Category Archives: Local History

Mapping the woods

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Aerial photo versus LiDAR showing hidden archaeological features

A regular aerial photo compared with a LiDAR image of the same area. The latter reveals archaeological features that are hidden in the former.

The BBC reports that:

Ann Bone, the authority’s cultural heritage expert, said laser technology on a plane would be used to produce a map of the landscape under the trees. Archaeological work on the ground would then follow .. Maps will be created of the most densely-wooded area from the River Arun to the A3 road. .. Data gathered by directing a laser at the ground and measuring the reflected light would provide a three-dimensional map showing all the “humps and bumps” under the forest.

The £935,756 project has received nearly £662,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and up to £130,000 from the park authority.

Update: the SDNPA press release.

The Old Bakehouse

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The Old Bakehouse viewed from the north

The Old Bakehouse viewed from the north, around 1900: the white rendered building with the sign above the door is the bake house, corn store, shop, and post office. It was demolished in the mid twentieth century. The flint-faced building to its immediate right is the cottage that one sees today. The Shepherd and Dog public house can be seen behind the horses and the Downs loom beyond that.

The Old Bakehouse is a Grade II listed cottage dating from the early nineteenth century. It has a slate roof and is faced with flints. It is believed to stand on the site of an earlier building, one that would have been built at around the same the same time as its immediate neighbour, the Shepherd and Dog public house (the earlier building may be the one whose roof can be seen behind the pub in this lithograph).

For most of the nineteenth century the building provided both a home and a workplace for members of the Willett family. Edward (born in Ditchling, c1796) and his wife Elizabeth (born in Hurstpierpoint, c1796) had moved to Fulking from Beeding some time between 1824 and 1831. They were living in the house in 1841 with their seven children and a male relative of Edward’s, probably his twin brother. Edward worked as a shoemaker with the assistance of his eldest son, also called Edward. By 1851, Edward Snr. had added grocery to his shoemaking business and now had the assistance of three of his sons. One of his daughters, Margaret, had become a school mistress at the local school, and his youngest daughter, Sarah, had gone to work as a servant for the Blaker family in Perching Manor. At some point Edward Snr. excavated the rock face on the west side of the house and built a wood fired oven, which became the basis of the bakery. Dough was prepared with yeast obtained from the brewery in Poynings and mixed with water that potatoes had been cooked in.

In 1853, Edward Jnr. married Ann Burtenshaw, a shoe binder from Edburton. They were to have four children. By 1861, they had moved out of the Old Bakehouse and were living elsewhere in the village. But both Edward and Ann continued to work in the family shoemaking business, as did Edward’s younger brother Joseph who was still living with his parents. The shop now included a corn store and the local post office franchise. Edward Snr. died in 1863 and his widow took over the shop. Joseph got married in 1866 and moved to another house in the village with his wife before moving to Poynings. Edward Jnr. had added market gardening to his portfolio of activities by 1866, perhaps to supply the family grocery.

The Old Bakehouse family group

The Old Bakehouse in a photograph that was probably taken by an itinerant commercial photographer in the mid 1860s[1]: the sign above the shop reads “O.Lucas & E.Willett Bake house & Corn Store [illegible] POST OFFICE”. Standing in the centre, immediately behind the wall, is Edward Willett with his wife Ann. Below them is his recently widowed mother, Elizabeth, with her five grandchildren Edward, Percy, Rhoda, Abby, and Fanny. The woman standing behind Edward and Ann Willett may be Edward’s sister Sarah, the mother of Percy.

At the time the photograph above was taken, O[badiah] Lucas worked in the shop as an assistant, probably in connection the post office side of the business. He did not live in Fulking or Edburton. His son, also called Obadiah, was to marry Edward Willett’s youngest daughter, Rhoda, in 1891.

Some time after the death of his father and prior to 1871, Edward and his family moved back into the Old Bakehouse. His mother had moved to Cuckfield and died there in 1873. In 1871 Edward’s son was working as an agricultural labourer whilst his eldest daughter, following the precedent set by her aunt Margaret, had become a school teacher. By 1881, the household had shrunk to four with Fanny and Rhoda still living with their parents. The census lists Edward as a shoemaker and general dealer, his wife Ann as a baker, Fanny as a dressmaker and Rhoda as shopwoman. With the exception of the addition of a young female servant, the household was just the same a decade later. The 1891 census now lists Edward as a baker and grocer, Rhoda as a bakery and grocery assistant, and Fanny as a dressmaker. The Kelly’s Directory for 1891 continues to list shoe making as one of Edward’s activities. Rhoda married Obadiah Lucas Jnr. in December that year and left Fulking for some years.

At some point between 1891 and 1899, Edward took over the other shop in the village and moved his business there. The Old Bakehouse was sold with a covenant that prevented it being reopened as a shop. Edward died in 1905, the year after his wife. His new shop passed into the hands of Rhoda and Obadiah.

