August 20, 2005: Berwick Station to Newhaven Harbour

Two weeks after our reaching Berwick Station the Lees and I made preparations for our last stage on the Vanguard Way. Truth to tell, I hadn’t felt that good after completing the previous hell for leather day – experiencing some dizziness and lightheadedness on the day after this trek – but I slowly recovered and was determined to have a go at completing the route. I gave the Lees a choice of trains from Victoria, 7:47 or 8:47, and they chose the latter – so at 8:15 on a Saturday morning I found Harold in line, waiting to buy returns to Berwick. (This strategy worked out far less expensively that the two one-way options foisted off on us by a lazy clerk at London Bridge last time.)

Tosh was having coffee and an almond croissant at a bar (and early morning coffee house) nearby, and I joined the Lees here with my cappuccino and Danish. “How come I didn’t get an almond croissant?” Harold complained. “I thought you didn’t like almond. I just got you a plain one.” “I do like almond,” an aggrieved Harold responded. “So next time I’ll know.” Now that we were up to date on Harold’s croissant preferences it was time to look for our train, a Southern train that soon sped southward on a cloudy day –where the sun was struggling to make an appearance.

The previous day Tosh and I had attended the funeral of ASL’s long-term head of P.E., Eddie Hufford, and now there was plenty of time to compare notes. Then we discussed Gate Gourmet’s sacking of all its workers at Heathrow and the mistaken shooting of a Brazilian by anti-terrorism police at Stockwell  – we disapproved in both instances. By the time we had reordered the world’s priorities our train had reached Lewes, where we had to wait on the platform for a few minutes for the 10:09 Eastbourne train. Each of us visited the loos and Tosh convinced herself that the fluorescent blue paint in these places was intended to discourage loitering. A lady sitting in the waiting room had told her it was going to rain and I repeated my motto – never listen to the weather predictions of locals. We never saw a drop today.

We reached Berwick Station at 10:20 and once again had to wait for trains to clear before we could cross the tracks. I found a well-disguised route opposite the Berwick Inn and after dodging around some warehouses we found a footpath paralleling the railway line and headed west. The views in the Cuckmere Valley were spectacular, with the South Downs parting before us, and it certainly felt good to be out in open country again. A gate had disappeared but the footpath across a field was obvious and so we slanted over to a gap in a hedge and continue down a grassy avenue toward Stonery Farm.

There was a lot of tractor activity going on here but we just missed it as we headed south on an access road lined with poplars and reached a highway, Common Lane. A half left here put us into a series of fields where, fortunately, there always appeared to be a footpath heading in the right direction through the stubble. There had been some rerouting here (though I had been given an update by e-mail from Colin Saunders, author of the excellent guide) and the section was also well waymarked with yellow VW signs and so I was able to leave my compass in my backpack for once. It was time to take my sweatshirt off, however, for the sun was breaking through and we were getting warm. Feeling that my discomfiture last time might have been due to dehydration I never refused a canteen today.

There was some gentle up and down as we crossed from field to field and the way was often over damp clay. Tosh insisted on putting a heavy clod of this into a plastic bag so that she could mix it into the soil of her olive tree. (She had by this time, however, abandoned the hubcap she had brought home from a section of the LOOP.) We passed near a cornfield but fortunately not through one, and soon we emerged on the A27, a busy road that we had to dodge across to reach the access road into Berwick village.

We passed around a pond and climbed to a height behind the attractive church. Ahead we could see our route bisecting more fields and soon we were treading on more clay as a party, including three Poodles, made its way uphill. I could see that we were nearing a section of road walking and so I suggested we each pick up a stick in order to scrape some of the gunk off our boots. This we did as we took to a surfaced road heading downhill into Alfriston. Tosh found a knitted bobble hat on the roadway and I was afraid she was going to take this home too but she merely placed it on a fencepost so someone else could claim it.

We reached a sunny, tourist-crowded Alfriston at 11:45 and began to search for a place to have a drink. By reaching this charming Sussex village I was entering well-remembered ground – for this had been my terminus at the end of my very first London-based day walk, twenty-five years earlier. We passed the little market square where I had waited for the Eastbourne bus and a dotty old lady, seeing the pastry truck, had said, “Ah Mr. Kipling, I remember him well.”

We tried the doors of the Star Inn, one of my stops on the second of my South Downs Way adventures, but I could see that Tosh was being studiously ignored by mein host, who seemed interested only in counting his lunch tables. Outraged, the lady ordered us out of this establishment and we wandered south along the main street, even passing our turnoff, before settling on the garden of the Wingrove Inn.

