Sussex Guns, by Christopher Lloyd, published November 1973 in History Today (vol 23, issue 11, article) View Online
Abstract:When the iron industry depended on wood, not coal, Sussex and Kent were the centres of English gunfounders, writes Christopher Lloyd.
The description of Sussex in Camden's Britannia (1586) comes as a surprise to the modern reader:
The description of Sussex in Camden's Britannia (1586) comes as a surprise to the modern reader:
Full of iron mines it is in sundry places, where for the making and fining whereof there be furnaces on every side, and a huge deal of wood is yearly spent, to which purpose divers brooks in many places are brought to run in one channel, and sundry meadows turned into pools and water, that there might be of power sufficient to drive hammer mills, which beating upon the iron, resound all over the places adjoining. The ironmasters cast much great ordnance thereof and other things, to their no small gain.He is describing the area generally known as the Weald, comprising east Sussex and parts of southern Kent, the area geologically speaking of the Hastings beds and Wadhurst clay. In those days the Weald was heavily wooded with oak, which was used for the charcoal furnaces.
A Pelican in Sussex, by Philip Pattenden, published September 1982 in History Today (vol 32, issue 9, article) View Online
Abstract:Explores the work of Charles Eamer Kempe at Old Place, Sussex.
Old place is the epitome of Elizabethan elegance which Charles Eamer Kempe created around himself at Lindfield, near Haywards Heath, in Sussex in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. An extravaganza of the architectural style of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, extensive and grandiose, richly embellished within and without by carving and pargeting, it was bejewelled with copious windows in stained or painted glass, though much of this glass was removed in the nineteen-twenties. Kempe became very wealthy and celebrated in his success as an artist and designer, especially in glasswork. At Old Place his purpose was to create a gentleman's country residence in the late Tudor/Jacobean style, and any visitor there even now, when, since the War, the house has been divided into several residences, cannot but agree that he realised that ideal.
Old place is the epitome of Elizabethan elegance which Charles Eamer Kempe created around himself at Lindfield, near Haywards Heath, in Sussex in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. An extravaganza of the architectural style of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, extensive and grandiose, richly embellished within and without by carving and pargeting, it was bejewelled with copious windows in stained or painted glass, though much of this glass was removed in the nineteen-twenties. Kempe became very wealthy and celebrated in his success as an artist and designer, especially in glasswork. At Old Place his purpose was to create a gentleman's country residence in the late Tudor/Jacobean style, and any visitor there even now, when, since the War, the house has been divided into several residences, cannot but agree that he realised that ideal.
The Revival of England's White House, by Tony Aldous, published October 1986 in History Today (vol. 36, issue 10, article) View Online
Abstract:A look into a building designed by an early American architect situated in Hammerwood Park near East Grinstead in Sussex.
Four Years ago England's only major building designed by Revolutionary America's first architect was derelict and on the verge of complete collapse. Today it hosts dinner parties and musical evenings ? but thanks to a court ruling the public may not be able to visit it at all in 1987.
The victim of this 'Mad Hatter' situation is Hammerwood Park near East Grinstead in Sussex, built in the Greek Revival style in 1792, by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who three years later emigrated to America. There he became architectural adviser to Thomas Jefferson and the designer of much of the new Capitol in Washington as well as the porticos of the White House. Hammerwood was built originally as a hunting- lodge for John Sparling and throughout the nineteenth century was a family home. But with the Second World War it fell on hard times ? requisitioned for troops, it was subsequently left empty, then turned into flats. The rock group, Led Zeppelin, bought Hammerwood in 1973 intending to use it as a home- cum-recording-studio, but nothing came of restoration plans; after that massive vandalisation and the removal of tons of lead from the roof allowed the house to become saturated with water and a haven for fungus, wet and dry.
Four Years ago England's only major building designed by Revolutionary America's first architect was derelict and on the verge of complete collapse. Today it hosts dinner parties and musical evenings ? but thanks to a court ruling the public may not be able to visit it at all in 1987.
The victim of this 'Mad Hatter' situation is Hammerwood Park near East Grinstead in Sussex, built in the Greek Revival style in 1792, by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who three years later emigrated to America. There he became architectural adviser to Thomas Jefferson and the designer of much of the new Capitol in Washington as well as the porticos of the White House. Hammerwood was built originally as a hunting- lodge for John Sparling and throughout the nineteenth century was a family home. But with the Second World War it fell on hard times ? requisitioned for troops, it was subsequently left empty, then turned into flats. The rock group, Led Zeppelin, bought Hammerwood in 1973 intending to use it as a home- cum-recording-studio, but nothing came of restoration plans; after that massive vandalisation and the removal of tons of lead from the roof allowed the house to become saturated with water and a haven for fungus, wet and dry.
