Ditchling

Ditchling is a village and

There are two public houses, The Bull and The White Horse; two cafes, The Nutmeg Tree and The Green Welly; a post office, florist, delicatessen and other shops. Ditchling has community groups and societies, including the Ditchling Film Society and the Ditchling Singers.[4]

Location

The village lies at the foot of the South Downs in East Sussex, but very close to the border with West Sussex. The settlement stands around a crossroads with Brighton and Hove to the south, Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath to the north, Keymer and Hassocks to the west, and Lewes to the east, and is built on a slight spur of land between the Downs to the south and Lodge Hill to the north. Ditchling Beacon, one of the highest points on the South Downs, overlooks the village.

Ditchling Common, north of the village, is one of jewels in the crown of the low weald and the source of the eastern River Adur.^[5]

Etymology

The earliest known appearance of the name is Dicelinga in AD 765,^[6] and was subsequently known as Dicelingas, Diccelingum, Dyccanlingum, Diceninges, Dicelinges, Digelinges, Dicheninges, Dicheling, Dichelyng, Dechelyng, Dichening(e), Dichyning(e), Digining, Dechenyng, Dichlinge, Dicheling, Dichening, Dychenynge and Dytcheling. ^{[7] [8]} The name took its current form in the seventeenth century.

The root itself is uncertain. The Old English word dic - which means "ditch, trench or dike"^[9] would appear to be inapplicable as the town sits on a hill.^[7][8] It has been suggested as Dicleah^[10] but refuted.^[7] Dic may in fact be an example of epenthesis, with the original root being ichen as is found throughout southeastern Britain.^{[11] [a]} Attributions to a non-historical founder named Dicul are examples of founding myths.

The suffix -ing is a cognate of inge, an ethnonym for the Ingaevones said variously to mean "of Yngvi,"^[12] "family, people or followers of"^[13] or a genitive plural form of an inhabitant appellation.^[14]

History

The place has been inhabited in some way or other for thousands of years. Above the village to the west is Lodge Hill (TQ 324 155) there is evidence of Mesolithic people in the form of their flint tools.

The terrace of the

The original village embraced both Clayton, Keymer and Wivelsfield. In the starting centuries of the Saxon settlement it was probably the capital of several Sussex 'regio', or microkingdoms, and controlled the area between the Adur and the Ouse.^{[citation needed]} Later it is recorded that the Manor and its lands were held by King Alfred the Great (871–899). Alfred left it in his will to a kinsmen named Osferth, and it reverted to the Crown under Edward the Confessor.

Medieval Ditchling

After the Norman Conquest, the land was held by William de Warenne. The Domesday Book of 1086 mentions a church and a mill in Ditchling, and the population was approximately 150 households. In 1095 there is mention of a manor house, what is now Wings Place. The land passed through several hands until in 1435 it was owned by the Marquess of Abergavenny who held it until the 20th century, when it was sold to developers who failed to get planning permission to build on it.

Modern Ditchling

In the 18th and 19th centuries the Old Meeting House in Ditchling was an important centre for Baptists from the wider area, whose records and memorandum books allow a unique insight into a small rural religious community of the period. These records (in the East Sussex Record Office) bear witness to often fractious and heated debates about morality and religion.

Post-war Ditchling

In the 1960s, Ditchling's

In January 2007, Ditchling featured in a five piece BBC Documentary entitled Storyville: A Very English Village. This was filmed, produced and directed by a Ditchling resident, but the series itself came under criticism from local residents.^{[citation needed]}

In the 2017 novel Rabbitman, by Michael Paraskos, the village was the setting for a Catholic Worker anarchist commune in an imagined post-Brexit dystopia.

Landmarks

There are two

Notable areas around Ditchling

Unlike its neighbouring parishes, the natural world in this countryside is much more threatened by development. Much of its natural and historic cultural assets have been minimised in the face of this wave of regional overdevelopment. Ditchling Common is the very best of these assets and still holds an extraordinary assemblage of wildlife which thrive on the damp Weald Clay grasslands.

