Steyning

Saturday 9th July

Pyramidal Orchids on a street verge

 Leaving Bramber and walking westwards up Clays Hill into Steyning, the hill is less steep than I remember it, I daresay the effect of living six years in very hilly New Zealand! I called by a friends house, but no-one is awake- it's still very early. A few minutes walk I saw these Pyramidal Orchids on the roadside. These flowers, while not exceedingly rare, are somewhat scarce and to find them growing in a housing estate was quite a surprise- they are usually associated with the pastures of the open downland. Whereas most of the verges here are mown short to lawn-length, here the grass has been allowed to achieve some length and a variety of wild flowers have thrived as a result.
 

The Laines Road house- we lived here from 1986 for a decade

  A couple of minutes to the house in Laines Road where Susie and I lived from around 1986. Our daughter Rachel was born here in 1989.
 The houses in this street were one of at least three groups of houses of similiar design that were built in different locations around the periphery of Steyning town during the late 'twenties and early 'thirties by the esteemed Steyning builder Frank Duke. He was well known for his grander houses in the elite Goring Road and Holland Road area of Steyning, as well as for church restoration work around Sussex. I imagine these simple houses provided much needed work for his tradesmen during the lean years of the depression.

Entrance to Canada Gardens allotment

Near the northern end of Laines Road, alongside adjoining Newham Lane, the allotments known as Canada Gardens are well hidden from public view by a rough hedge of thorn, maple and elder well grown through by ivy and old-mans-beard . An Act of Parliament early in the 20th century required local authorities to provide these gardens at minimal rents to anyone who required one. Steyning has around one hundred of these gardens in two blocks. The block nearer the town (called "Rublees", an ancient field-name)  has better soil and has, in my lifetime always been fairly well subscribed. This block (known by the old-timers as "Canadee") was always less popular. because of it's thin soil and further distance from the town.

Now thriving, 25yrs ago it lay almost derelict

 Susie and I took allotments here when we moved into the Laines Road house. At that time- the mid 'eighties- we were, I believe one of only perhaps three tenants on the entire block of around fifty gardens. Each plot was an area of four "rods", that is to say, around a hundred square metres at a rent of something around five pound a year! We very  quickly "grew" to occupy four plots, two of which were cultivated and upon two we kept hens for eggs and guinea-fowl for meat. My recollection is of an endless war against bindweed, the deep roots of which emerged from cracks in the chalk rock that was only a foot below the soil surface, thus rendering complete removal an impossibility.

  A year or two after we started gardening here, old Frank Giles (my stepnans brother) died and we had the entire block to ourselves for a year or two. After 1986 when we rented the seventy acres that I christened "Court Hill Farm" from Johnny Goring, we had tons of manure from cattle housed each winter at Charlton Court that I dug out of sheds by hand and carted up to the allotments behind the old David Brown 990 tractor. Still, I don't recall the gardens ever being as productive as ours in New Zealand are now. Thin soils, lack of water (hosepipes were not allowed) the constant battle against perennial weeds and the lack of the understanding and empathy for the soil and plants that goes with maturity all militated to make gardening at these allotments something of a bitter experience. Having said that, the current generation of gardeners seem to be making a very good go of it. I think the new focus on permaculture principles,  mulching and so-on that have taken over from the old-school tedium of double-digging and other manifestations of the kind of  puritan work ethic of  yesteryear have encouraged new gardeners by returning better results from a given input of effort. Having said that, the really great gardeners of yesteryear, among whom I count grandad George Woollven and great uncles John and George Brown of Beeding, and family friend John Durrant of Steyning- all now alas long departed- seemed to get fantastic results without breaking into much of a sweat!

25yrs ago the cherry tree was a tiny seedling

It appears that the Steyning Parish Council, who administrate the allotments, have revised the ground plan to make the layout less regimented, which, I guess in these less formal times makes the gardens more attractive to families, who, judging by the presence of picnic chairs and tables, utilise this space as a picnic and leisure resource. The greenhouses and brightly painted sheds dotted around make for a homely appeal that was never there back in the old days. One remnant from the days of our lonely occupancy on this site is a cherry tree. When we rented our first allotment, this was a tiny seedling, no doubt the result of some wild bird voiding the stone of a delicious cherry at the very edge of the garden. I made sure it did not get mown down, and by the time it was ten years old it was ten feet high and as thick as a mans arm. Now, at the age of twenty five years, it is thirty feet high with a breadth of around sixteen inches, and apparently yields baskets full of fruit most years, for which the birds are most grateful. They even leave a few for the gardeners!