Berwick to Michelham

This is a 7-8 mile walk through fields and woods with some lovely moments by the upper streams of the Cuckmere river. You do need to allow plenty of time for it though, as in places the footpaths are (deliberately?) obscured by farming activities. You need a good map - OS Explorer 123 is the best.
The walk directions look complicated but it's worth persevering as there are many places of beauty and interest on the way. Refreshments are available at the Berwick Arms and the shop opposite the station and in pubs at intervals on the route. There's also a new tea-shop at the Village Post Office in Upper Dicker.
The walk brings you to the moated grounds of Michelham Priory with its ancient imposing gate-house. It's £6 per adult to go in and there's lots to see if you do. The café is good and the home-made cakes are cheap.
From the Priory, the direct route is back across riverside fields to Arlington where a stop at the Yew Tree Inn is a possibility. An alternative route from the Priory is through woods - some ancient, with a great variety of trees, including some old pollards, coppices and wood banks. There's also a small section of sandy heath. Abbots Wood is a wonderful place to wander and get lost in, with deer, badgers and foxes to look out for.
Abbots Wood was once a deer park - an idea of the Normans - created after the introduction of fallow deer from Crete and Sicily. The park "pale" - a bank, fence and ditch - was built in such a way as to allow the deer to leap in, but not out again. It was also a barrier against poachers. Park pales required considerable resources to build and to have a park of this kind was a status symbol as well as a source of food and wood.

Walk Directions

1. Turn left out of Berwick Station and cross the road to the village shop.
See story about Berwick Station
The footpath you are looking for is on the right between the shop and the garage. There is a stile behind the houses leading into a field. The path crosses the field in line with the telegraph poles, continues over another stile and goes in the same direction across the next field, then over a wooden bridge across a small ditch. Climb up the small hill in front of you, keeping to the fence on your right. Across the land to the right, you can see the Long Man of Wilmington on the north face of the Downs.
See stories about The Long Man of Wilmington

2. At the top of the small hill, look to your right and you can see the next stile. Further away to the left you can see Arlington Reservoir
See stories about Arlington Reservoir
which is where you are heading. The path takes you down the hill to a stile under the trees at the bottom. When you climb over this stile you emerge into a lane, and turn left. (It's worth noting where this stile is for your return as the path is not well marked.)

3. Walk along the lane for a while, passing an entrance to the reservoir by a barn owl nest box on a pole, and the gate to Polhills Farm. The footpath, which is clearly marked here, goes off to the left to make a dog-leg round the farm. At the end of the loop round the farm you come back onto the lane and immediately opposite you will find a wooden footbridge where the path leads into the reservoir land.

4. Follow the circular walkway clockwise round the perimeter of the reservoir - it is clearly marked by way-posts with an osprey cut into them. You will be going about half way round the reservoir at this point in the walk, passing the Fishing Club HQ and the picnic area. Stay near the reservoir until you pass a notice board on your right - here the path goes into trees and veers away from the water. Soon the path divides - take the left fork. (If you want to go down to the bird hide, which I recommend strongly if you have binoculars with you, take the right fork and follow the signs. When you want to resume the walk route, come back to this fork in the path.)

5. Walk under the trees until you reach a gate into the field. The path is clear, down the side of the hedge on your left and on into another field. Carry on in the same direction with the hedge on your left as the path leads around the edge of the field and past the farm on the left. The very visible footpath sign by the farm gate is misleading - it seems to be directing you to walk down the track. In fact, you need to cross over the track and find the little plank bridge in the hedge in front of you. The path then becomes a delightful tunnel in a narrow strip of woodland.

6. Turn right at the footpath T-junction and continue until you come to a bridge across the Cuckmere river. Don't go over the bridge, but take the footpath to the left just before the bridge. Follow this by the river and across the field to a stile. Climb over and continue with the river on your right. Where the line of the hedge on your right turns sharply to the right, you will see that the footpath goes away from the river and across the field at a diagonal. This is the official route, but many walkers prefer to stay by the river bank and walk around the edge of the field. (The river bank here is full of plant, insect and animal life and there is a magical spot where a tributary joins the Cuckmere beneath hoar oaks and alders.) If you take this slight detour you will join up with the footpath at a small wooden bridge which crosses the tributary stream.

