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Bedham

Villages in West Sussex
Ruins of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Bedham 16
Ruins of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Bedham 16

Bedham is a hamlet 4 kilometres (2+1⁄2 miles) east of Petworth in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is in the civil parish of Wisborough Green. Bedham consists of a farm, a derelict Victorian church and school, and a scattering of houses set high on a wooded sandstone ridge of the western Weald, at 150 metres above sea level. To the west Flexham Park is an area of commercial woodland, with large areas of chestnut coppice, and south of this is a sandstone quarry at Bognor Common. To the northeast are large areas of semi-natural forest, left unmanaged as a nature reserve, called The Mens. South of The Mens is Hawkhurst Court, a country house used as a Canadian army HQ in the buildup to the Normandy Invasion during World War II, then as a private school, before becoming private housing in the 1980s. From the early 20th century Bedham became popular with artists of limited means who wanted to "escape from civilisation". Remote cottages could be bought for £100. The composer Sir Edward Elgar lived nearby at Brinkwells for a time as a sub-tenant of the artist Rex Vicat Cole, and the studio where Elgar composed his Cello Concerto was moved up to the village and now stands as a separate house. Ford Madox Ford, author of The Good Soldier also lived in the village with Stella Bowen, an Australian artist twenty years his junior. Later residents included Miss Ethel West (d.1950) and her companion Miss Metherell who lived in Bedham Cottage - Miss Metherell using the pen name Rhoda Leigh wrote a fictional account of the hamlet, Past and Passing: Tales from Remote Sussex, which offended some local residents with its thinly veiled and exaggerated references to them. One of those offended was Mrs. Puttick who sold groceries, tobacco and sweets from the kitchen of her house opposite the lane to Warren Barn. Honour Thy Father - Recollections of Sussex Life over Two and a Half Centuries recounts much Bedham history centred on Mants, the cottage where its author Lillian Hunt's grandfather lived.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Bedham (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Bedham
Bedham Lane, Chichester

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Wikipedia: BedhamContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 50.97 ° E -0.56 °
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Bedham Lane

Bedham Lane
RH20 1JL Chichester
England, United Kingdom
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Ruins of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Bedham 16
Ruins of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Bedham 16
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South Downs Light Railway

The South Downs Light Railway is a 10+1⁄4 in (260 mm) gauge railway at Pulborough in West Sussex, England. The line opened in 2000 (after adjusting the gauge to 10 1/4 from 7 1/4 as there was a line there before the South Downs Light Railway arrived, and operates around the grounds of Pulborough Garden Centre. On a regular day one of their two Exmoor Steam Locomotives will be in-charge of the service. Their two Exmoor’s are named ‘Pulborough’ and ‘Peggy’. The railway hosts a range of scale locomotive which includes an LNER Flying Scotsman ,6100 royal Scot, 6220 coronation The railway has their own engine shed which has a workshop at the back of it. Just outside the engine shed there is a traverser to move the engine. There is also a drop-down pit so the engines can be inspected underneath. The old engine shed has now been converted to the railway's carriage shed. The railway has two stations, Stopham Road Station (where most people will start their journey) and Hardham Halt which is used during gala days and during Christmas as the North Pole. 2020 was the railway's 20th year of operating in its current location and they hoped to host a 20th Gala Weekend which wpound have most likely host visiting engines plus special attractions. The railway announced that the gala weekend woils happen in August, however it was impacted by the COVID pandemic. The railway has developed a lot since they first opened including a new expansion, new engine shed, new workshop plus a new station (Hardham Halt).

River Rother, West Sussex
River Rother, West Sussex

The River Rother flows from Empshott in Hampshire, England, to Stopham in West Sussex, where it joins the River Arun. At 52 kilometres (32 mi) long, most of the river lies within West Sussex except for the first 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) which lie in Hampshire. The upper river, from its source to Midhurst, has been used to power watermills, with the earliest recorded use being in 1086, when the Domesday survey was conducted. Although none are still operational, many of the buildings which housed the mills still exist, and in some cases, still retain their milling machinery. This upper section is also noted for a number of early bridges, which have survived since their construction in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The lower river, from Midhurst to its junction with the River Arun, has been used for navigation. Boats used the section from the Arun to Fittleworth following improvements made to the Arun in 1615, and after the Arun Navigation was completed in 1790, the Earl of Egremont made the river navigable up to Midhurst by constructing eight locks and some small cuts. The work was completed in 1794, and many of the bridges built at that time still survive. With the opening of the Mid-Sussex Railway branch to Midhurst in 1859, traffic declined, and commercial use of the river had ceased by the 1880s. Pleasure boats continued to be used on the river for many years, and published accounts of journeys along the decaying navigation appeared in 1914 and 1920. The navigation was officially abandoned in 1936, after an undergraduate pointed out that it was still a public right of way. The river flows through the South Downs National Park, and is a designated Site of Nature Conservation Importance, in recognition of its value for wildlife. It supports a wide range of fish, and its upper reaches are the only location in Sussex where native white clawed crayfish can be found. The quality of the water is generally good, and the river is measured at four gauging stations, three on the main channel, and one of the River Lod, just before its junction with the Rother. Water from the underlying Lower Greensand aquifer and the adjacent chalk aquifer helps to maintain the flows during the summer months, despite the fact that large volumes are abstracted from both the aquifers and the river for the public water supply.