“A Tale of Two Villages”

Thursday 16 March 2023 at 2.00pm

4 Miles – 2½ Hours

Meet at Wilmington Priory car park, The Street, Wilmington, BN26 5SW. TQ 544 042.

From similar Saxon origins (“we must have the Folca’s round sometime”), these two villages grew in disparate directions (literally). Wilmington acquired a priory full of aliens, and a planned extension around a village green and mildly prospered. Folkington enjoyed a more peaceful existence until it was literally cut in half by the whim of a Victorian landowner. What the Dickens was going on?

“Peace in our Time”

Thursday 20 April 2023 at 2.00pm

4 Miles – 2½ Hours

Meet at Broadwater Warren Nature Reserve, Broadwater Forest Lane, Groombridge, TN3 9NR. TQ 554 372.

A walk through the heathland which now forms the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ Nature Reserve, listening to the birdsong and enjoying the peace of this piece of landscape. Tranquillity indeed. But scratch the surface a little and the odd bullet may be found, along with field kitchens, a rifle range and the odd bit of tank, hinting a far less peaceful role as a military training ground from the American War of Independence to World War 2.

“The easiest way to unnerve the reader is to hurl a chunk of Domesday at him”

Thursday 18 May 2023 at 2.00pm

3 Miles – 2 Hours

Meet at Ripe Church, Church Lane, Ripe, BN8 6AU. TQ 514 099.

Wrote the author of a local history book, hinting at the complexities hidden within the covers of William the Conqueror’s seminal survey. A not very quick glance at the book for the small, united parish of Chalvington with Ripe reveals a mere 15 entries in the record, some of which are nowhere near the villages. And then there’s Eckington popping up to play chaperone between the two. What’s going on – it’s enough to make you weep ‘til Doomsday.