a sussex miscellany

‘Miscellany: assortment, brew, collection, conglomeration,

farrago, hodgepodge, jumble,mêlée,mixture,mélange, pasticcio,

patchwork, pot pourri, salmagundi, variety…’

PETER MARK ROGET

A S U S S E X G U I D E

A SUSSEXMISCELLANY

S O P H I E C O L L I N S

A S U S S E X M I S C E L L A N Y


Sophie Collins is a writer, editor and exile fromLondon, with family ties to Sussex where shehas lived and worked for the last ten years. Along-term enthusiast for the odd and theirrelevant, she has found Sussex trivia particularlyrewarding and that the weirder aspects of thecounty have well repaid closer study.What otherEnglish county could offer over 30 differentterms for mud?Where else would you find suchan inviolate and historic pride in sheer pig-headedness? The fruits of her research have goneinto this miscellany.


Who was the Grey Lady of Pevensey Castle?Where could you have dined on Pigeons au soleil?What (or who) on earth is the Knucker? Howdo you make a Sussex trug?Who or what werethe Hastings Rarities?What’s the pond in SussexPond Pudding? Howmany firework societies arethere in Lewes? What was the name of theBloomsbury marmoset?What was the GuineaPig Club? How many men did it take to run theShoreham Oyster Fleet?Who won the Battle ofLewes? For answers to these burning questions,or for a lovely lazy afternoon dipping into anentertainingly quirky mix of local facts, figures,history, statistics and folk tales, turn to A SussexMiscellany, a refreshing Schott of Sussex forreaders who love local trivia.

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£8.99

S N A K E R I V E R P R E S S

B O O K S A B O U T S U S S E X F O R T H E E N T H U S I A S T

www.snakeriverpress.co.uk


S N A K E R I V E R B O O K S

Snake River Press publishes books about the art,culture, personalities and landscape of Sussex. Snake Riverbooks are available by mail order or from bookshops.You can order safely online through our website:

www.snakeriverpress.co.uk. If you prefer buying offlineyou can contact us by telephone: 01273 403988 or

by email: [email protected]

This may look like a slim volume, but it is in fact a

powerful pocket encyclopaedia that cunningly mixes

facts, figures and statistics with anecdotes, stories,

folklore and myth to produce an intriguing treat for

wet afternoons and a formidable secret weapon for

the local pub quiz. Why not put in your thumb, and see

what delicious Sussex plums you can pull out?

brighton

ditchling

hastings

A SUSSEX GUIDE - A Sussex Alphabet_Layout 1 21/11/2016 11:42 Page II

S N A K E R I V E R P R E S SS N A K E R I V E R P R E S S

A SUSSEXMISCELLANY


Em b e l l i s h e d w i t h a S P L E N D I D A S S O R T M E N T o f

I L L U S T R A T I O N S & E N G R AV I N G S

Book No 9Books about Sussex for the enthusiast

Published in 2007 byS N A K E R I V E R P R E S S

South Downs Way, Alfriston, Sussex BN26 5XWwww.snakeriverpress.co.uk

ISBN 978-1-906022-08-2

This book was conceived, designed and produced by S N A K E R I V E R P R E S S

Copyright © Snake River Press Limited 2007Text © Sophie Collins

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

The publishers and authors have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of all information at the date of preparation.Readers who intend to rely on the information to undertake any activity

should check the current accuracy. The publishers and authors accept no responsibility for any loss, injury or inconvenience sustained by the

reader as a result of information or advice contained in this book.