The Old Bakehouse seen from the south

The Old Bakehouse viewed from the south, around 1900

In 1949 the property was sold to John Franks who submitted plans for demolition of the former shop and conversion of the 19th century cottage to form the dwelling that stands on the site today. One of the features removed was an outside staircase that gave access to a bedroom — not very pleasant on a winter’s night. He also cut away the rock in the area where a large garage stands today, to provide a level piece of ground for his pig and chicken pens. A quarry tile floor and a flight of worn steps was discovered in this area when the footings for the present day garage were excavated. What could be salvaged of these was incorporated into the top garden of the cottage. John Franks sold the property in 1952 and the new owners then rented it out. In 1981 part of the grounds was sold to the owners of 2 Septima Cottages to increase the size of their garden. The present owners purchased The Old Bakehouse in 1986. Like many other houses in Fulking, the cottage has been carefully restored and still retains certain original features, including wide, polished, floorboards and some internal doors.

The Old Bakehouse in 2007

The Old Bakehouse in 2007


Tony Brooks

Listing details:

Early C19. Two storeys. Two windows. Faced with flints, now painted. Slate roof. Casement windows. Trellised wooden porch with pediment.

Footnote

[1] Photography was a complicated and labour-intensive activity in the 1860s. Commercial photographers toured rural areas with large plate cameras and mobile darkrooms. Sunday was a favoured day since potential customers were already dressed for church. Note how the youngest boy (Percy) moved his head during the long exposure.

[Copyright © 2013, Anthony R. Brooks. Adapted and revised from Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 175-177, 249-250.]

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The Roadmender Myth

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St. Andrew's Edburton

“The little church at the foot of the grey-green down”, or so runs the title of this photograph of St. Andrew’s, Edburton in a 1922 edition of The Roadmender. But was it?

Margaret Barber (1869-1901), ‘MB’ henceforth, was the author of The Roadmender, a book of Christian allegory and Anglican mysticism that became a major best-seller in the English-speaking world following its posthumous publication as a book in 1902 under the name ‘Michael Fairless’. Its popularity proved to be enduring — it had sold more than 150,000 copies by 1910 and there had been over thirty reprints by December 1912. By 1930, there had been some fifty reprints. After the war Duckworth reprinted the book yet again, Citadel Press produced an edition with illustrations by Helen Monro Turner in 1948 and, as late as 1950, Collins released another new edition with specially commissioned woodcuts by Lennox Paterson. The book remains readily available today with dozens of versions listed on Amazon, including modern reprints. There’s even a Kindle edition.

A portrait of Margaret Barber by Elinor Dowson

Margaret Barber by Elinor Dowson
(drawn from a photograph)

The book was written, originally as a series of pieces for The Pilot, in 1900 and 1901, partly in a house in Cheyne Walk, London, and partly at Mockbridge House in Shermanbury, just north of Henfield. MB, a young woman of independent means and artistic inclination, had been in poor health for much of her life, eventually succumbing to kidney failure and tuberculosis in August 1901. By 1900, she was too ill to continue with sculpture and took to writing instead. A total of three books were to be published posthumously.

Although The Roadmender is suffused with a sense of location it is, more often than not, inexplicit as to exactly which locations the author had in mind [1]. But readers, reviewers, book illustrators and authors of travel guides are curious about such matters. They had to wait ten years even to discover who the author was. That information was released in 1912 by her literary executor, against the author’s express wish, as an antidote to the misinformed speculation that had developed around the book. One reference in the book was unambiguous even before her identity became known — from the house in Shermanbury she reports hearing the bells of “the monastery where the Bedesmen of St. Hugh watch and pray” (page 44). Other references, to the Thames and the Downs are less specific. Books with titles like The Roadmender Country (Lorma Leigh, 1922) and The Roadmender’s Country (George Bramwell Evens, 1924) were published to sate the geographical curiosity of her readers some two decades after the book that inspired them was originally published.

Lorma Leigh 1922 The_Roadmender_Country

The location that concerns this post is the subject of the following passage:

On Sundays my feet take ever the same way. First my temple service, and then five miles tramp over the tender, dewy fields, with their ineffable earthy smell, until I reach the little church at the foot of the grey-green down. Here, every Sunday, a young priest from a neighbouring village says Mass for the tiny hamlet, where all are very old or very young — for the heyday of life has no part under the long shadow of the hills, but is away at sea or in service. There is a beautiful seemliness in the extreme youth of the priest who serves these aged children of God. He bends to communicate them with the reverent tenderness of a son, and reads with the careful intonation of far-seeing love. To the old people he is the son of their old age, God-sent to guide their tottering footsteps along the highway of foolish wayfarers; and he, with his youth and strength, wishes no better task. Service ended, we greet each other friendly — for men should not be strange in the acre of God; and I pass through the little hamlet and out and up on the grey down beyond. Here, at the last gate, I pause for breakfast; and then up and on with quickening pulse, and evergreen memory of the weary war-worn Greeks who broke rank to greet the great blue Mother-way that led to home. I stand on the summit hatless, the wind in my hair, the smack of salt on my cheek, all round me rolling stretches of cloud-shadowed down, no sound but the shrill mourn of the peewit and the gathering of the sea. [The Roadmender, pages 10-11]

