East Chiltington
| East Chiltington | |
| Sussex | |
|---|---|
 East Chiltington Parish Church | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ389148 |
| Location: | 50°55’16"N, 0°3’0"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 474 (2011) |
| Post town: | Lewes |
| Postcode: | BN7 |
| Dialling code: | 01273 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Lewes |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Lewes |
| Website: | eastchiltington.net |
East Chiltington is a village in Sussex centred four miles south-east of Burgess Hill and five miles north-west of Lewes. The wider parish is a typical Sussex, South Downs strip parish of 3¾ square miles, stretching northward (south of Plumpton) from the crest of the South Downs.
The village church is 13th century in origin; the vicar also has charge of two churches in Plumpton. Near the church there is a pub called The Jolly Sportsman. The Sussex Greensand Way, a Roman road, runs from east to west through the centre of the parish.
Eton College owns a 500-acre plot in the parish and in 2021 applied to build 3,000 homes in the area north of the railway line. The proposal has met with resistance from locals, citing amongst other things the risk to the biodiversity of the area.[1]
There is no public access to the majority of the banks of Bevern Stream through East Chiltington.
Parish church
The parish church was once the chapel of a detached part of Westmeston parish hence the name of the lane, Chapel Lane, and farm, Chapel Farm. It was built in the 12th century. Quite fascinatingly, the church which has walls, nave, chancel and tower made of winklestone.
This is a church made of fossils. Big winkle shells, Viviparus, stand proud of the stone, reddish or grey, and very similar to the water snail shells you can pick from riversides, which are of the same genus, though they live 135 million years later.
The church has one of the largest yew trees in Sussex and maintains its wildflower meadows. It declares on entry to look out for its sweet violet, cuckoo flower, bluebell, lords-and-ladies (Arum maculatum), birdsfoot trefoil, adder's tongue, knapweed, |common spotted and green-winged orchid, cat's ear, agrimony, yarrow, lesser stitchwort, vervain and rough hawkbit as well as its perennial grasses which include Yorkshire fog, meadow foxtail and cocksfoot.
About the village
The parish of East Chiltington is below the northern, scarp slope of the South Downs from the top end of Ashcombe Bottom and the Blackcap nature reserve, down the Clayton to Offham Escarpment to the Sussex Weald stretching north and northeast to the Chailey parish. To its east is St John (without), to its south Falmer and to its west the Plumpton parish.
The area is remarkable for its long stretches where the banks of the lanes are beautified with wildflowers. There are at least five spots along Novington Lane with the rare meadow cranesbill where it flowers in July. There are also spotted orchid. oxeye daisy, bird's foot trefoil, hoary ragwort and meadowsweet. The area also has many small archaic meadows, one of which is of superb quality, and lovingly cared for, with a big display of southern marsh orchid, marsh marigold, ragged robin, heath spotted orchid, and both black and carnation sedges.
At Brookhouse, East Chiltington, (TQ375155) is a fat, pollarded native Black Poplar by the barns that has been separated for 165 years from the banks of the Bevern Stream by the railway line. These are a tree species with only scattered survivors in Sussex, though many have lately been planted.
The Bevern stream
The Bevern stream runs through the middle of the parish, flowing eastwards to the River Ouse. It is fed by the clear chalky waters of Plumpton Mill Stream arising at moated Plumpton Place. It runs over gravelly beds and provides some of the best spawning ground in the area for sea trout. It also supports mayflies, caddis flies and great crested newts, and many birds drink from the waters, including summer visitors like nightingale.
However, like many of the Sussex streams and rivers, the Bevern stream has not been left unpolluted. In late 2016 the whole of the Bevern Stream was polluted by a huge volume of slurry from Plumpton College Dairy Unit. All the fish in it were killed.[2] Streams and their biodiversity need years to recover from events such as this.
