April 18, 1992: East Hoathly to Berwick Station
Horselunges Manor
Only eleven days after returning from our spring Cornwall trip the Lees and I returned to the trail, this time in East Sussex. It was the Saturday of a four-day Easter Holiday and Dorothy was able to join us as well. She and I left the house at 7:50. Toby had already been walked and so we decided to use the car to get to the Maida Vale tube stop. There were many empty spaces on our local streets and I found a nice place on Elgin Avenue. I figured we would welcome the luxury of a ride at the end of our twelve-mile walk on the Wealdway and that there would still be places to park in front of the house when we returned.
We changed trains at Oxford Circus and arrived at Victoria at about 8:30. We soon spotted Harold, who had already bought the tickets, and Toby and I took off to see if a platform had been announced for the Eastbourne train. On our way we passed a shabby, shambling Trevor Nunn, on his way to buy a ticket and a paper at W.H. Smith. He passed us several times and Harold remembered opening the door for him once at Joe Allen’s. Toby was meanwhile squeaking in excitement and letting all the other dogs know of his presence – and this caught the attention of the famous artistic director. “Trevor Nunn just gave Toby a killer look,” Dorothy observed.
Many of the trains were running late already but not our 8:51, which departed from platform 17 on time. We sipped coffee and I ate a doughnut. The Lees dipped in and out of their morning papers and what they found often stimulated further discussion. We got off the train in Lewes at 9:53 but we remained in the station for another ten minutes hunting up the right loos. Outside there was a line of taxis and I got one to take us back to the Foresters’ Arms in East Hoathly, the exact spot where an Uckfield cab had picked us up the previous September. It was a pleasant ride and took about fifteen minutes. By the time I had rolled up my trouser legs, adjusted my map case which contained the text of John H.N. Mason’s Constable guide (I carried the Steering Group’s maps in my hand) and taken the first picture of our group in front of the pub it was 10:25.
We crossed the busy A22 and turned right into Buttsfield Lane. Almost immediately there was some confusion over which fork to take but the Steering Group’s map helped me choose the left. We continued past some bungalows while the Lees examined the gardens and we were soon walking along the margin of a field, heading for a small copse. Toby was let loose and charged forward with great energy. He loved the challenge of the first stiles, usually finding a way beneath, but I often had to warn him not to charge into the next field until we had checked it for animals.
The sun was warm in our faces as we continued moving slowly in a southeasterly direction through farmland. We crossed a narrow lane and pressed forward over open country toward Frith Farm. A gravel road was reached here and we used it to pass a backyard full of daffodils and emerge onto tarmac just to the west of Chiddingly Place, an ancient Tudor farmstead – which still showed some of its original architectural features. We had reached the crossroads of Chiddingly village at 11:35 and we were much pleased to note that the pub, The Six Bells, was already open. They had no objection to dogs on lead so we were soon slumped in a corner enjoying our lager. I used the occasion to take off my UCLA sweatshirt; there was a UCLA t-shirt underneath.
They were very kind to us in the Six Bells; the barman even brought a large bowl of water for the “Schnauz.” Meanwhile a cute Spaniel named Dolly arrived to sprawl on the cold tiles. Locals began to fill us in on our way east. One chap said he knew it well because he had to use the paths himself when he had drunk too much at the Six Bells. Someone had collected a wonderful array of old advertising signs, many of which were displayed in the gents. Even the outside was decorated with an ancient Craven A sign. Dorothy and Tosh kept saying how weary they were (after covering only two miles). “Couldn’t we just stay here the rest of the day?” Dorothy inquired.
Eventually I got them outside and, after one wrong turning, we found the entrance to the church. It was being decorated by parishioners for the next day’s Easter service. “So you’ve come to see our beautiful church,” one old local said to me. “We’re taking turns,” I said, indicating the dog on his lead. There followed a theological discussion between the man and his wife on whether you could take a dog inside the church. I think they decided you could, but I had meanwhile recoiled to a distant corner of the road where a stile eventually welcomed all of us to our next field.
Again we headed for a stream in a small wood and then for a clump of gorse (such details, which only a text can provide, were often very useful today). We crossed another road and climbed into fields on the opposite side. After passing Gatehouse farm on our left we reached another road at Gun Hill and followed a farm track past West Street and Rock Harbour Farms. It was necessary to observe the text closely for details of stiles, field boundaries, hedges, woodland and streams, and I was finding it difficult to do all these things and keep track of the dog at stiles too.
Several streams had footbridges or planks, but usually they were so far above the water that Toby had no chance to get a drink. Still we had his bowl with us and we paused every now and then to give him liquid. He also got his fair share of lunch when we paused for a picnic that Dorothy had prepared. The Lees sat on their rain gear in the wet grass while Dorothy and I sat on a log.
After we had passed Lealands there was a little road walking to the A267 and up a side road where there were steps up to a stile. I sent Tosh up to the crest of the next hill to see if there were any animals (many sheep with adorable lambs were about this afternoon as well as ponies, horses and cows). We then dropped down into Hellingly, passing behind the church among very attractive cottages to emerge on a motor road ahead. I had spotted a second pub, the Golden Martlet, a little bit off route and we now rounded a corner on this highway in order to reach it. It was just going on 2:00.
We found seats in the back garden and enjoyed another drink. I would have removed a creosote stain from my hand if there had been any soap in the loo. The pub did have a dozy pony and lots of other amusements for kids and if we had returned that evening we could have heard the Purple Frisbees play at the disco. The others were beginning to nag me about how far we had to go – but, at almost 2:30, we still had not reached the half-way point.