Over the last hundred years, it has been widely assumed, by those who have had occasion to care about such matters, that “the little church at the foot of the grey-green down” is St. Andrew’s at Edburton. Writing in the Observer in 1921, Arthur Anderson made the claim explicitly. Such was also clearly the working assumption of Will F. Taylor, the photographer who did the illustrations for a 1922 US edition published by E.P. Dutton and whose image of St. Andrew’s can be seen at the top of this post. In the 1950s F.A. Howe, who lived right next door to St. Andrew’s, reported that devotees of the book would occasionally turn up at the church. The 1999 edition of Tony Wales’s survey of West Sussex villages provides a modern example and is quite explicit: “St. Andrew .. is the little grey church in Michael Fairless’s strange Sussex book” (page 90).

Margaret Barber drawn from life by Elinor Dowson in July 1901

Margaret Barber in July 1901
(drawn from life by Elinor Dowson)

From a purely cartographic perspective, the claim is plausible. St. Andrew’s is a small church and it does indeed sit at the foot of the Downs. Furthermore, it is the only such church that is approximately five miles distant from Shermanbury. But if one regards the quoted passage as a bit of quasi-autobiography, then the plausibility drains away. MB’s only first-hand knowledge of Sussex came from the period at the end of her life when she lived with the Dowson family. She was an invalid requiring assistance even to get from her ground-floor bedroom to the garden outside. It is inconceivable that she could ever have walked from Shermanbury to Edburton, much less ascended the steep Downs escarpment behind the church. So the passage cannot be a chunk of her own biography describing St. Andrew’s. Could it perhaps be a poetic adaptation of a contemporary report of a walk taken by a member of the Dowson family or someone else that she knew in Shermanbury? This seems very unlikely for a reason given by F.A. Howe: “there is no period at this time when the living was vacant, involving the ministrations of a priest from another parish” (1958, page 61).

As Howe notes, Anderson was to withdraw his claim just three years after he originally made it:

When I wrote my Observer articles, I hazarded the suggestion that this little church could be no other than Edburton, which fits, and alone fits, the geographical conditions, but I have learned since that though Michael Fairless had in mind an actual church it was one in another English county, far from Sussex. My suggestion has, however, not only been adopted by others; it has been expanded into an assertion that Michael Fairless herself often kneeled before the altar here [2]. For this statement there will henceforth be no warrant, though I daresay the suggestion, once having been made, will still be repeated and to Edburton will still be attributed this association. [Quoted by Howe 1958, page 61.]

Anderson is probably incorrect in taking full responsibility for the original claim — others surely made the same inference that he had. But his pessimism about ever getting it corrected it was clearly appropriate. The myth lives on.

The White Gate, an etching by Will G. Mein from the endpapers of Scott Palmer & Haggard 1913

The White Gate, an etching by Will G. Mein from the endpapers of Scott Palmer & Haggard 1913. This was a real gate, visible from MB’s room in Mockbridge House. MB used it as a symbol of the point of transition from life on earth to “a land from which there is no return” (page 158).

Footnotes

[1] Likewise, the book rarely names contemporary figures. But MB makes an exception for John Ruskin who had died at exactly the point that she had begun writing The Roadmender. She seems to have had no fear about encountering him in the hereafter:

John Ruskin scolded and fought and did yeoman service, somewhat hindered by his over-good conceit of himself. [The Roadmender, page 139]

[2] And, of course, MB’s grave is not to be found in the churchyard at St. Andrew’s, Edburton. There is no reason for it to be there. It was her wish that she be buried at St. Giles, Shermanbury but the old churchyard was closed for interments at the time of her death (The Landmark VI.1, 1924, page 602). Instead, her grave is to be found at St. James, Ashurst.