7. The path then goes across the field away from the river towards a stile in a gap in the hedge ahead of you and then through another field and on up to the top left corner of the next one where there are some red brick houses and a stile leading onto a lane. Turn left, pass the pond, and look for the stile next to the gate by the pond. Climb the stile and walk up the side of the field keeping close to the woodland edge on your right.

8. At the end of the woods you come to a stile with a notice telling you that you're about to cross the playing fields of St Bede's school. Climb over and walk down the left of the golf course to another stile and continue over it and in the same direction. At the end of the playing fields the path takes you into a narrow twitten between conifer hedges and over two more stiles before you climb out onto the road in Upper Dicker.

9. Turn right and walk past The Plough and over the crossroads in the same direction. The big gothic house on the left is St Bede's school now but was the residence of Horatio Bottomley MP (from the Berwick Station story). Walk on past the Holy Trinity Church until you reach a footpath sign to the right. Take this path and walk either into or past the village post office which has a teashop open every day except Sunday afternoons. Just past the shop there is a stile which you climb to walk across the playing field. Climb the next stile and take the path that leads diagonally to the right towards an electric fence. This has a hook which you can undo to pass through, and then you can see ahead of you a conglomeration of gates of which one is a pedestrian gate which leads onto the road to Michelham Priory.
See story Michelham Priory.

10. Turn left and walk down to where you can see the Priory entrance on your left. Even if you don't wish to pay to go into the Priory grounds, it is worth walking down the drive to the Gatehouse to have a look at the site. (If you wish to attempt the route through the woods you have to pass through the farmyard here where the notice on the gate says there is no public right of way. The farmers here do not mind walkers going through but you need to call out to them to ask, and also to allow them to control the dogs that will bark but probably not bite if you try to walk through without alerting folk to your presence. You will probably need a map to find the route up through the Priory woods, Milton Hide and Abbots Wood.)
Abbots Wood was owned by Battle Abbey during the 12th century. It supplied wood for the whole of the region as well as ironworks which provided income for the Abbey. There are remains of the old park pale at the edge of the woods, and of banks and fences used to enclose different sections of the wood over the years. For example, deer could not be allowed to browse in coppiced areas. There are some fine old hornbeam trees in the wood - grown out of coppice for charcoal making.

11. Return to the end of the drive and turn left crossing the narrow road bridge. (Look left here and you can see the thatched roofs of reconstructed prehistoric roundhouses in the Priory grounds). You have to look hard for the next footpath sign which is on the right hand side of the road soon after the bridge. If you come to a metal gate with a Sussex Piscatorial Society sign on it, you have passed the stile that takes you onto the footpath - but climbing over the gate has the same result. The footpath and track both lead to the next big gate through which you pass. Continue on the track with a big oak tree hedge on your left and a field stretching out to your right - often with maize planted in it, which by August is about 8 feet tall.

12. Look out for the footpath sign showing a path to the right across this field. The farmer does not assist walkers by leaving this path clear, but you can usually find it through the maize somewhere near the sign. You do need to cross this field here so trust the signs that other walkers will have made as they found their way through the maize. Eventually you will emerge into what seems like a neglected cabbage patch with game bird feeders in it. In the hedge in front of you, there is a stile in a ditch with a WW marker on it. Cross over a track and follow the footpath sign to an electric fence "gate". Walk past a shed and a large storage tank and find the narrow gap the landowner has allowed walkers between the electric fence on the left and the hedge on the right. It's worth looking through any gap in this hedge on the right because the Cuckmere river is there.

13. At the corner of the field there's a wooden plank across the ditch and the path winds into a small wood. When you emerge from the woods by means of a stile, ignore the footpath sign and stile to your left and continue straight up the field in front of you with the mature oak hedge to your left. The river is over to your right. You can see the stile in the top left-hand corner of the field in front of you. Climb the stile and you will see a young tree plantation.