Art Director & Publisher Peter BridgewaterEditorial Director Viv Croot

Editor RobertYarhamPage makeup Richard Constable & Chris Morris

Consultant Lorraine Harrison

This book is typeset in Perpetua & Gill Sans,two fonts designed by Eric Gill

Printed and bound in China


DEDICATION

For Ted, who won’t be druv

C O N T E N T S

I N T R O D U C T I O N

6

C H A P T E R O N E

S U S S E X L A N D S C A P E S

9

C H A P T E R T W O

M Y T H I C A L S U S S E X

2 5

C H A P T E R T H R E E

H I S T O R I C A L S U S S E X

4 1

C H A P T E R F O U R

S U S S E X S U S T E N A N C E

5 7

C H A P T E R F I V E

S U S S E X P A S T I M E S

7 3

F U R T H E R R E A D I N G

& I N D E X

9 1

M O R E S T A T I S T I C S

The South Downs Way

THE SOUTH DOWNS WAY, stretch-ing between Water Lane in Winchesterin Hampshire and the west end of theseaside promenade in Eastbourne inEast Sussex, is one of the best-knownwalkers’ paths in Britain. Measuringaround 100 miles (160km) from oneend to the other, it covers the land-scapes of both East and West Sussex inall its variety, and covers a large chunkof Hampshire for good measure. Itshighest point is DITCHLING BEACON,at 814ft (248m), and it passes near tomost of the county’s most scenic spotsand interesting towns.

Sussex wildlife

Sussex is rich in FAUNA and FLORA,and some plants and insects that arequite easily found there are rare or (informal terms) ‘nationally scarce’ else-where. The top ten in this category inthe Sussex Rare Species Inventory are:

• ROUND-HEADED RAMPION

(Phyteuma orbiculare, see p18)• FROGBIT

(Hydrocharis morus-ranae, waterplant, also known as waterpoppy)

• ADONIS BLUE

(Lysandra bellargus, butterfly)• LONG-WINGED CONEHEAD

(Conocephalus discolor, cricket)• DOOR SNAIL (Macrogastra rolphii)• HAIRY DRAGONFLY

(Brachytron pratense)• RUDDY DARTER

(Sympetrum sanguineum, dragonfly)

• VARIABLE DAMSELFLY

(Coenagrion pulchellum)• WHITE-LEGGED DAMSELFLY

(Platycnemis pennipes)• DOWNY EMERALD

(Cordulea aenea, dragonfly)


U N U S UA L H E R I TAG E

Something that has shaped the history ofSussex and many of her great estates isthe unusual inheritance practice ofBOROUGH ENGLISH. Technicallyknown as ultimogeniture, this means thatthe youngest surviving son of a familyinherits its estate – the opposite of the farmore common state of primogeniture.This has been a marked custom frommedieval times. It is not unique to Sussex (parts of Middlesex, Suffolk andSurrey also use it), but it is unusual in

Britain overall.

�

[ 12 ]

M O R E S T A T I S T I C S

[ 13 ]

Saxon Sussex

Even career historians have problemssorting out the early rule of Sussex.We know that the SAXONS weremaking inroads into southern Englandby the third century because theRomans were building forts to protectthe coast against them, but these earlyGermanic invaders didn’t arrive, likeDUKE WILLIAM OF NORMANDY, inone neat fleet with a date. Instead theygradually took over, and although thehistory between the third and theninth century has numerous gaps, ittells of increasing Saxon influence.

The source of much early in-formation is the ANGLO-SAXON

CHRONICLE, a text that was compiledentry by entry between the earliestyears after Christ and the twelfth cen -tury, but which can largely be datedback to a manuscript dated 891. It wasmuch added-to over the cen turies andlittle of the text it contains can beindependently verified, but it claimsthat a figure called Ælle became firstbretwalda – chief or king – of theSouth Saxons in the fifth century.

A list of some of the indefiniterulers from this vague period ofhistory follows, partly because of thewonderful resonance of the Anglo-Saxon names, and partly because itdemonstrates that power was in aconstant state of flux.�Many of the reigns overlap, sometimesbecause power was shared, sometimesbecause the records mention more than oneleader for the period in question:

DATE OF REIGN . . . King, bretwalda or ealdorman

?c.660-?c.685 . . . . . . . . . . Ædelwealh?c.683 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eadwulf?c.683-?c.685 . . . . . . . . . . . . Ecgwald?c.685 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andhun

� From c.686 to 726, the kingdomcame under the overall rule of neigh-bouring Wessex:

692-717 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nodhelm692-700 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Watt717 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aedelstan740 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aedelberht760-772 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Osmund

� From 771 to 825, the kingdom wasplaced under the rule of Mercia:

772 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oswald765-772 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oslac765-791 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ealdwulf765-772 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ælfwald

� From 825, the kingdom was backunder Wessex:

825-839 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ecgberht839-858 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethulwulf858-865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethulbert865-871 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethelred

� On the death of ETHELRED, wefinally get back into more familiarterritory with the accession of his son,who became ALFRED THE GREAT.