Ditchling has only retained its historic integrity thanks to the fierce defence by its residents, who have thwarted a bypass scheme and various built developments. Although is oppressed by through traffic, little fields come still close into the heart of the village. At Keymer, the Tileworks Clay Pit is now lost to housing development, but it was once a place where "searchers on hands and knees found the teeth of miniature crocodiles and the scales of swampland fish".^[17]

Buildings

There are still many fine buildings in Ditchling. To the south of the church, there is a fine Tudor timber framed Wings Place with parts that are older still. There is an old drove going north from Lodge Hill which passes the lovingly restored Oldlands Mill (TQ 321 162) (just over border in Hassocks Parish), a landmark visible from the Downs ridge top along the South Downs Way.

Religious buildings

Ditchling has a long history of

St Margaret's Church, founded in the 11th century, is the village's

St George's Retreat is a 250-acre farmed estate that run downs the

Stoneywish Country Park is a paying country park. It was originally a small dairy farm call East End Farm, but the landowner has converted it and sensitively preserved the local landscape character and wildlife whist doing so. It is much loved park with many animals and camping. The field has meadow vetchling, oval and false fox sedge and are surrounded by ditches full of fleabane, meadowsweet and rushes, important archaic local plants.^[17]

The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic

Eric Gill, the sculptor and letter cutter, came to Ditchling in 1907 with his apprentice Joseph Cribb and was soon followed by other craftsmen. In 1921 they founded the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, a Roman Catholic community of artists and craftsmen, inspired by ideas of the medieval guilds and the Arts and Crafts movement. The community had its own workshops and chapel, and thrived for many years. Its affairs were finally wound up in 1989, and the workshops demolished. The legacy of the Guild led to the creation of Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in 1985, which was renovated and re-opened in 2013.^[23]

Meadows

East and north of Ditchling Common Lane, the fields are small and elongated. They were formed from the old strip-cultivated common fields. These Ditchling assarts have occasionally partially or completely escaped improvement for farming (thus improving the biodiversity). Grass snakes like this damp countryside.

The best 'assart' meadows are at the north end, though some have been damaged and others do not seem safe from damage. One small meadow next to the brook forms a sedge fen (TQ 335 168), dominated by oval sedge, with tufted hair grass, ragged robin, and spearwort (2011). In summer, it is alive with butterflies. Next to it a drier meadow has some betony and heath grass. It has clouds of burnet moths and Ichneumon flies of many colours, grass moths and grasshoppers.^[17]

On the east side of Jointer Copse there are two ancient lanes, Nye Lane and Wellcroft Lane, that cross each other, and make "a delightful tangle of stream, gullies, small pits and wooded banks" below some old oak trees.

South of The Nye, there is still the archaic Southmead meadow (TQ 333 140) on Wellcroft Lane, which is still has much floristic value. It has retained its traditional management since the 1960s following a regime of summer hay cut and aftermath sheep grazing. David Bangs, a Sussex field naturalist, says,

"It is a gem. In springtime drifts of Cowslips cover large parts, and, later on, there is abundant yellow rattle, ribwort plantain, knapweed, oxeye daisy and meadow barley. Adders tongue fern is very common. The mead lies half on the Gault, but the chalky influence is strong, with nettle leaved bellflower under the hedge. I have never seen cowslips so abundant on a Wealden site. It is an extraordinary survival, and a tribute to its owner's loving care (2013)".^[17]

Woods

Purchase Wood (TQ 341 194) is to the east of the parish and is separated from West Wood by the

Jointer Copse (TQ 327 144) sits on

Ditchling Common is probably the best old Wealden grassland site in central Sussex. It has been described as "one of the most precious jewels in the crown of the Low Weald". The Common is now split into two. The northern half was bought from the commoners (who collectively owned it) in 1974 by East Sussex County Council, de-designated as common land, and designated as a Country Park. The Country Park is well known for its spring time display of Bluebells. The southern half, south of Folders Lane East, is managed by the Commoners Association, and there you can still see great egg yellow sheets of dyer's greenweed in early summer. The area has lost much of its wild beauty due to the mismanagement by a few farmers and neglect, but there is hope that the area can be restored if adequate resources are provided. It is still home to many butterflies including a well established colony of the rare black hairstreak butterfly which was first identified there in 2017.^[24]