Tosh had half a pint and a coffee and Harold and I had Diet Cokes. “Anyway,” I said, “we got even with the chap at the Star. We left our mud scraper sticks leaning against his sign.” Tosh was now fussing over the ashtrays on our table, three saucers of water, filled to the brim by last night’s rain. “I have to do something for these people,” she said, dumping out the water at the same time. “You’ve just done something for the smokers,” I replied mischievously.

At about 12:15, the decision having been made to wait for lunch until the six-mile mark, we walked back up the main street and followed some back passages to a spot below Alfriston’s hilltop church. Then, sharing the route with the South Downs Way for most of the next three miles, we approached the Cuckmere itself and, at least for me, the beginning of a nostalgic encounter.

As we crossed the river I look at the water, flowing rapidly and carrying with it rafts of vegetation, and asked, “What’s wrong with this picture?” Harold was correct, of course, when he answered, “The river is flowing away from the sea.” In this way we knew that it was high tide. On the other side of the bridge we walked along an embankment that looped first right then left in an idyllic scene. There were kayaks in the water as we passed opposite the church and a Labrador was having a swim on the opposite bank. Indeed, after five and a half days on the Vanguard Way, we were now encountering people in large numbers, singly and in groups.

The embankment neared Litlington and we left the river behind us to edge along a quiet alley and onto the main street of this village. On our right was the Plough and Harrow, the first pub I had ever visited as part of a London day walk. We didn’t pause this time for off a side street there was a stile at the foot of the first of three hills that separated us from the coast. I was soon chugging up the grassy path, a chap with a lawnmower at work on the hillside on my right. At the top I paused to refold my OS map and then, a distant white horse in chalk on the downs to our right, we continued along field edges and down a stubble field to Charleston Manor, hidden in the trees.

At the bottom of the combe the route entered woodland and we began the second steep rise, this time assisted by steps (Saunders says 75, I counted 68, so some must have collapsed). Friston Forest was a delightful place to walk today, especially after things leveled off a bit and I had my camera at the ready in order to take pictures of wildflowers – though these had long since passed their glory days.

Our route curved to the north and began a descent into another little valley, this one containing the hamlet of Westdean. Kids were playing on the margins of the village pond as we reached the foot of another flight of steps, a monumental 227 wooden risers that soon had Tosh remembering all the black arrows we had encountered on the South West Way. These steps were a little more humane than the previous set and we were soon on top (again my count at 220 was seven short of Saunders’ prediction). At a stile atop a wall we were rewarded with the marvelous panorama of Cuckmere Haven, the river itself coiled in tight meander loops as it neared the coast. I could even point out to Tosh our lunchtime pub – off in the distance.

We began a steep descent (but much shorter, it seemed, than the ascent) and emerged at the A267 Eastbourne-Seaford highway next to a place that rented bikes. Indeed several of these were attempting to get across the busy road and at one point an enterprising woman stepped out in the road, held up a hand to oncoming traffic, and this permitted us to scurry across as well. (Well, not Harold, who was trailing just here and had to make a dash for it on his own a few minutes later.)

There was pavement on the opposite side and we used this to edge by a parking lot and to continue forward to the Exceat Bridge. The problem here, however, was that just before the bridge the pavement switched to the other side and it didn’t seem likely that we would find someone else brave enough to halt the traffic for us. (Though, curiously, the safety of any perambulating badgers was catered for in a yellow and black warning sign.) I suggested we continue using the narrowing verge and when the traffic behind us stopped to let oncoming vehicles have a go at the narrow bridge, we scampered forward over the Cuckmere ourselves and hence past the parking lot and up the steps of the Golden Galleon. It was 1:45.

We found a nice table and the Lees waited in two queues as drinks and food orders were taken. The folks at this welcoming and efficient establishment were quite willing to run a tab for us – and they did not insist on our depositing a credit card with them or taking out a second mortgage – as a number of rural hostelries have been doing lately. The food came in a very timely fashion as well – Tosh had a chicken, bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, Harold had the steak and ale pie and I had fish and chips. Then Harold and I had gooey deserts while the Lees drank their coffee. The waitresses, young girls in their late teens, said that the place wasn’t that crowded, but it seemed so to us.

We had a very nice and relaxing lunch and at 3:15 or thereabouts made preparations to leave. Tosh wanted to know what direction we were going to take, as she wanted to go outside and adjust her boots, so I told her I would meet her in the parking lot. Here I waited and waited, Harold soon joining me. Eventually he went to look for his wayward wife – she had discovered an upper parking lot and was waiting there for Harold to supply her with some tape. Reunited, we now headed for the coast, the river on our left.

The route was level enough until we reached some coast guard cottages on our right. Here Tosh disappeared to go behind some bushes while Harold and I watched the Cuckmere Haven activity on the shingle below us – there were kayakers out on the waves now and the river had reversed itself.