We retraced our steps to the bridge over the Cuckmere and turned left to enter the grounds of a very attractive private manor, Horselunges. It even had its own moat, but what it did not have were very useful signs for walkers and it took me some time to decide to take an unmarked gate into the fields behind the garages in order to continue in a southerly direction. Eventually we neared Horsebridge Mill – where we walked beneath the archway gate and out to the busy A271. Here we got quite lost.
The guidebooks call for only a brief excursion on the road that enters the A271 opposite the mill, but the promised narrow metaled drive had disappeared and we were soon faced with the maze of a new housing development on our right. Inquiries were made of the locals but none of them had heard of the Wealdway. Finally a senior gardener, tending his patch, told us that we needed to reconnect with the path by returning to the A271, turning west on it and finding our route a few hundred meters on. This we did but the route soon brought us confusingly into the back of the housing development itself. Here, too, a kind resident – observing our confusion – told us to continue on her street two more houses and there find our path on the right. It was with great relief that we escaped into fields again.
We crossed the A22 again but it did not seem possible to cross straight over to the continuation of our route and when we were admitted by stile to the next field I was a bit uncertain, for a while, that we had found the right line. Meanwhile I had to ask Dorothy, “Have you taken a close look at your dog recently?” I asked this question because the rascal had again found a wet cow pie and had undertaken a delicious roll in its slime, covering his entire right side in foul gloop. I tried dragging him in the grass but this didn’t have much effect. Later I used some straw but this just added another layer to the mess. What made this a really unpleasant experience is that, increasingly, I had to lift him over stiles – since chicken wire had been added below the steps. I walked for some time with a very suspicious brown stain on my bare arm.
We had some very wide fields to negotiate, without much sign of path or much help from guideposts, and I used my compass on several occasions to make sure we were heading in the right direction. Once we had a rest on some mounds of grass and I had to give a precise figure on how many miles were left (four). On our left we could see flags flying from Michelham Priory, which was having an Easter egg hunt the next day. The Lees were getting far ahead, Toby in tow, and as we crossed the Cuckmere on a brick bridge they turned too far to the right and I had to call them back with my whistle. The paths had been altered somewhat, I suspected, as we passed a field of frisky horses, and crossed several low stiles to enter the village of Upper Dicker. Its shop was closed, as was its pub.
We passed St. Bede’s school and climbed into what appeared to be someone’s back yard. We had to circumvent his pond as he was feeding ducks while chatting to a neighbor over a fence. “I’m trying to keep them alive,” he said of some tiny ducklings, “They were only born yesterday and already the crows have got one of them.” I asked the neighbor where we were meant to go from here and she grunted out a reply. Obviously waymarking was often inconsistent today. I had to guess that we were meant to go up the field on our right. It seemed to be in the process of transformation, anyway, for we walked over what was surely soon to become a golf green.
We walked along the edge of a small wood, with the first bluebells of the spring just coming out, and – after crossing another farm road – traversed several more grassy fields and the Sessingham bridge over the Cuckmere to enter the attractive village of Arlington. It was about 5:30 and, as we passed through the churchyard, I suggested that we just had time for a quick one at the Yew Tree Inn, just off route. We walked up to this pub but it was closed and the best it could offer was its outside table – where we had a rest and I gave Toby some water. The Ordnance Survey map promised a public house at the rail halt in Berwick, so we decided to press on and have a quick one before catching the 6:53 to Lewes.
One more section of field walking was needed. Dorothy was having a lot of trouble now with the stiles, which hurt her back as she strained to get her leg over the top bar. I don’t remember having encountered quite so many of these barriers in a single day – some 50. We had to walk through a very swampy field and poor Toby (drier but not cleaner) managed to snag his back on an adjacent electric fence. He let out a yelp of distress before escaping but this peril was soon followed by an angry sheepdog who wanted to bar the progress of the Lees as we reached the waterworks access road. Harold had decided to drop Toby over the fence if necessary but a little girl managed to calm Cerberus.
At last we approached the road over the Chilver bridge and this meant that we could leave the Wealdway to continue on tarmac the last mile to the station. There wasn’t too much traffic and it was a pleasant evening, with wonderful views of the South Downs on our left. We arrived at the station at 6:25. There was a pub across the street but it was closed so we sat on the platform and ate the last of our snacks. There was a cool breeze now and I put my sweatshirt back on. The wind whipped Tosh’s jacket off the platform edge and onto the tracks and Harold was just about the climb down when a signalman in his little tower screamed that a fast train was just about to thunder through. “It would have given the driver a heart attack to see someone on the tracks,” he explained later – when he came down to retrieve the jacket from the tracks himself.
Our train arrived on time and in a few minutes we were in Lewes. Unfortunately a delay of thirty minutes on the London connection was soon announced and this put everybody out of sorts. The buffet was closed, of course, and we could find no congenial pub nearby (I had my doubts about taking the ripe Schnauzer inside anyway); the Lees returned to the station to hear more of the exploits of a walker from Hertfordshire who had just done 20 miles on the South Downs and Dorothy and I wandered among the nearby antique shops for a few more minutes.
When we returned the delay had been shortened to twenty minutes so we were soon off. Most of us dozed. Toby was made to sit on the floor here and on the underground. For that matter he wasn’t allowed in the car either. Dorothy walked him home while I drove and, as soon as he got home, he went straight into a well-deserved bath.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: