Man’s hand on Sussex land

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33804, 29 March 1975, Page 10

Man’s hand on Sussex land

The Sussex Landscape. By Peter Brandon. Hodder and Stoughton. 275 pp. N.Z. price: $8.95. Because of the comparative lack of historical remains in this country, such a book as this must hold a special fascination for New Zealanders. Peter Brandon’s long look at how man has modified the Sussex countryside provides its “landscape history,” where the disciplines of geography, history and botany meet to give a complete picture of development from Neolithic times to the present. The book is ninth in a series, with the over-all title of “The Making of the English Landscape,” and the editors are W. G. Hoskins and R. Millward. The popular view of “Good old Sussex by the sea” — all urban sprawl and crowded seaside resorts, has evolved only since the eighteenth century and is regarded with distaste by Dr Brandon. For a truer look at the areas's origins he takes us happily away to the more unspoilt countryside, to burrow into the hedgebanks and flint mines and to wander through monasteries and tithe barns. He writes, “Here' man has been shaping the scenery, not for a single lifetime or even less, as along much of the coastal strip, but for several thousands of years, and the ground itself bears marks of this long occupation.” Sussex divides itself naturally into two distinct areas — the heavilypopulated coastal strip merging with the undulating South Downs, and the forested and more solitary Weald, with the characteristic relics of each age dotted over both. The Neolithic Age, from 3390-2700 8.C., has left earthen burial barrows up to 200 ft long, causewayed enclosures thought to have been used for tribal gatherings or corralling animals for slaughter, and flint mines. The Bronze Age people, semi-nomads, who farmed much of Sussex during; the 2000 years before the birth or Christ, are represented by distinctive round barrows, 400 of which are still to be seen on the South Downs skyline near Eastbourne. Round huts of this period have also been traced near Ittord Hill, by radio-carbon dating. The Iron Age left “camps,” with discernible ramparts and stock compounds and the larger hill forts, the most impressive of which encloses 60 acres at Cissbury. Aerial photography has traced a network of Roman roads and evidence of systematic land division. Sussex is especially rich in excavated Roman villas. With the coming of the Saxons large agricultural communities lived in compact villages, from which conspicuous trackways or droving roads still radiate to the location of outlying Saxon pastures. Fifth century barrows have yielded jewellery, coins and cinerary urns. For many readers this investigation of earlier periods will provide most interest. From this point, of course, Dr

Brandon’s evidence of previous settlement increases, and with a prose stvle that blends the lyrical with the instructive, he produces further definitive material — moated sites of long-gone thirteenth century manors, disused canals and the crumbling masonry of old Victorian locks, up to the domed Indo-Chinese Royal Pavilion at Brighton. The book’s last four chapters deal with the Tudor and Stuart legacies, Georgian and early Victorian times, and the present-day urban and rural landscapes. Throughout this exhaustively researched work, Dr Brandon preserves an infectious enthusiasm for the beauties, past and present, of the part of Britain he lives in, and of which he has such a wide knowledge.

Diagrams, maps and photographs contribute to understanding of the text, and in his introduction, W. G. Hoskins says, “One cannot understand the English landscape and enjoy it to the full, apprehend all its wonderful variety from region to region (often within the space of a few miles), without going back to the history that lies behind it. A commonplace ditch may be the thousand-year-old boundary of a royal manor; a certain hedgebank may be even more ancient, the boundary of a Celtic estate; a certain deep and winding lane may be the work of twelfth-century peasants, some of whose names may be made known to us if we seek diligently enough.”