Hurst Barns
The largest estate in the area is Hurst Barns (TQ383160) at around 500 acres. It has a handsome 18th century farmhouse, cottages, an old threshing barn and wooden (converted) granary. It has a line of lime trees. It has been bought by the Earl of Albemarle.
Woodland
There is impressive woodland in East Chiltington. Beneath the Downs the large woods sit on Gault Clay. Further north, the land is fertile lower greensand so there is more arable land and less woodland. The remains of Home Wood has now largely been destroyed for farmland.
Home, Great Home and Middle Home Wood
Before 1650, Home Wood was 300 acres and an important demesne wood of the Priory of St Pancras at Lewes. The majority of it was converted to farmland by the church and the commoners dispossessed. The footprint of the lost mediæval Home Wood begins at the north end of Novington Lane. Hattons Green was once lawns at the edge of mediæval Home Wood, but it is just paddocks and cottages now. The green and Homewoodgate Farm marked its western edge. There is still a small woodland called Home Wood which has old holly, coppiced beech and old wood pasture feel. Next to it was Novingdean Common, which was a common of 40 acres lost to the people after 1600.
Great and Middle Home Wood are the last remaining large fragments of the wood. Great Home Wood (TQ372182) spans the East Chiltington and the Chailey parishes. The northern end had drifts of wild daffodils. The wood has large amount of coppiced oak. They stand with old hornbeam coppice and a mixture of ash and birch poles. There is pine at the south end. The recent re-coppicing has failed because deer have eaten out the inadequately protected regrowth and killed the old coppice stools. Consequently, nightingales or warblers are unlikely to breed here.
Middle Home Wood (TQ378174) has hornbeam, hazel and oak and in spring many bluebells. There is a gentle valley stream at its centre and a derelict unimproved pasture along its north side, which a footpath crosses.
Both Great Home and Middle Home woods have suffered losses to build RAF Chailey, in preparation for the D Day landings in the Second World War, and modern farming has done its bit too. Another fragment of the ancient Home Wood, Wet Home Wood, was cleared in recent years too and only tiny bits along its boundaries survive.[3]
Long Wood
Long Wood (TQ367142) has oak, hazel with bluebells in spring and much birch. It has laurel thickets and 12 ancient woodland indicator species. Silver-washed fritillary butterflies and harlequin longhorn beetles can be seen here.
There are drained ponds between it and Cottage Wood, which have become a marshy area (TQ381192) with frogs, dragonflies and damselflies flying above scarce wetland plants, such as cyperus sedge, wood club rush and lesser marshwort.
Blackcap
- Main article: Blackcap, Sussex
Blackcap is a downland peak which like Ashcombe Bottom has been under the National Trust's ownership since 1993. It forms part of the National Trust Blackcap nature reserve.
There is a ridgeway that connects Blackcap and Mount Harry. These two peaks are unfenced and open, as the old Downs were, and the Down pasture is recovering from past damage. Cattle and sheep wander freely. The scarp top retains some rich ancient grassland fragments, especially where the slope begins to tip northwards and you can find frog and bee orchid and there are tiny fragments of heathy grassland and even ling heather. In autumn the waxcap fungal flora can be spectacularly colourful. 21 old meadow species have been counted there. Next to the top of the Warningore Bostal, are a cluster of 12 smallish round barrows, each one with a 'pillage dimple' in the top, but otherwise well-preserved.
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about East Chiltington) |
References
- ↑ "Eton v the sea trout: college's land sale sparks fears of river pollution" (in en). 2021-06-19. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/19/eton-v-the-sea-trout-colleges-land-sale-sparks-fears-of-river-pollution.
- ↑ "Stream leading to River Ouse polluted by slurry killing hundreds of fish" (in en). https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14942454.stream-leading-to-river-ouse-polluted-by-slurry-killing-hundreds-of-fish/.
- ↑ Bangs, David (2018). Land of the Brighton line: a field guide to the Middle Sussex and South East Surrey Weald. [Brighton]. ISBN 978-0-9548638-2-1. OCLC 1247849975. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1247849975.