References

  • Alan Barwick (2013) “Notes for The Roadmender talk”. Henfield Museum: manuscript. [This paper is the single best source for the biographical details of MB’s brief life and is based, in part, on a recent bequest of documents to the museum. The illustrated talk itself includes a remarkable collection of modern and historical images that document aspects of that life.]
  • Michael Fairless (1902) The Roadmender. London: Duckworth. [As noted in the text above, the book remains readily available. You can also download it as a PDF file, or read it on the web.]
  • F.A. Howe (1958) A Chronicle of Edburton and Fulking in the County of Sussex. Crawley: Hubners Ltd, page 61. [Howe’s single paragraph on this topic inspired the present post — which also borrows the section title he used in his contents list.]
  • W. Scott Palmer & A.M. Haggard (1913) Michael Fairless: Her Life and Writings. London: Duckworth (PDF). [The first author was MB’s close friend and literary executor, Mary Dowson, and the second was MB’s eldest sister. The book includes two portraits of MB by Elinor Dowson, both reproduced above. MB was known as Marjorie Dowson for the final few years of her life.]
  • Tony Wales (1999) The West Sussex Village Book. Newbury: Countryside Books, page 90.

GJMG
The end of The Roadmender

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Fulking Post Office

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Fulking Post Office E Willett

Fulking Post Office as it was around 1900 soon after the proprietor, Edward Willett, had moved the franchise there from its previous location adjacent to the Shepherd & Dog. The sign above the door describes the shop as a “family grocer, draper and baker”. Note the Nestle’s Milk hoarding to the left of the door and the brick pillar Post Office letter box to the immediate right. The building to the right is the Old Farmhouse.

The Old Post Office, as it is now known, is a Grade II listed house in the centre of Fulking. The current house comprises two cottages. The newer cottage was built straight on to the front of the older cottage and is thus the part that one sees from the road today. The cottage at the rear is much older and may date back four centuries. In the garden behind the house are the ruins of a third old cottage which was destroyed by fire in the 1920s. Also behind the house is an old bakehouse together with a large, brick built, underground water tank. The latter was used to store water for the bakery. It was filled from the village water supply system and the supply valve is still situated in the tank. The house shares a wall with its neighbour, the Old Farmhouse. The two houses were originally separate but, at some point, the roof of the Old Farmhouse was extended west and thus the two houses became attached. There was once even a communicating door between the two houses. These changes presumably date from the period in the nineteenth century when both buildings were occupied by the Stevens family (see below).

In 1851 and 1861, the shop was run as a grocers by the Welling family (William Welling was also a builder). By 1871 the shop had passed into the hands of Charles and Orpha Mitchell, a young couple who ran it as a grocers and drapers with the aid of an assistant. Throughout this entire period, the Old Farmhouse had been in the hands of the Stevens family. In 1881, Emily Graimes (née Stevens), a widow, and her sister Susannah Stevens, were running a grocery, bakery and drapers shop in the adjacent building. By 1891, the shop had passed into the hands of young siblings Joseph and Elizabeth Newman. During all of this period since 1851, there had been two shops in Fulking, the other one being the Bake House, Corn Store & Post Office owned by Edward Willett and located next to the Shepherd and Dog in a house that is now called the Old Bakehouse. Some time after 1891, Edward Willett closed his own premises and took over his competitor’s. The new Willett enterprise combined the roles of grocer, draper, baker and post office in a single shop.

Fulking Post Office

A postcard showing Fulking Post Office in the very early years of the twentieth century. Note the addition of the bay display window. It is likely that Obadiah and Rhoda Lucas are the couple in the photograph, together with their son James who was born in 1892. James was to die in France in 1916 and his name is recorded on the war memorial in the church in Edburton.

Edward Willett died in 1905, aged 81, the year after his wife. By then Fulking Post Office, as the shop was known, had passed into the hands of his daughter Rhoda and her husband Obadiah Lucas. They had married in 1891 when Rhoda was 30 and Obadiah 22. Obadiah’s father, also called Obadiah, had worked for Edward Willett when the latter’s shop had been in its original location, as had Rhoda herself. Rhoda’s husband was also a shop assistant by trade but he had been working in Brighton at least until the time of his marriage.

Delivery Van 2

A Lucas Stores, Fulking & Beeding delivery van from the early 1900s, probably an Albion. Albion vans were built in Scotland and had a reputation for reliability. Harrods ran a fleet of them.

Frank Lucas, a relative of Obadiah’s, was the proprietor of a grocery and provisions store in Upper Beeding. The Fulking and Upper Beeding shops adopted the name ‘Lucas Stores’ and operated in tandem with shared delivery vans. The vans were garaged one behind the other, in a long narrow building that is still situated beside Jasmin Cottage on the opposite side of the road to the shop. A bulk paraffin tank, used to fill up customers’ containers, was installed at the back of this garage.

Beeding Grocery and Provision Stores

Beeding Grocery & Provision Stores, proprietor F.H. (Frank) Lucas

As time went on Lucas Stores expanded to include Lucas General Stores at the Post House in Small Dole and a branch in Bolney run by Fred Lucas (also a relative). Since the Fulking store included a bakery, it supplied bread to the other shops. The shops prospered. Obadiah himself died in 1930 aged 61. It is possible that Rhoda ran the Fulking store by herself for a time but, by some time in the mid-1930s, Obadiah’s younger son Percy had taken over.