�

S U S S E X F O S S I L S

‘His rise and fall are a salutary example of human motive, mischief and mistake...’

E D I T O R I A L O N P I L T D O W N M A N , N A T U R E , 1 9 5 4

Sussex is particularly rich in FOSSILS, but for centuries the localpeople who came across them, lying among rockfall on the shore,or under the blades of their ploughs, did not know how to iden-

tify them, believing them to be giants’ bones, or dragons’ teeth (which,of course, in a sense, they were). Fittingly, it was a Sussex man, thedoctor and naturalist GIDEON MANTELL, who was one of the first toattempt to categorise his findings into a specific sort of animal.

Eight great fossil sites

Should you want to fossil-hunt, checkthe rules first: some sites encourageamateurs, others forbid them!

The immense lengths of the clas-sified prehistoric periods are almostimpossible to grasp. The CRETACEOUS

period overall lasted just over 71million years, so the dates given in thetable relate to the fossils actually foundon each site – to the nearest fivemillion years or so.

Ammonite houses

Falling outside the familiar architec-tural orders, a sudden – and brief –fashion for capitals in the form ofAMMONITES (those curled shell fossilsfound all along the rocky Sussexcoastline) flourished in the early nine-teenth century. Just a few appeared inLondon, but the Sussex father-and-son builders, AMON WILDS & AMON

HENRY WILDS, introduced a numberin fossil-mad Sussex, including them


[ 14 ]

S I T E P ER IOD O F FO S S I L S HOW LONG AGO ?

Bracklesham Bay Eocene 40-50 million Eastbourne Cretaceous 85 millionFolkestone Cretaceous 100 millionHastings Early cretaceous 140 millionLittlehampton Cretaceous 75-100 millionPeacehaven Late Cretaceous 80-85 millionSeaford Cretaceous 70-100 millionSeven Sisters Cretaceous 70-100 million

S U S S E X F O S S I L S

[ 15 ]

on terraces in Brighton and, in Lewes,on the elegant façade of Castle Placeon Lewes High Street. It may be thatthey appreciated the pun of Amon-nite on their name, or they maysimply have been following thecontemporary craze for antiquarianthemes in their work.

The Piltdown scandal

One of the most famous associationsbetween palaeontology and Sussex isthe discovery – and later discrediting– of ‘the man who never was’: PILTDOWN MAN. No-one knows forsure who perpetrated the fraud, butin 1912, CHARLES DAWSON, arespected bone-hunter uncovered askull at Piltdown which seemed tocombine the characteristics of earlierand later specimens, having the largecranium and high forehead of modernman and a primitive jaw much closerto Neanderthal remains. Dawson diedin 1916, and by the early 1950s theskull (and a later example, also uncov-ered at Piltdown by Dawson) had

been discredited, and it was acknowl-edged that Eoanthropus dawsoni hadactually been formed from the toppart of a human skull and the jawboneof an orang utan. Who perpetrated thefraud, and why, has never been estab-lished – suspects have ranged fromDawson himself to a number of hiscolleagues, and the list even includesan intriguing appearance from SIR

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, himself anamateur palaeontologist.

The naming of parts

It was GIDEON MANTELL, a Sussexdoctor, who ‘created’ the first nameddinosaur. An enthusiastic naturalistand fossil hunter, when huge teeth andbone fossils were found at Cuckfield inthe early 1820s, he noticed that theyresembled those of the iguana, butwere around twenty times the size.From this came the name IGUANADON,used ever since. The term ‘dinosaur’,from the Greek deinos, ‘fearfully great’and sauros, ‘lizard’, was coined in 1842by the scientist RICHARD OWEN.

T H E B R I C K WO R K S D I N O S AU R

The village of Rudgwick has its very owndinosaur, the remains of which werefound in the local brickworks in 1985.In 1996, Polacanthus rudgwickensiswas acknowledged with its own classifi-cation – it was an armour-plated,spike-backed herbivore, resembl ing a five-ton armadillo. Its remains can be seenin the museum at Horsham.

S U S S E X F A U N A

‘Sing Ho! For the life of a Bear!’A . A . M I L N E , W I N N I E T H E P O O H , 1 9 2 6

With its varied and fertile terrain, Sussex has played host tomany incoming species as well as to its own native popula-tions of animals and birds. If they pick their spot carefully,

visitors may have sight of WALLABIES and WILD BOAR as well as thoseof the rabbits and field mice they might more reasonably expect.

