Latest News of Local Interest

Bobservation No. 29 – Spring at Furzefield

Posted on

Collage of animals over bluebell wood

We have lived at Furzefield in Clappers Lane for 24 years and every year, as Spring approaches, it is a delight to see Crocus, Daffodil, Primrose and Snowdrop appearing.

Apart from the annual display of bluebells we have had the pleasure of living with many species of tree, including Oak, Hazel, Field Maple, Scots Pine, Spindle, Holly, Ash, Yew, Silver and Copper Birch.

The wild life has been extensive: mammals include Badger, Roe Deer, Grey Squirrel, Stoat, Weasel, Rabbit, Harvest and Field Mouse, Pigmy and Common Shrew, Bank Vole, Pipistrelle, Noctule and Serotine Bat. We have Common Lizard, Toad and Frog, Smooth Newt, Grass Snake, Glow-worm and Slowworm. Butterflies have numbered 27 different types including Purple Hairstreak and Clouded Yellow. Dragonflies are numerous.

Wild flora, as well as those already mentioned, Foxglove, Greater Stitchwort, Red Campion, Wood Anemone and Violet. One of the biggest attractions has been the birdlife, some 80 different species; the star turns being single sightings of Wryneck, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and Kingfisher. I should add the Hummingbird Hawk Moths.

It has been our aim to preserve the wildlife and manage the flora and although this means quite a lot of effort, the results have been very rewarding. The badgers are always entertaining and there are good views most evenings, particularly as the days lengthen.

As for the bluebells, some years are better than others, 2016 being particularly good but even in a bad year the display and scent are pretty impressive. It has been our pleasure to have villagers, their families and friends wander around at bluebell time, usually end of April and beginning of May.

Fake poll alert

Posted on

New Mayfield Market Towns logo
They are at it again:

Mayfield Market Towns, which is promoting a new settlement near Sayers Common, has released the results of an independent poll of Mid Sussex and Horsham residents where 69 per cent of respondents backed 10,000 new homes in one location rather than development scattered across the district on the fringes of other towns and villages. [Mid Sussex Times]

LAMBS comments:

You may have recently seen an apparently ‘independent’ opinion poll from Mayfield Market Towns (MMT). In reality, this poll is not independent, something admitted on page 4 which reveals that the questionnaire was designed by ICM Unlimited in collaboration with Mayfields and Meeting Place Communications. MMT Director, Lee Newlyn is married to Meeting Place Director, Anna Sabine-Newlyn. LAMBS received a number of angry responses in November 2016 while the ‘poll’ was being conducted.

This is the second occasion on which these seedy rent-seeking shysters have resorted to push polling. Click the new Mayfield logo (above) to see the West Sussex County Times report on the 2014 episode.

See also MMT Masterplan down the Pan at the LAMBS website.

Thirty year anniversary: A Walk .. restored

Posted on

A Walk Down The Village Street In Fulking
Villagers who arrived in Fulking too late to visit the shop can now help themselves to a free PDF copy of Stuart Milner’s sixteen page pamphlet A Walk Down The Village Street In Fulking thirty years after it originally went on sale there. If you ever have house guests that you don’t know what to do with, then cramming a paper copy into their hands should keep them out of your kitchen for at least an hour. The corresponding web page has also been rejuvenated and now has links to other relevant historical material on the website. Click on the map above for all the details.

[Thanks to Gill Milner, Clive Goodridge and Tony Brooks for their help with this restoration project.]

Two new local history posts

Posted on

Arthur Stanley Cooke / Edburton font
Lead fonts are extremely rare — there were just thirty left in England in 1909. The churches at Edburton and Pyecombe each have one, probably created in the Norman era by the same craftsman. Lewis André and Lawrence Weaver will tell you what is known about them.

Arthur Stanley Cooke also enthuses about the font at St. Andrew’s in the course of his erudite report of a circular walk that he took in the very early years of the twentieth century, starting at the Dyke Station and taking in Poynings, Fulking and Edburton. Fulking did not detain him long but his enthusiasm for Edburton is obvious.