Delivery Van 1

A Lucas Stores, Grocer & Baker Model T Ford delivery van c1920, outside the Fulking shop. The man on the right is Obadiah’s younger son, Percy.

Ken Browne, who was born at the Dyke Hotel and later lived in Yew Tree Cottage, recalled working for Percy at the shop between 1937 and 1939. His duties included serving in the shop, delivering bread, and collecting orders. Percy inspected his staff every morning before they started work, to check that they had clean, white aprons on and that their hands and fingernails were well scrubbed. Two men worked in the bakery, two more in the shop and two drove the vans – one for the area north of the village and the other for the south – delivering bread and groceries and collecting orders that Percy would then deliver personally the following day. In addition to this, other local deliveries were made on a bicycle.

In their heyday, probably during the 1930s, the Fulking and Small Dole shops employed nine men full-time and sold almost everything that local people needed. During the Second World War, business was sustained by the government rationing programme. Because there were relatively few cars and petrol was strictly rationed, people shopped locally and village shops thrived.

In addition to being a shrewd businessman, Percy was popular and well respected and those who knew him spoke highly of him. Whenever possible he was prepared to help his customers by allowing them credit until pay-day, cooking special cakes (including Christmas cakes) in the bread oven when it was not in use, and even cooking turkeys and puddings for customers at Christmas.

Inside Fulking Post Office Stores

A crude but informative drawing by George Ridge showing the interior of the shop in the Percy Lucas era

During the 1950s, the development of large grocery chains, such as Sainsbury’s, Home and Colonial and International Stores began to have an impact on village shops. Running a car was becoming more affordable and people were thus able to shop further afield. Percy recognised this and sold the shop in the 1960s.

Ownership then passed through several hands until Robin and Marlene Howarth purchased the premises in 1972. They made some major changes, including demolishing a flint stable in the back garden and replacing it with a tearoom. However they were refused planning permission for a two-storey guest accommodation extension. Nevertheless, the tearoom was a great success. The profits were augmented by a modest income from the shop and post office and the business as a whole provided seasonal employment for several people from the village. In the 1980s the shop passed into the hands of Ted Croxton and his wife but business had started to decline and the property was once again put on the market.

In 1985 Gill and Stuart Milner purchased the shop. The tearoom was closed and the shop concentrated on running the small post office and selling mainly local Sussex produce including fresh baked bread, honey, vegetables, free range eggs and Horton’s ice cream as well as sweets, groceries and frozen food. Later a range of art, crafts, aerial photographs taken by a local pilot, clocks repaired by a local resident, small antiques and antique books was added to the stock, along with a selection of maps and postcards. Also on sale, of special interest for visitors to the village, was a small guide, entitled A Walk Down The Street, written and published by Stuart Milner.

Fulking Post Office Stores

Fulking Post Office Stores as it was in the early 1990s shortly before it closed and returned to being a private house after well over a century as a shop. It looks very little different today but a red Post Office letter box outside on the garden wall by the road serves as a reminder of the role that it once played in village life.

The severe winter of 1987 brought a heavy snowfall to Fulking and the village was cut off for 3 days. The shop suddenly became alive with eager customers. Eventually, however, it was no longer economic to keep the village shop open and it closed in 1995. The building was converted to residential use and renamed “The Old Post Office”. The area that was the original shop floor has been retained as one large, long room and the tea room and original 1900s bakery areas also remain largely unchanged. The exterior façade of the building has been preserved and still appears much as it does on old postcards of Fulking.

Tony Brooks

Listing details:

The Post Office Stores and house attached to the east. One building. Early Clg. Two storeys. Three windows. Faced with cobbles on first brick dressings, quoins and stringcourse. Slate roof. Glazing bars intact on first floor. Projecting shop window on west half of ground floor.

[Copyright © 2013, Anthony R. Brooks. Adapted from Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 38-46, 159-159, 420.]

Updated with corrections in June 2015.

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Fulking from the air in April 1946

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Fulking from the air, April 19th, 1946

Fulking, April 19th, 1946: click the image to see it at the original size.

The University of Sussex has released a large archive of aerial photos of Sussex taken in 1946. You can view (and download) the full photo from which the above fragment was extracted and there is a slightly clunky interactive map that allows you to get at neighbouring images. You click on the green plane symbols to access the photos.

The Steep Grade Railway 1897-1909

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The Steep Grade Railway 1A

The engine house/station, platforms and one of the two cars (in red) — note the two large cylindrical water tanks adjacent to the engine house.

James Henry Hubbard, the great Victorian entrepreneur of Dyke entertainment, conceived of linking Poynings to his amusement park with a funicular railway in 1896. It was designed by Charles O. Blaber who was also the engineer for the railway that linked Brighton to the Dyke and it was constructed by a yacht building firm from Southwick. The funicular was built in six months and opened in July 1897. Unlike the aerial cableway that had opened three years earlier, the funicular was not at the leading edge of engineering design. Funicular railways first appeared in the sixteenth century and were in common use throughout the world by the end of the nineteenth century. At least so far as the UK was concerned, 1897 was almost the end of the funicular era. For example, the industrial funicular built at Offham Chalk Pit in East Sussex in 1808 had been shut down in 1870. A company that still builds funiculars today reports that none were constructed between 1902 and 1992. The only unusual feature of the Steep Grade Railway is that it was built inland. Almost all UK passenger funiculars have been built in coastal towns (there are two in Hastings, for example). The best known exception to this seaside generalization is the funicular at Bridgnorth in Shropshire. Like those in Hastings, this little railway remains in use today. But the Bridgnorth funicular links two halves of a town, not a tiny village and an isolated hotel cum funfair. With the benefit of hindsight, the Steep Grade Railway made no economic sense at all.

The Steep Grade Railway 2A

Another view of the engine house/station at the top of Dyke Hill

A funicular railway is one in which a cable is looped round a pulley at the top of a slope and two cars are attached, one at either end. One car ascends as the other descends. In the ideal world of school physics, the two cars exactly balance, cables have no mass, and gravity can be removed from the equation. The only role of the associated engine is to overcome the forces of friction. In the real world, the cars almost never balance (passenger numbers will differ, for example), wire cables are heavy, and changes in the gradient mean that the gravitational pull of the cars depends on where they are on the tracks. So the engine has some serious work to do.
Hornsby Ackroyd oil engine 1904
The engine in the case of the Steep Grade Railway was a water cooled 25HP Hornsby Ackroyd oil engine similar to the Crossley engine that powered the aerial cableway. The engine ran continuously and was combined with an elaborate clutch and braking system.

The Steep Grade Railway 3
The cars were open and had seats for twelve passengers plus space for a conductor and bicycles. They moved at a sedate 3mph along a 3ft narrow gauge track. The track was 840ft long spread over three different gradients and rose to a height of 395ft. There was a brick platform at the bottom of the track and spring buffers, but no station. A newspaper report published a few days after the opening ceremony tells us that:

The cars do not move rapidly but are kept well under control from first to last. They travel easily, and smoothly, and there is an utter absence of anything in the way of sensation. The journey is certainly a curious one, but that is all. Of course it is pleasant, the cars affording a charming view of the country, and there is the further attraction of the novelty of the whole thing. [Brighton Gazette, 29th July 1897, quoted by Clark 1976, pages 56-58.]

A couple of weeks later, the same newspaper reported (indirectly) that the August bank holiday traffic on the funicular was at the rate of 400-600 passengers per hour. “Good business”, as they put it. But it wasn’t to last.

The Steep Grade Railway 4

The Steep Grade Railway viewed from the bottom of the track showing a passenger waiting and the two cars passing.

By 1899 the company that owned and operated the Steep Grade Railway was effectively bankrupt and the railway itself had stopped working. More money was borrowed, the railway was repaired and then, in 1900, it was sold at auction to the original owners for less than 5% of the original building cost. Operations resumed and continued until 1908 or 1909. James Henry Hubbard himself had emigrated to Canada in 1907 after getting into financial difficulties. Although the funicular was used to ship provisions up to the hotel, as well as produce en route to Brighton by rail, it may nonetheless have contributed to Hubbard’s difficulties: the day-trippers from Brighton upon whom he relied for most of his income undoubtedly used it to visit the tearooms in Poynings and Fulking, thus reducing custom at the various eating establishments and other attractions that he ran at the top of the Downs. Meanwhile, a direct bus service to Poynings had been introduced — which surely made the rail route to Brighton over the Dyke seem much less attractive to residents of that village. The Steep Grade Railway was finally dismantled and removed around 1913.

The Steep Grade Railway 5A

All that remains today — the foundations of the engine house

If one stands at the western edge of Poynings on a sunny evening and looks up at the Downs, the route that the funicular track took can still be seen quite clearly, looking much as it did one hundred years ago.

References and further reading:

  • Paul Clark (1976) The Railways of Devil’s Dyke, Sheffield: Turntable Publications. Chapter 5, pages 52-62. [Although long out of print, this booklet remains the best source of information about the Steep Grade Railway. It contains plenty of ceremonial, commercial, financial and technical details that are not repeated here.]

  • Carole Hampson (2009) Poynings Yesterday. Hove: StewART Publishing Services. Pages 141-142.

  • Ernest Ryman (1984) The Devil’s Dyke: A Guide. Brighton: Dyke Publications. Pages 7-9.

  • Ernest Ryman (1990) Devil’s Dyke in Old Picture Postcards. Brighton: Dyke Publications. Pages 20-23.

