One of the many things I love about Sussex is that it is like a giant web of thousands or even millions of interconnected stories.
If, as a visitor, you only have time to visit the big-ticket items, such as the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, Rye, the South Downs or Chichester, that’s fine, there is plenty to keep you busy. But if you have longer, or live here and want to dig deeper, you only have to scratch the surface of whatever it is that interests you, and a curious story will reveal itself. And if you scratch the surface of that story, inevitably (in my experience) another story will step forward and you can dive into a perpetual rabbit hole of intrigue on the subject of your choosing.
And that sums up my summer. It started back in the spring, when I was walking the Serpent Trail and on one particular stretch we passed a number of sculptures. These started a conversation, that led to the subject of the Chalk Stone Trail in between Cocking and West Dean.
Arriving at West Dean, with its connections to Surrealist art, sent my mind whirring and ended in a trip to Farleys House in East Sussex (home to Surrealism or more specifically, Lee Miller and Roland Penrose). Delighted to see not only the Long Man at Wilmington in the distance but a Surrealist painting of it in the house, that set me wondering about other paintings of the Long Man, so off I went in search of Ravilious in Newhaven. And it was there that I was struck by the diversity of our Sussex coast and yes, that set me off on a cultural quest of our shores.
By then, I had realised that I was well and truly down a rabbit hole (or two), and I had to come up for air. Or more importantly, for something to eat and drink. The Long Man is referenced in a number of Sussex edibles including crisps, coffee and beer, and, of course, the Long Man has a slightly oblique connection to the Knepp Estate which is very much about food these days (ask me about the connection please because it’s one of those wonderful dot joining exercises that somehow makes the whole map of Sussex start to make historical sense).
When it comes to Sussex wine and gins, what has really become apparent to me this summer is how each vineyard and distillery has its own indelible connection to its place, its people and or its folklore. Slake Spirits speak of knuckers (watery Sussex dragons), Nutbourne wines speak of windmills and art, and Leonardslee wines speak of swallows and sculpture. In fact, there are so many rabbit holes woven into our food and drink, and so many stories linked to them, I have felt a little like Alice in Wonderland … uh oh … which in turn sent me with a hop and a skip from the Norman ruins at Knepp to those at Sedgwick Park near Horsham where the real Alice once visited and which both have connections to William the Conqueror’s pal, William de Braose. All of which feels like an awfully big dot joining rabbit hole that I may just have slipped into on my home. And I’m not entirely sure when or if I’ll emerge.
