The shaping of the Sussex Landscape

“Two agencies shape a landscape – nature and man” (Brandon, 2009:8).

The idea of the landscape as a palimpsest (one that I have encountered in several places recently) is raised early in the text – originally from the Greek referring to a manuscript that has been partly erased to make way for new ideas.

The Sussex landscape is one of great natural diversity, comprising 3 key soil types:

• COASTAL PLAIN
  • A fertile area that has been drained and reclaimed
  • Shingle edges
• SOUTH DOWNS
  • Sheep grazing
  • Manure from sheep used to fertilise unproductive land
• WEALD
  • Old English for forest – Anredesweald was an extensive area in the past
  • Woodland / Cleared Woodland / Heath
  • Low Weald = clay, surrounding High Weald = sandstone

TIMELINE

• 11,000 BC – climate warms from first ice age, first signs of hunters
• 5,500 BC – woodland covers most of Sussex
• 4,000 – 1,500 BC – Neolithic age, flint mining, early signs of farming
• 1,500 – 500 BC – Bronze age, extensive woodland clearance & farming
• 450 – 75 BC – Iron age, hill forts, population growth particularly on Eastern South Downs on mid/lower slopes with sheep grazing the upper slopes and crests
• 43 AD – Roman invasion – building of rectangular villas, roads and iron manufacture on a large scale
• 330 AD – Pevensey Castle built
• 383 – 407 AD Romans leave as “barbarians” (Saxons) start to invade: SUD SEX = The land of the South Saxons
• 491 AD – Pevensey Castle sacked
• 9/10th C – population moves from higher downs (check re previous comment suggesting these were left for sheep) down to the spring line and valley farms and villages. Much of the land was held in common, and grazed as such. Land organised into rapes (administrative divisions).
• 10th C – fortified towns with coin production
• 1066 – Norman invasion, major upheaval, all significant land holdings confiscated and re-allocated, Saxon rapes re-organised as power bases headed by William’s alllies. Castles constructed.
• 15th – 17th C – enclosure

The author discusses how to read the landscape for signs of these settlements, looking for any break in the smooth surface of the Downs.

• Bracken grows on land previously enriched by manure.
• Scrub patches show where ploughing is forbidden – an archeological site.
• Lynchets were cultivations banks between small rectangular fields; dark and light bands of soil indicate, respectively, accumulation of topsoil above the lynchet (where crops generally show strongly) and erosion below the lynchet (where crops may be slightly less developed).
• Chalk quarries show as circular green hollows in wheat/barley fields, from where the chalk has been redistributed onto red soils higher up.
• Dew ponds, man-made due to the porosity of chalk
• Droveways grid the landscape and incline up slopes, known locally as “bostals”.
• Coppice and Standard woodland
  • Coppice = chestnut/hazel for fuel + wood products
  • Standard = oak/beech for construction
• Black glassy slag from blast furnaces in woodland
• Earthen damns across streams to provide head of water for iron manufacture
• Millponds, narrower hammer ponds and mine pits (shallow depressions) in woodland

At its edges Sussex is of course a sea-faring county; seamen, fishermen, shipbuilders, pirates, smugglers. Inland the Downs are the oldest part of the county, which until 1939 could seem as if they existed in the past. However a pattern of change becomes apparent. Coastal towns disappear as they silt up and trade dries up – for example Old Winchelsea is replaced by New Winchelsea by Edward I – a fortified town on a rectilinear pattern. Similarly expansion on the Downs in the early Middle Ages, seen from wide fieldstrip patterns, is reversed in the late Middle ages where gaps in housing and solitary churches indicate shrinking settlements.

Rye is thought to be the unnamed “new borough” in the Domesday book by some. It’s Ypres Tower perhaps the keep of a 13th C castle. Famous Turner watercolour from 1823 of the causeway? More like a German or Dutch town?

Lewes another fortified town, ruined castle, tangle of lanes known as “twitterns”.

The fashion for sea bathing in the second half of the 18th C transformed parts of the Sussex coast, particularly Brighton, also Hastings & St. Leonards and later Eastbourne.

Large country houses extended the landscaping beyond the park and garden in lessening degrees to influence the whole estate in “a flowing succession of harmonised pictures” (65, J.C. London, 1842) in a deliberate step away from previous Italianate influences. Both the economic and the picturesque prospect were entertained. The Pleasure Farm was a smaller version of the same idea. Straight lines were rounded off and tree margins thickened to become shaws.

As Sussex grew into a role of a refuge from London, gardening as a hobby became widespread. The Free Trad Act of 1870 led to imports which left farmland unused and cheap. The high moisture of the Wealden soil made it suitable for planting trees and shrubs. William Robinson, responsible for the garden at Gravetye Manor, (The Wild Garden, 1870) proposed a natural garden, with woodlands as habitats for plants brought back by collectors and alpines planted in constructed rockeries – note similarities with Chelwood Vachery Forest Garden.

The great manor houses were killed of by Death Duties and there are many “lost houses” in Sussex.

The London to Brighton railway led to the establishment of towns en route such as Haywards Heath and the sprawling of suburbs along the coast from Brighton, almost as an extension of London. The electrification of the line in 1929 and the age of the motor car led to a culture of weekenders, displacing to some extent local residents.

War has had considerable influence on the Sussex landscape as it sits in the line of defence against invasion from France – dykes, hillforts (e.g. Cissbury), beacons and Martello Towers (e.g. Rye Harbour, but 74 in all along the coast in a chain). The First Canadian Army were responsible for the defence of the Sussex coast in WWII (and in deed were billeted on the area that now forms my own property). Metalled roads leading onto the Downs survive from this period, and not all underground hideouts, created for sabotage volunteers to provide resistance in the event of invasion, have been discovered…

John Halsham advocated for a National Park on the Weald/Downs in 1898. This was increasingly supported by objectors to the rampant development that occurred in the first half of the 20th C. In the second half, the modernisation of Sussex saw the growth of Crawley and Gatwick. As well as building the traditional mixed sheep and corn farming was converted to grain during WWII. Small farms sold out to larger ones, or to Londoners and/or the “horse culture”. Commercial forestry almost stopped – without regular coppicing the forest floor dies out from lack of light.

The Government rejected the plan in favour of an AONB. Some protection is now provided for wetlands, which are encouraged again. Heathland is rarer than rainforest, and Ashdown Forest hold the largest expanse of this threatened habitat.

In 2010 South Downs National Park was eventually designated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Brandon, B. (2009). The Shaping of the Sussex Landscape. Sussex: Snake River Press