  • South Downs National Park Authority (2013) Offham Chalk Pit near Hamsey, East Sussex. SDNPA flyer.

GJMG

Updated May 2017.

Some other material relevant to the C19 and C20 history of the Dyke:

Perching Barn

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Perching Farm as it was in 1842

Perching Farm as it was in 1842 — Perching Manor is the building shown in red, the duck pond is shown in blue and the farmyard is to the right. The large T-shaped building is Perching Barn with stables immediately due north and the grain store/cattle shed to the north east.

Until relatively recently, Perching Manor was a farmhouse and the area to its immediate east was the farmyard. There had been a farmyard in that location for hundreds of years. Farm buildings come and go, of course, but the largest building dates back to the eighteenth century. Houses have human residents who leave a history. We know quite a bit about the history of Perching Manor itself and even of the fortified building that preceded it and of the manor more generally. But farm buildings give rise to few records. The owls, rodents and feral cats who take up residence pass through anonymously, untroubled by police, lawyers, census takers and registrars of birth, death and marriage. Thus most of what is known about the history of this now former farmyard is of recent vintage — the last eighty years or so.

The largest, and most distinguished, component of the farmyard is Perching Barn. This is a Grade II listed eighteenth century building with weather-boarding on a flint base. The roof is slate, hipped at the north and half-hipped at the south. A large building today, the map shown above suggests that it was quite a bit larger still in the mid-nineteenth century.

Perching Barn was a fine example of a Sussex threshing barn. It had a wide entrance in the centre of the (long) side that faced west and was high enough to allow a threshing machine to be positioned and operated in the centre of the building. Sheaves of corn were loaded from both sides of the machine and the grain was then stored on either side of the building. Once threshed, the straw was ejected from the back of the thresher to the outside of the building. When not in use during harvest it was available for other uses — such as village barn dances and parties.

Perching Barn as it was in 1934

Perching Barn as it was in 1934 — the duck pond was much larger then than it had been in the mid-nineteenth century (or is today). In cold winters, it froze and was used for skating and ice hockey. The last time it froze hard enough to permit skating was in 1983. Part of the stable can be seen on the left behind the barn.

To the immediate north of the barn stood a stable for the farm horses. In later years, as tractors replaced horses, it was used as a storage shed and workshop. To the north east, there was a two-storey building, with cattle pens at ground level and a grain and cattle feed store above. Feed was delivered to the cattle as required, via a chute. Calf pens and a storage shed were situated at the south end of the building.

Some time during the 1930s or 1940s, a man known only as Martin lived in the lower half of a two-storey barn situated behind this building, on ground that fell away sharply towards the stream to the north east. It seems that he was ex-army and well educated, but chose to live there on an earthen floor, using old sacks as bedding. From time to time he became very ill and was moved to the workhouse at Chailey, but as soon as he recovered he would walk back to his simple home in Fulking. It is thought that his income was mainly from an army pension, but he supplemented this by chopping wood and doing odd jobs at Perching Manor for which Henry Harris is thought to have paid him 10 shillings a week.

George Greenfield was the local tramp. He may have been the George Greenfield who was born in Steyning around 1884. He lived rent-free in the ‘duck hut’, an open fronted, lean-to shed located at the southern edge of the farmyard. The shed had an open front and faced Perching Drove and the pond. George walked with a stick and had a dog. He was well known around the village and on most evenings could be found sitting in the same place at the Shepherd and Dog. He was known as the ‘threshing machine feeder man’ as this was his job when the contractor arrived in the district for the autumn/winter threshing period. In summer he did no work at all. Like Martin, his bedding was sacking and he hung sacks across the front of his hut to keep out the wind and rain. He cooked on a brazier and in winter he moved this inside the hut to provide heat. However, this meant that the hut filled with smoke, as there was only a small gap just below the roof for it to escape through. When he became ill, George was also taken to the workhouse at Chailey, but once recovered, he too always walked back to his shed, where he eventually died.

As farming became more mechanised, the barn was divided up. Half was used as a grain store, whilst the other half became a milking parlour and dairy. Later, Brian Harris, who was the farmer at the time, switched to arable production only. This decision was brought about partly because it was becoming impossible to find a cowman prepared to work the unsocial hours associated with livestock production and partly because of changes entailed by European Union farming policies. As a consequence, the barn became largely redundant.

Perching Barn in 1987 after the great storm

Perching Barn in 1987 after the great storm — the ducks may not have noticed, but the storm did serious damage to the barn.