14. There is a notice inviting you to follow the new footpath off to your right to explore conservation land bordering the river, and it's well worth taking up this offer. The path leads between the hedge on your right and the plantation on your left. Climb a new looking stile on your right and walk down to the river. Turn left - keeping the river on your right. There's a rudimentary stile in the next hedge, and the path continues by a wild-life protected area to a gap in the hedge. After this you rejoin the original footpath; ahead of you there is a stile in the hedge. Keep the river still to the right, pylons in front of you. Climb another stile, continue in the same direction to the corner of a fence that sticks out into the field. From here you can see the gap in the hedge where the footpath goes through to the next field. Once through here turn to the right and head down into the far right hand corner of the field where you will find a stile - the nature reserve fence is on your right.

15. Climb the stile and follow the path onto a track. (The bridge you can see to the right is the one you didn't cross on the outward journey, so if you wish, you could retrace your steps from here.) Otherwise, turn left and after a few yards on the track you'll see a footpath sign to your right. Climb the stile here and follow the path straight ahead across the field, curving up towards some sheds and a gap in the hedge. Climb the stile in the hedge and follow the WW arrow across the field. If the direction of the path is not very clear here, line your direction up with the clearly visible steeple of Arlington Church ahead of you and slightly to your right. Stay on this path as it joins another at the edge of the field and follow the waymarkers over another stile, across Butts Field and up into the churchyard. Many villages have a "Butts Field". It is a field that was used for practice during the many years when it was compulsory for all English men to develop some skills in archery.

16. Cross the churchyard to the left of the main door of the church and look for the kissing gate that leads out of the churchyard and into a bumpy field which is the site of part of the village that was deserted in the Middle Ages.
If you climb up onto one of the small mounds in this field and look around you it is possible to see clearly where the buildings fell in and where the tracks and paths ran between them. There was probably a pond near the north western edge of the field. The usual explanation for such deserted villages is the plague in the 14th century but some archaeologists believe that there was also a period of warmer wetter weather during the Middle Ages which would have made this area marshy and possibly uninhabitable.
The path leads down to a gap in the hedge where there is a stile and a wooden bridge. At this point you can continue in the same direction which is a direct route down past the Water Works buildings and along the road back to Berwick station. A more scenic route is via the reservoir, which means taking a right turn after the wooden bridge - you can see the path leading to a stile and then a metal bridge across the river. Cross this and follow the path that winds across the field using a wooden plank to cross a shallow ditch and passing a plantation of young willows. You can see the bank of the reservoir on your left, but the path you are on will bear right to the far right corner of the field where there is a stile which you climb before turning left onto the track that leads around the side of the reservoir.

17. Follow the concrete path, still going clockwise, round the reservoir until you reach the gate by the barn owl box and the lane. Go through the gate, turn left and walk down the lane until you reach the somewhat concealed stile on the right where the path leads up the hill and back to the station.

Stories

Berwick Station

Berwick Station was installed as a result of persuasion by Horatio Bottomley, sometime MP and squire of Dicker village. He was born in 1860, and became a legendary bon viveur who wanted his party guests from London to have easy access (from the new station) to his manor house which is now St Bede's School in Dicker. This squire lived a colourful life which took him from being an orphan to running a newspaper empire. He created John Bull magazine and became famous for his public recruiting speeches in 1914 and 1915. He wrote as "Cockles Tumley" in the fervently patriotic Wipers Times but it is said that the soldiers read this publication as comedy. In 1919 he was selling "shares" in Government bonds and using the money to pay off debts and fund his heavy drinking life-style. He was prosecuted for fraud in 1922 and jailed. A visitor found him working on mail-bags.
"Sewing Horatio?" he said.
"No, reaping," was the reply.
Horatio Bottomley was last seen in public at the Windmill Theatre recounting anecdotes from his life. He died in 1933 and was long remembered in Dicker, not least because for many years, his was the only house with a phone - which he allowed local people to use.