Scarp and downland

The south of the parish rises to the top of the Downs, and the scarp slope forms part of the Clayton to Offham Escarpment Site of Special Scientific Interest. These Ditchling Downs were one of the last surviving local landscapes mantled by a unitary cover of ancient flowery chalk grassland. They were broken up by agri-business farmers in the 1950s. Many areas of species-rich ancient grassland do survive, however, both on the scarp and in the dip slope 'Bottoms', though they carry too great a cover of invasive thorn scrub. The area is known for the endangered and rare birds, which come from southern climes to breed here.

Ditchling Beacon and its bostals

At 813 ft (248 metres) Ditchling Beacon (TQ 331 130) is the highest point on the eastern Downs and offers far-reaching views across the Sussex Weald. It was an Iron Age Fort and has a number of barrows. There are three ancient bostals that descend the slopes and Clayton to Offham Escarpment, the central of which, Ditchling bostal, is now the busy motor road. They pass some of the best remaining chalk grasslands in East Sussex. Consequently, the area is an important area for wildlife including now rare plants, butterflies and moths. One hundred metres or so to the west from the bottom of the main Ditchling Bostals is Burnhouse Bostal which ascends the scarp from Underhill Lane and reaches the top above the velvety turf of the old quarries of Keymer Down. Along Burnhouse Bostal, the red listed birds of high conservation concern, spotted flycatcher, bred in 2021 indicating the importance of the SSSI.

Standean Farm

Standean Farm is in a peaceful valley 'dean', although the high ridges to the west and east suffer from the traffic noise of the A27 bypass, the London Road and the Ditchling Road. The farm was gentrified in aristocratic fashion in the eighteenth century, with many small plantations, which were given names evocative of modern pleasure landscapes, like Wonderhill Plantation. Like the majority of areas over the Downs, Standean's Down pastures were ploughed up for arable crops and hence do not support the traditional downland biodiversity. There is only one intact fragment left on the valley's west side between Lower Standean and North Bottom (TQ 318 117). There are also many pen-reared, corn-fed partridges kept for recreational shooting.

The area has a rich prehistory. There are two clusters of

High Park Corner (TQ 329 116) sits in the Ditchling parish, next to High Park Farm, which sits in Westmeston parish. The area used to be a favourite site for gypsy encampments. Unfortunately there are accounts of regular visits from farmers and other thugs using violence to evict them, often organised by the Ditchling Constable.^[25] The Corner is now used for public car parking for walking or mountain biking either east into High Park Wood or west towards North Bottom.

Bottoms

North Bottom runs down from High Park Corner and is one route to Dencher Bottom. It has a northern slope (TQ 323 119) which retains its soft and ancient

Home Bottom (TQ 392 063) is another route to Dencher Bottom from Ditchling Beacon. The valley has already been damaged by agrochemicals, but as it is an SSSI Impact Risk Zone it is no longer "improved" and old wildlife is returning.

Hogtrough Bottom (TQ 326 126) runs down to Dencher Bottom from Tenantry Down. It is largely unimproved and hence supports much archaic meadow plants.

Dencher Bottom (TQ 317 125) is unimproved and somewhat heathy ancient pasture, and its large old anthills speckle the valley slopes. There is the scarce

Ditchling's ex-Tenantry Down is a plateau (TQ 326 126) that runs for over a mile south from

Governance

Ditchling is part of the electoral ward called Ditchling and Westmeston. The population of this ward at the 2011 census was 2,424.^[27]

Education

There is one school in Ditchling, Ditchling (St Margaret's) Church of England Primary School. This is a voluntary controlled primary school for children aged 2–11. In 2022, the school became an academy and joined the Hurst Education Trust, sponsored by the nearby independent school, Hurstpierpoint College. Many of the children after leaving this school go to Downlands Community School in the village of Hassocks located in the adjoining county of West Sussex. Located in the centre of the village is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft.