The ‘Hastings rarities’

Raising a scandal that rumbled on inthe ornithology world from the 1930sto the 1960s, the story of the HastingsRarities revolved around the unassum-ing taxidermy shop of GEORGE

BRISTOW, at 15 Silchester Road, StLeonards. Between the 1890s and the1930s, Bristow sold a wide range ofbirds, allegedly all locally acquired(both as skins and stuffed specimens)to collectors and ornithologists. Fromthe 1930s onwards, the unusually highincidence of birds previously un -known in Sussex but sold by Bristowas local provoked rumours of fraud.The taxidermist indignantly refutedany accusations (and himself asked, ifthe birds in question did not comefrom Sussex, where did anyoneimagine he had got them?). None -theless, the amount his sales of raritiesraised was considerable for the time,and after his death in 1947 thequestions rumbled on. Finally

two articles in the well-regarded peri-odical British Birds in 1962 flatlyrecommended that a number of thebirds sold by Bristow – 16 species and13 sub-species – be removed from theofficial records, as it was simply toostatistically unlikely that they hadgenuinely been obtained in Sussex.This created a lasting confusion,because many publications on Britishbirds had incorporated species whichcould only have been verified byBristow. The puzzle was never satis-factorily explained, and the case neverresolved either for or against. Of thefull species dropped from the record,13 have subsequently been reinstatedafter reliable sightings were reported.A number of Bristow’s birds can stillbe seen in the museum at Hastings.


S U S S E X F A U N A

[ 21 ]

The sixteen dubious rarities

� Black Lark – since relisted� Brown Flycatcher� Calendra Lark – since relisted� Cetti’s Warbler – since relisted� Collared Flycatcher – since relisted� Cory’s Shearwater – since relisted� Grey-tailed Tattler – since relisted� Masked Shrike – since relisted� Moustached Warbler� Olivaceous Warbler – since relisted� Rueppell’s Warbler – since relisted� Sardinian Warbler – since relisted� Semipalmated Sandpiper –

since relisted� Slender-billed Curlew –

since relisted� Terek Sandpiper – since relisted� White-winged Snowfinch

A famous bear & wallabies

ASHDOWN FOREST has long beenknown to fans of A.A.MILNE as theplayground of CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

and WINNIE THE POOH. Butbetween the 1940s and the 1970s, itwas also home to a colony of walla-bies, probably escaped pets, whichnaturalised in the area (they may haveprovided Milne with the inspirationfor Kanga and Roo). From first sight-ings in 1942, they appeared to die off,and no confirmed sightings have nowbeen reported for over 30 years. Ifyou want to see wallabies in naturalsurroundings in Sussex, however,there is a healthy colony living inLEONARDSLEE GARDENS at LowerBeeding, near Horsham.

Alien big cats

‘ABCs’ as they are known to connois-seurs of the mysterious, are sighted inSussex at a particularly high rate. Hereis a partial – only a partial – record of sightings for 1999, originallypublished in the Fortean Times:

8 January – Sightings in Ringmer,Rodmell and East Chiltington

February – Sighting in WilsonAvenue, Lewes

8 March – Adversane, off the B2133‘Beige ABC with tufts on ears and tail’

13 March – Sighting at East Chiltington

April – Sighting at Chailey ‘Fittingthe description of a jaguarundi’

2 April – Firle, 1.5-in talon found in field

7 May – Cuckfield, ABC seen atdistance of five yards

Mid-May – Two sightings at Burgess Hill

23 May – Sighting at Holton St Mary, near Hassocks

Early July – Sighting at Newchapel.Two sheep attacked in a mannertypical of a big cat

September – Sighting half a milefrom the Ashcombe roundaboutnear Lewes

Early October – Cuckfield Lane,Warninglid, sighting of a small‘lioness’

6 December – Sighting nearBramber, ‘lioness’ seen at 30-40 ft.

T R A N S P O R T I N S U S S E X

‘The Siddlesham snail, the Siddlesham snail,The boiler’s bust, she’s off the rail’

A N O N Y M O U S D O G G E R E L D E C R Y I N G T H E – N O W D E F U N C T – S E L S E Y T R A I N

It seems odd now, with the FAST TRAIN FROM BRIGHTON to theterminal at VICTORIA taking well under an hour, and more than itsfair share of motorways crossing the county, that Sussex should have

been considered until well into the nineteenth century as a remote andrather inturned place. The famous mud, in all its depth and clagginess,is mentioned by authors from Defoe onwards as a good reason not totravel, so the coming of the RAILWAY made a huge difference – both tothe wider world’s perception of Sussex in general, and to Sussex’s viewof ‘foreigners’ (previously a term for anyone from further away than thenext village) in particular.