We now began to climb up to the cliff tops to the west, a fairly gentle pull, and as we did so the full extent of the wonderful vista behind us became visible; soon all Seven Sisters were on display, chalky buttes shearing off to the sea below in a marvelous undulating pattern. I had walked over the tops twice, once in 1980 and once the following year with Bunny Dexter, but you have to climb the cliffs to the west to see them in all their glory. The alteration of shadow and light enhanced the scene; sometimes the sun would break through and two or three of the cliffs would suddenly shine.

After a short climb there was a brief descent at Hope Gap and then a long grassy pull as we climbed in stages to the top of Seaford Head. There were lots of trippers and their dogs about and many of the voices we heard were not English. In one five-minute period I heard a Scandinavian tongue, a Slavic one, and French. The views to the sea on our left were enchanting but the interior views were also outstanding. As we neared a golf course on our right there was a circular structure whose purpose we couldn’t quite fathom – “I’m thinking close encounters of the third kind here,” I said.

In spite of the climb we were making excellent time over easy turf and the same could be said of the descent that began on the other side, with Seaford on our right, Newhaven in the middle ground, and distant views of Brighton far ahead. I promised Tosh some loos on the sea front and soon we were utilizing pavement along the back of the shingle beach to reach a sawed off Martello tower, where these useful structures were located. Then I swallowed a gnat!

I had to get my canteen out and chug a few mouthfuls of water but I continued to sputter for ten minutes or so – when the saliva-encased creature at last surfaced. During this time Tosh had rejected a soft ice cream van and chosen a mint Magnum from a kiosk – in Margie’s honor.

I was following our progress on the OS map and we were moving so rapidly past the moms with their prams and the codgers with their dogs that I began to hold out hope that we might make the 6:03 train from Newhaven Harbour. After passing the Newhaven and Seaford sailing club, however, the Marine Parade came to an end and I spotted a waymark post across a strip of shingle. Here the Vanguard Way heads inland along an embankment beside a creek. Over on our right was our railway line and I could also see that the 5:30 train was on time.

The narrow footpath was quite overgrown and there was just enough room for your feet – hidden by all the foliage surrounding your knees. I got quite some distance ahead here, again hoping to lead by example, but I did pause at the ruins of Tide Mills for the Lees to catch up. Harold agreed that we had a good chance to make the 6:03 because he was somewhat familiar with Newhaven Harbour and we could already see ahead of us a giant white ferry in its slip.

Both Tosh and I had to pause to retie our boots, which had been unlaced by all the greenery snatching at our ankles. We used a tall pedestrian bridge to cross the railway line and, in bleak industrial surroundings, reached a road that soon permitted access to the railway halt. It was 5:50 and, after some thirteen miles, we had completed the Vanguard Way.

It took us a while to figure out which side of the platform to sit on (there was neither ticket machine nor ticket counter here) but we didn’t have much of a wait now ­– just long enough to regret the impression which this scene must offer to the foreign visitor just reaching these shores from the ferry port behind us: a cheerless, shabby halt with paint peeling off all the buildings. Welcome to the third world.

The train arrived on time, a little green Southern shuttle that stopped only in Newhaven Town before heading on to Lewes. The late afternoon sunlight was radiant and magical. We almost escaped having to pay for this run altogether as the conductor arrived just as we were pulling into Lewes station, but Harold, on our behalf, came up with a little more than five pounds for the three of us and we marched over the platforms and took our place at the same spot where we had stood two weeks earlier. I gave Harold a handful of small change to pay for my passage from Newhaven but he declined – which is just as well, as I had shortchanged him.

A longer green Southern train pulled in after five minutes (Southern service seemed to be the best of the semi-privatized services on offer these days) and we settled in for another long ride back to Victoria. I phoned Dorothy as we cleared Gatwick and she was able to let me know that, when at last I reached home shortly after 8:00, there would be a treat waiting for me from the food halls at Marks and Spencers: fish and chips!

Footpath Index:

England: A Chilterns Hundred | The Chiltern Way | The Cleveland Way | The Coast-to-Coast Path | The Coleridge Way | The Cotswold Way | The Cumberland Way | The Cumbria Way | The Dales Way | The Furness Way | The Green London Way | The Greensand Way | The Isle of Wight Coast Path | The London Countryway | The London Outer Orbital Path | The Norfolk Coast Path | The North Downs Way | The Northumberland Coast Path | The Peddars Way | The Pennine Way | The Ridgeway Path | The Roman Way | The Saxon Shore Way | The South Downs Way | The South West Coast Path | The Thames Path | The Two Moors Way | The Vanguard Way | The Wealdway | The Westmorland Way | The White Peak Way | The Yorkshire Wolds Way