Etchingham Church, East Sussex, by Nigel Saul, published 1987 in History Today (vol. 37, article, pp.62-63)
Bodiam Castle, by Nigel Saul, published January 1995 in History Today (vol. 45, issue 1, article) View Online
Abstract:Nigel Saul examines the social aspirations of a fourteenth-century Sussex castle and the man who built it.
Bodiam castle in Sussex was the creation of one combative egotist, and it owes its preservation to another. The builder of Bodiam was an ambitious retired war veteran and future councillor of Richard II, Sir Edward Dallingridge. Its saviour five-and-a-half centuries later was that 'most superior person', the Marquess Curzon of Kedkston, Foreign Secretary and one-time viceroy of India.
Sir Edward Dallingridge's castle ? graceful, noble and proud ? appears the very epitome of the medieval stronghold. Essentially it consists of a single oblong-shaped courtyard rising from a broad moat. All the domestic and garrison accommodation is disposed around the four walls of the interior. In the west range are the servants' hall and kitchen, in the south the main hall and service rooms, and in the east the chapel and the private chambers of the lord and lady. Defensive panoply is concentrated in the four cylindrical corner towers and, above all, on the great gateway on the north side.
Bodiam castle in Sussex was the creation of one combative egotist, and it owes its preservation to another. The builder of Bodiam was an ambitious retired war veteran and future councillor of Richard II, Sir Edward Dallingridge. Its saviour five-and-a-half centuries later was that 'most superior person', the Marquess Curzon of Kedkston, Foreign Secretary and one-time viceroy of India.
Sir Edward Dallingridge's castle ? graceful, noble and proud ? appears the very epitome of the medieval stronghold. Essentially it consists of a single oblong-shaped courtyard rising from a broad moat. All the domestic and garrison accommodation is disposed around the four walls of the interior. In the west range are the servants' hall and kitchen, in the south the main hall and service rooms, and in the east the chapel and the private chambers of the lord and lady. Defensive panoply is concentrated in the four cylindrical corner towers and, above all, on the great gateway on the north side.
Firle Place in Sussex, home of the Gage family for 500 years, by Richard Cavendish, published June 1998 in History today (vol. 48, issue 6, article, pp.62-63) View Online
Abstract:One of the Gage family ended his life as a grandee of Spain after vainly attempting to buy the throne of Poland, and another gave the family name to the greengage variety of plum. Or so the stories go. General Thomas Gage (1721- 87) was certainly the British commander-in-chief in North America at the outbreak of the American War of Independence. He brought his beautiful American wife home and Firle Place draws many American visitors today. Any misgivings they may feel about a place linked with someone on the 'wrong' side seem to be swept instantly away by the immemorial charm of the Georgian house with its park, attendant village and stumpy-towered church below the South Downs.
The Sussex Network, by Patricia Peck, published September 2000 in History today (vol. 50, issue 9, article) View Online
Abstract:Patricia Cleveland-Peck on the part played by a French cafe in the Sussex Network operations during the Second World War.
It was the casual remark made in the 1980s by a friend in Paris that led to my discovery of a little-known piece of Second World War history ? the Sussex Network. ?Did I know,' my friend asked, ?about the café in rue Tournefort where la patronne sheltered allied airmen during the war?'
I did not, but thinking it worth investigation I set off ? only to find that the café had just closed down. Disappointed and fearing that the owner had died (my friend said she had run the café since 1928) I pushed a note through the door and thought no more about it until a few weeks later when I received a letter informing me that the owner, Andrée Goubillon, was alive and well and would be happy to meet me and tell me her story.
It was the casual remark made in the 1980s by a friend in Paris that led to my discovery of a little-known piece of Second World War history ? the Sussex Network. ?Did I know,' my friend asked, ?about the café in rue Tournefort where la patronne sheltered allied airmen during the war?'
I did not, but thinking it worth investigation I set off ? only to find that the café had just closed down. Disappointed and fearing that the owner had died (my friend said she had run the café since 1928) I pushed a note through the door and thought no more about it until a few weeks later when I received a letter informing me that the owner, Andrée Goubillon, was alive and well and would be happy to meet me and tell me her story.
In Memory of India's Fallen: Brighton's tribute to Indian soldiers, by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, published October 2010 in History today (vol. 60, issue 10, article, pp.6-7) View Online
Abstract:This autumn sees the last act of remembrance for 53 Hindu and Sikh soldiers who were cremated on the Downs near Brighton during the First World War. Nearly a century after their deaths, the men's names have been inscribed in stone by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and unveiled in a simple ceremony, at a memorial erected in their honour.
Indians in Britain during the First World War, by Suzanne Bardgett, published March 2015 in History Today (vol. 65, issue 3, article, pp.41-47) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/509162] View Online
Abstract:The people of Brighton offered a warm welcome to the Indian soldiers sent to convalesce at the Sussex resort in the First World War. But the military authorities found much to be nervous about.