A practical and a writer’s view

The success of the London-to-Manchester railway prompted a groupof businessmen to put up the moneyfor a London-to-Brighton link. By the1830s Brighton was attracting morethan 2,000 visitors a week, so therewas no question of the level of the

demand. A proposal by GEORGE

RENNIE for the proposed route waseventually accepted, and the railwaywas begun in 1838 and completed in1841. A handful of facts and figures:AMOUNT OF NEW TRACK: 39 milesLENGTH OF NEW TUNNELS:

Balcombe – 800 yardsClayton Hill – 1,730 yardsHaywards Heath – 1,450 yardsMerstham – 2,180 yards

COST OF THE RAILWAY:£2,634,059.00 (or £57,262 per mile)COST OF TICKETS ON OPENING:First class 14s 6d (an immense sumin the 1840s)Second class 9s 6dThird class 6s (travelling in somediscomfort; the third-class carriageswere open to the elements)


[ 54 ]

T R A N S P O R T I N S U S S E X

[ 55 ]

KIPLING was a keen railway travellerand in 1900 produced a piece ofwhimsy about the building of thesouthern coast railways, written in thestyle of the ARABIAN NIGHTS: ‘... Acertain Afrit of little sense and greatpower... who had devised brazenengines that ran on iron roads. Theseby the perfection of their operation,dilated the heart with wonder and theeye with amazement, for they resem-bled, as it were, litters drawn byfire-breathing dragons...’ The placeslinked in the story have beenrenamed, but it does not take muchthought to identify them – tryTabriziz, Harundil and Isbahan.*

Odd conveyances

LICENCES to park are nothing new;they’ve been with us since long beforethe coming of the motor car.Eastbourne boasts a number ofVictorian licences still on display, inthe form of small initialled iron platesinserted into the older walls of thetown at street level. They specify theform of conveyance they licence bymeans of initials:

BCS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bath chair standGCS . . . . . . . . . . . . .Goat chaise standHCS . . . . . . . . .Hackney carriage standLPS . . . . . . . . . . . Luggage porter standMCS . . . . . . . . .Motor charabanc standSDS . . . . . . . . . . Saddled donkey standSPS . . . . . . . . . . . . Saddled pony stand

Balcombe viaduct

Originally built to take the London toBrighton railway over the River Ouse,the BALCOMBE VIADUCT has beenlauded ever since its opening as oneof the most elegant in Britain.

A plaque on one arch gives thereader all the salient points:

‘BALCOMBE

Ouse Valley Viaduct

This viaduct was designed by theengineer John Urpeth Rastrick

for the London & Brighton Railway.The architect David Mocatta was

associated with the design.

The structure comprises thirty-seven arches

and was completed in 1842. It is listed Grade IIRestored 1996-99’

To which one could add that theviaduct is 1,475ft long, and 96ft aboutthe ground at its highest point. Thebricks fused to build it were broughtfrom Holland and transported by boatup the – then much wider and deeper– Ouse. The view from the viaductthrough the train windows is lovely,and the view of the viaduct from thefields below is breathtaking.

�

*Three Bridges, Arundel & Eastbourne

S U S S E X K I T C H E N S

‘A surgeon may as well attempt to open a vein with an oyster knife,as for me to pretend to get dinner without proper tools to do it...’

W I L L I A M V E R R A L , M A S T E R O F T H E W H I T E H A R T I N N , L E W E S , 1 7 5 9

The COOKS in Sussex, as in many other primarily agriculturalcounties, were excellent managers. To be ‘nottable’, a dialectword meaning thrifty, was a much-praised quality in the kitchen.

Flour and suet eked out scanty supplies of meat, and the cheaper fish –such as mackerel and herring – cooked in various ways were also staplesin SUSSEX KITCHENS. Numerous recipes from these more economicaltimes still exist, although many may not sound enormously appealingto today’s more indulged palates.