In 1984 the Crown sold Perching Manor Farm to the National Freight Corporation. The latter sold it to Brian Harris in 1986. In the same year, Terry Willis, a developer trading as Sussex District Estates, came to Fulking and started buying redundant farm buildings for conversion to private dwellings. This was not straightforward as most had agricultural restrictions attached to them, but once these were lifted and planning permission had been obtained, the development programme began. In 1987, Brian Harris sold his redundant and derelict farm buildings to Willis. The sale included the barn, the stable and the grain store/cattle shed. Terry Willis, with the aid of an imaginative architect and some competent builders, converted these dilapidated buildings into attractive private residences during the 1990s (see the appendix below).

Perching Barn in 2007

Perching Barn in 2007 — to the left, Stable Cottage; to the right, The Granary.

Tony Brooks

[Copyright © 2013, Anthony R. Brooks. Adapted from Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 182-185.]

Appendix

The 1990s Willis development process in pictures:

Perching Barn -- the skeleton

Perching Barn — the skeleton


The Granary

The building that was to become The Granary


Stable Cottage

The building that was to become Stable Cottage


Perching Barn

Perching Barn — the skeleton restored


The modern ground plan

The modern ground plan

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Fulking 1922-1956

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[The essay that follows was written in 1957 by Edgar Bishop, a central figure in village life during the period that it covers. He lived in Brook House and ran a large market garden from land mostly on the west side of Clappers Lane. Some thirty to forty people worked there and, with Henry Harris, he was one of the two major local employers.]

Devil's Dyke Railway Station (Gothic). Did Mrs Banks run the café?

In looking back over the past thirty four years it is quite astonishing to note the many changes which have taken place in the village life: in 1922 when we came to the district, Fulking and Edburton were very quiet isolated Downland villages, the Dyke Railway being practically the only dependable link with Brighton, barring, of course, one’s legs. I well remember arriving at the Dyke Station in that thick mist, wondering how on earth I was going to find Fulking — but with the friendly help and guidance of a native I was piloted down the hill and arrived safely in the village.

Oil Lamps from the 1914 Gamages catalogue

How things have changed since those days of long ago — paraffin and colza [rapeseed] oil was the only means of light so that the most important morning task of every housewife was the cleaning, trimming and refilling of the lamps. Telephones did not exist and when the G.P.O. started encouraging people to use them it was largely a question of getting a sufficient number of subscribers together to warrant the main lines being laid — in the end thirteen of us grouped together and agreed to have the phone installed, this being the minimum number acceptable to the G.P.O. Then came the difficulty of getting the Brighton Corporation to lay cables for electricity and here it was only with considerable and joint pressure from both the Poynings and Fulking inhabitants that the Corporation agreed to extend the mains through from the London Road side.

The one and only school — the Church School (now Boundary House) provided the education but unfortunately disagreement arose between the East and West Sussex Authorities over the administration, and the church lost the School. Incidentally the School had been given under a deed of trust by Lord Leconfield but unfortunately it lapsed and so bureaucracy stepped in and the school was closed.

Battery powered crystal receiver

Wireless was in its infancy — we all remember the elusive crystal — entirely dependent on batteries which required constant renewal — and television was of course unknown. Very few motor cars passed through the villages and there was no motorised farm machinery, with the exception of steam engines — the mechanised plough consisted of two steam engines posted on opposite sides of a field with the plough being drawn across by means of a cable.

Steam drawn plough

The present Mission Church of the Good Shepherd in Fulking was then the men’s ‘Club Room’ and library and the Village Hall did not exist. It should be remembered that it was only due to the unceasing efforts of the then Rector, the Reverend Evans, who was responsible for obtaining a grant from the Chichester Diocesan Finance Board, that sufficient money was made available to build the Church Hall, after which the ‘club room’ was altered and devoted entirely to church services.

The Dennis 30cwt bus, Amberley Museum

When the Southdown Bus service started — I cannot remember in which year that was — what a revolution ensued: villagers hitherto confined to their homes now trooped into Brighton, especially on Saturdays, for the first time. It was not long after the advent of cars and buses that the Dyke Railway ceased to function.

More recently, I believe it was in 1952, main water was brought to the village, thereby doing away with the water supply from the spring and pumped up to the storage tanks by the Ram: this has been instrumental in bring water to almost all the houses and cottages and is obviously the forerunner of main drainage. It is gratifying to know that the Crown who now own the Ram House, has undertaken to maintain it in a good state of repair.

Looking back over these years one cannot help somewhat regretting the passing of so much that was valuable in the life of our villages, and wonder whether all the modern means of comfort and transport have brought a real increase of happiness to the country folk.

Looking at Fulking particularly, especially on a Sunday, it seems to have become a thoroughfare for hundreds of motorists, motorcycles and coaches, which tear through our old time village, very often at most dangerous speeds. We are all caught up in a social revolution but whether it is leading to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, only time will tell.

Edgar H. Bishop

[This essay first appeared in issue 35 of St. Andrew’s Quarterly, July 1957. For more information about the author, see Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 64, 81, 83, 165, 180, 345 and 347.]

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