Notable residents

• Sir Frank Brangwyn – artist, painter, water colourist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator and progressive designer
• Raymond Briggs – illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author (in nearby Westmeston)
• S. F. Edge – racing driver
• HRH Queen Camilla - grew up nearby and went to school in Ditchling.
• Rowland Emett – Punch cartoonist and mechanical designer.
• Herbie Flowers – musician
• Eric Gill – sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter, and printmaker.
• Mascal Gyles – Vicar of Ditchling between 1621 and 1644
• James Hodson – cricketer, born in Ditchling
• Bernard Holden – railway engineer, president of Bluebell Railway
• Peter James – writer
• Edward Johnston – craftsman, who is regarded as the father of modern calligraphy
• David Jones
  – poet
• John Vernon Lord – illustrator, author and teacher
• Dame Vera Lynn – singer
• Esther Meynell – writer, author of Sussex Cottage (1936)
• John Neal – cricketer
• Hilary Pepler
  – printer, writer and poet
• Brocard Sewell – Carmelite friar and literary figure
• Sir Donald Sinden – actor
• Hilary Stratton - sculptor and pupil of Eric Gill
• Jamie Theakston – radio presenter
• Len Howard – naturalist and musician

Notes

References

1. ^ "East Sussex in Figures". East Sussex County Council. Retrieved 26 April 2008.
2. ^ "Civil parish population 2011". Retrieved 11 October 2015.
3. ^ "National Park is Confirmed". South Downs Society. Archived from the original on 26 July 2011.
4. ^ "Ditchling Village Association (incorporating Ditchling.com)". www.ditchling.com. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
5. ^ Information About River Adur | Canals & Rivers | Waterscape.com
6. OCLC 495468780
   .
7. ^ ^{a b c} "Ditchling: Major Settlement in the Parish of Ditchling". Survey of English Place-Names. English Place-name Society. 1 January 1923. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
8. ^ ^{a b} "Parishes: Ditchling". A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes. British History Online. 1 January 1940. Retrieved 4 June 2022.
9. ^ Wiktionary
10. OCLC 495468780
    .
11. ^ Stenton, F. M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford university Publishing.
12. ISBN 3-11-014445-X
    .
13. ^ Briggs, Robert J. S. (11 June 2016). Godalming and Old English -ingas name formations. Surrey Archaeological Society Medieval Studies Forum. Godalming. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
14. ^ "Settlement names in -inge". Names in Denmark. Department of Nordic Research. 28 December 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2004.
15. ^ "Natural England – SSSI (Ditchling Common)". English Nature. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
16. ^ "Natural England – SSSI (Clayton to Offham Escarpment)". English Nature. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
17. ^
    OCLC 1247849975.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
18. ^ ^{a b c d} Salzman, L. F., ed. (1940). "A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7. Parishes: Ditchling". Victoria County History of Sussex. British History Online. pp. 102–109. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
19. ^ ^{a b c} Harris, Roland B. (June 2005). "Ditchling Historic Character Assessment" (PDF). Sussex Extensive Urban Survey (EUS). East Sussex County Council, West Sussex County Council, Brighton and Hove City Council and English Heritage. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 August 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
20. ^
    ISBN 0-9533132-7-1
    .
21. ^ "Ditchling Conservation Area Character Appraisal" (PDF). Lewes District Council (Planning and Environmental Services Department). April 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
22. ^ "Ditchling Quaker Meeting". Ditchling Quakers website. Ditchling Quaker Meeting. 2009. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
23. ^ "Adam Richards Architects converts a former cart lodge into a museum". Dezeen. 7 July 2014. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
24. ^ "Butterfly Conservation - Sussex Branch". www.sussex-butterflies.org.uk. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
25. ^ Yeates, Charles (1980) Hovel in the Wood: The Pageant of Stanmer Parish. Stanmer Publications
26. ^
    OCLC 701098669
    .
27. ^ "Ditchling and Westmeston ward population 2011". Retrieved 11 October 2015.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ditchling.

• Acclaimed BBC documentary film series 'A Very English Village', filmed in and around the village of Ditchling by resident film maker, Luke Holland
• Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft
• Ditchling Parish Council
• Ditchling Village Association