Five cheap Sussex dinners

1. T E N - TO - O N E P I E

Potato and meat pie (ten potatoes toeach piece of meat).2. S W I M M E R S

Plain suet pudding cut in slices andsweetened with jam or treacle.3. S U S S E X P U D D I N G

A plain pudding made with flour andwater. Also sometimes less genteellyknown as ‘hard dick’, ‘hard’ used inthe sense of plain or mean. A lesspinchpenny version was made withraisins (‘spotted dick’). Quite a differ-ent matter from Sussex Pond Pudding(see p61).

4. B L O C K O R N A M E N T S

Cheap offcuts of every kind of meat,bought by the handful or bag from thebutcher, and scattered lightly acrossthe ubiquitous suet crust to make a‘meat’ pudding.5. S H A C K L E

Watery soup made with vegetables.

... And to wash them down:

DONKEY TEA

Toasted breadcrumbs in water, strained andsweetened with sugar.


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S U S S E X K I T C H E N S

[ 59 ]

Fish suppers

HERRINGS, MACKEREL, SPRATS andSARDINES were the cheap fish thatformed the standby of the thriftySussex cook. Local recipes (some solocal as to be specific to a single villageor town) were passed down throughfamilies. Selsey herrings were herringssoused in vinegar accompanied by afresh horseradish sauce, but otherricher recipes exist featuring creamand pastry.

The Sussex coastline, even in theseover-fished times, still offers rich pick-ings for catch-your-own enthusiasts.Fishermen’s records show that thefollowing species were line-caught onthe stretch of coast between WestWittering and Selsey Bill between2003 and 2006:

Bream (including Gilthead Bream) . . .Codling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dogfish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Flounder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gurnard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Huss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mackerel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mullet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Plaice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pouting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Whiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

�

The seven good things

A Chichester lobster, a Selsey cockle,

An Arundel mullet, a Pulborough eel, An Amberley trout,

a Rye herringAnd a Bourne wheatear, are the best of their kind

This is a TRADITIONAL RHYME

lauding the finest raw ingredients ofthe country. The wheatear (a sparrow-sized bird) was rarely eaten by thebeginning of the twentieth century(and there aren’t reliable records ofit being eaten before then, but rooks,blackbirds and sparrows all featuredin pies in the nineteenth century). Allthe other edibles, though, remainpossibilities. In 2003, a televisionprogramme made by BBC South Eastundertook to provide a recipe foreach of the seven good things, buteven they jibbed at the wheatear.

P U D D I N G P E O P L E

Sussex was so well known for the ubiq-uity of its puddings – some form or otherof which appeared at every meal – thatthe saying arose, ‘Don’t go to Sussex, or

they’ll make you into a pudding.’

L O C A L S P E C I A L I T I E S

‘Eat winkles in March; they’re as good as a dose of medicine’

T R A D I T I O N A L S U S S E X S A Y I N G

From the time of the Romans – who no doubt enjoyed lavish villameals of DORMICE IN HONEY in Sussex, as they did in many otherparts of Britain – the county has been home to a wide variety of

foods and cooking. From the traditional pies and puddings and the indige-nous meat, fish and game, to the lavish creations of cooks who learned theirarts in foreign cities, SUSSEX FOOD has long enjoyed a fine reputation.

Twelve exotic dishes of William Verral

The following twelve exotic disheswere listed, among many othersequally appetising, as his specialitiesin the 1759 cookbook of WILLIAM

VERRAL, celebrated Franco phile chefof the WHITE HART INN in Lewes(the spelling is from the original):

1. Water souchy (a delicate fish soup)2. Cups of eggs with gravy of partridge3. Petty-pattees in cups. With a

Benjamele sauce.4. Sheeps rumps fry’d5. Pigeons au soleil6. Cardoons, with piquant sauce7. Fricasee of eels, with Champagne or

Rhenish wine8. Small fat pig en balon. Sauce in

ravigote9. Calves ears, with lettuce10. Truffles in French wine11. Cups a l’amande, with sweet biscuit12. Currant fritters en surprize

Some of these sound more palatablethan others (sheeps’ rumps, howeverwell fried, would probably appeal tofew people today), but surely theWhite Hart menus must have beensome of the most sophisticated ineighteenth-century Sussex. Verral hadtrained under M.DE SAINT CLOUET,a famous French cook of the time.


