussex village. It's got lots of ridiculously gorgeous old houses, two [yes two] thriving pubs and a delightful shop which was bought out by the local community a few years ago and continues to be run by them. Some of the earliest industries recorded were iron and glass making and the 20th century village sign plays homage to both with the decorative ironwork and diamond glass panel on top. Both needed large amounts of wood to make their end product and eventually the more lucrative iron industry saw off its less successful competitor. Over the years of the glass making sites have been identified by the glass shards in the ground and in a nod to this part of the history several were collected and made into this fragmented stained glass window in the parish church. Since those days many shops and trades have come and gone, but my personal favourite was learning of the walking stick business which switched to making crutches for the soldiers during WWI.

The walk itself mainly took us through woods and round the edges of fields so nothing out of the ordinary, but one thing you will often encounter on any amble of this type round here is sheep. The one with the horns gave us a very fierce stare and stood his ground and as for the ones with the chocolate brown fleeces and white faces I have never seen the like. My ovine knowledge is very poor [as in I know nothing] so haven't a clue as to what these two particular type of possible heritage breeds are.

This was our view from our coffee break....definitely moodier skies than we'd had the previous few days, but thankfully we managed to dodge the forecast rain showers.

This is a grave I have searched for before, but without success. I looked it before we went this time as I thought that I stood more chance if I knew what shape to look out for. It paid dividends, but the epitaph has almost completely disappeared. It marks the burial of five young lads aged between 13 and 19 who worked at Sladeland House [now demolished] baking and brewing. All shared an unheated room at the top of the house and their nightly routine was to bring up a bucket of hot ashes from the brick ovens to keep themselves warm. Tragically the carpenter mended the broken window in their room without telling them and they suffocated from smoke inhalation on 21st January 1838. Two of the boys were brothers and their family must have been totally heartbroken. A rather unbelievable tale recalls that a local gamekeeper was murdered by a poacher and from thereon in the grass never grew again on the spot where he fell and the bare earth remained in the shape of a cross.

Admittedly I have featured this Temperance movement plaque before which is on the wall outside the former vicarage. The rumour is that some who dwelt within didn't pay it much attention and I have to admit that we didn't heed the warning either. Instead we headed straight for the Foresters Arms and a most welcome half pint of Fursty Ferret😋

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

꩜Aril꩜