[ 60 ]

T H E P R I C E O F A M E A L

In 1768, an elaborate electioneeringdinner for 145 people at theWhite HartInn cost twenty-one pounds and fifteenshillings. The drinks bill came to over

three times as much.

L O C A L S P E C I A L I T I E S

[ 61 ]

A true local pudding

One dish universally acclaimed asindigenous to Sussex is the SUSSEX

POND PUDDING. Boiled in a cloth,this looks like any other suet puddinguntil you cut into it, whereupon itreleases a flood of lemon-flavouredsauce (the ‘pond’). The secret to therecipe is that a whole lemon is placedin the suet casing, along with gener-ous quantities of butter and brownsugar. The lemon softens in the three-or four-hour boiling of the pudding,and each serving contains a slice of thesucculent fruit. Although enthusiastsclaim an ancient history for the recipe,lemons would not have been availablein Sussex, even to the moneyedgentry, until the early nineteenthcentury, so it is probably no more thantwo hundred years old.

A fatal event

The Sussex oyster industry took itsfinal blow in 1902, when EMSWORTH

OYSTERS were served at a banquetheld by the local mayor. Unfortu -nately the shellfish beds had beencontaminated by the relaying of localdrains alongside them, and several of the guests contracted typhoid.There were a number of fatalities,including the Dean of Winchester, andappetite for the local oysters died withthe victims.

Sussex oysters

The ROMANS enjoyed the fine qualityof Sussex fish, and particularly theLOCAL OYSTERS – copious quanti-ties of oyster shells were found,amongst other food detritus, in theruins of the palatial Roman villa atFishbourne. And future generationsfollowed their lead. By the nineteenthcentury, SHOREHAM was one of themost successful fishing ports inSussex, and a centre of the county’soyster trade.

�

Here are some statistics relating toSussex’s oyster trade:[295] the number of boats fishing outof Shoreham in 1869[740] the number of men employedon the boats[89] the number of boys employed onthe boats[20,000] the number of oysters sentup from Shoreham to London perannum (several times this numberwere consumed locally).

� The mid-1800s were the heyday ofSussex fisheries; by the early twentiethcentury the fish stocks were less bountiful.

‘Miscellany: assortment, brew, collection, conglomeration,

farrago, hodgepodge, jumble,mêlée,mixture,mélange, pasticcio,

patchwork, pot pourri, salmagundi, variety…’

PETER MARK ROGET

A S U S S E X G U I D E

A SUSSEXMISCELLANY




Sophie Collins is a writer, editor and exile fromLondon, with family ties to Sussex where shehas lived and worked for the last ten years. Along-term enthusiast for the odd and theirrelevant, she has found Sussex trivia particularlyrewarding and that the weirder aspects of thecounty have well repaid closer study.What otherEnglish county could offer over 30 differentterms for mud?Where else would you find suchan inviolate and historic pride in sheer pig-headedness? The fruits of her research have goneinto this miscellany.


Who was the Grey Lady of Pevensey Castle?Where could you have dined on Pigeons au soleil?What (or who) on earth is the Knucker? Howdo you make a Sussex trug?Who or what werethe Hastings Rarities?What’s the pond in SussexPond Pudding? Howmany firework societies arethere in Lewes? What was the name of theBloomsbury marmoset?What was the GuineaPig Club? How many men did it take to run theShoreham Oyster Fleet?Who won the Battle ofLewes? For answers to these burning questions,or for a lovely lazy afternoon dipping into anentertainingly quirky mix of local facts, figures,history, statistics and folk tales, turn to A SussexMiscellany, a refreshing Schott of Sussex forreaders who love local trivia.

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£8.99


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Snake River Press publishes books about the art,culture, personalities and landscape of Sussex. Snake Riverbooks are available by mail order or from bookshops.You can order safely online through our website:

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This may look like a slim volume, but it is in fact a

powerful pocket encyclopaedia that cunningly mixes

facts, figures and statistics with anecdotes, stories,

folklore and myth to produce an intriguing treat for

wet afternoons and a formidable secret weapon for

the local pub quiz. Why not put in your thumb, and see

what delicious Sussex plums you can pull out?

a sussex miscellany

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