The Long Man of Wilmington

The giant figure cut into the northern slope of Windover Hill is 226ft high and therefore one of the largest representations of a human being in the world.
There are many many stories about who he represents and why he's there. Several of them say that the figure was made when the Windover Hill giant died. Local people cut out the shape of his body in the turf and then buried him in the barrow on top of the ridge. But how did he die? By tripping over and breaking his neck? By a blow from a shepherd's packed lunch (though the story doesn't tell why the shepherd threw it)? Killed by pilgrims on their way to the Priory at Wilmington because they were offended by his pagan ways?
Another of the stories says that there was a second giant who lived on Firle Beacon and who was friendly with the Windover Hill big man. One day they fell into a quarrel, no-one knows quite why, and began hurling boulders at each other. "Evidence" supports this story - the pits in the hillsides are where the boulders fell, and the sarsen stones that are scattered about the area are the boulders themselves. The outcome was that the Firle Beacon giant's aim was better and one of his missiles killed the Windover Long Man. And then the villagers came and cut out the shape of his body.
But some stories say that the figure was made by monks from the Priory to guide pilgrims. Others that it was made by the Romans - it looks a little like a Roman standard bearer as depicted on Roman coins - in honour of one of their war gods. But it could have been the Vikings who made it in honour of one of their gods - the figure very much resembles one engraved on a bronze plate found at Torslunda in Sweden.
Some people say that the Long Man once had a companion - a woman outlined on a nearby hillside (no-one seems to know which) and that local folk called them Adam and Eve. Arthur Beckett, longtime editor of the Sussex County Magazine, loved the Sussex Downs and wrote many stories and travel pieces about them. When he came to research the history of the Long Man he could find no certainty at all as to his origins. (The most recent attempt to date him for a TV archaeology programme was also unable to come up with a date with any certainty.)
So one sunny day when he was out walking in the area, Arthur Beckett lay down on the grass at the foot of Windover Hill and allowed himself to drift into a reverie. He imagined the hill-dwelling Britons preparing to fight to defend their territory against a band of Saxon invaders. He imagined a daylong battle, with first one group and then the other having the advantage. He saw night falling and the Saxons, very anxious, camped on the hill in the dark, knowing that the battle was not yet won and that they were in unknown territory. On the whole, the Saxons preferred to settle in valleys and lowlands rather than on the exposed hills where the Britons were more at home.
Arthur Beckett imagined one of the Saxon chiefs praying for aid that night and vowing, "We will give great honour to our great god Woden if he will but deliver us, seeing that we have so great need of his aid; for no man can stand against the evil spirits and monsters of these mountains." The Saxons survived the night and in the morning they defeated the Britons. In honour of his promise, the chieftain had his men make the giant figure in the hillside in the image of one of their warriors. Arthur Beckett describes his satisfaction with this reverie in his book "The Spirit of the Downs", making very clear that it was indeed a daydream.
But there is at least one local guide book which tells tourists the "Saxon memorial to Woden" theory as if it is the truth about the Long Man. People have even taken this idea further - they say that the Saxons used the figure as a site for ritual human sacrifice to their gods.
There are many other fine stories made about the Long Man, in particular, Ronald Millar's tale of the Wind Smith and Saint Boniface in his book "The Green Man" (published by S.B Publications in 1997).
The Wind Smith is a shaman-like pagan character who knows by mysterious powers about the siting and operations of windmills. He comes into inevitable conflict with the monks and their "new" religion, in particular with St Boniface who is zealous in his mission against the old ways. The story shows how it came about that the Wind Smith and his two poles are remembered in the hill figure, while St Boniface is more-or-less forgotten. This story has the advantage over many of the others in that it offers a believable explanation for the sticks the Long Man holds in each hand.
Another contemporary writer, Philip Carr Gomme, in his book "The Druid Way", speculates about why the Long Man is not endowed with the masculinity so evident in the hill figure of Cerne Abbas in Dorset. Is "he" perhaps "she"? This notion has not been adopted very widely and despite the giant's apparent lack there are persistent rumours that people have gone to him when they have found it difficult to conceive a child in the hope that he will help them.
My favourite story of who the Long Man represents is the one that sees his two "poles" not as poles at all, but as the sides of a great doorway. In this story, the Long Man is a representation of Balder, northern Sun God. The story tells of the epic events that culminate in the great battle of Ragnarok in which all is destroyed and it seems the world must end forever.
Balder the Sun God is killed during those events and imprisoned in the realm of Hel, the goddess of the Underworld. But as nothing lasts forever even though it seems as if it will, eventually a new world forms and Balder returns from the realms of Hel. The hill figure shows him opening the gates to a new dawn, a great springtime, in which the warmth and life of the sun is reborn. When I look at the giant this is the story I most enjoy projecting onto his mysterious presence. At the same time I am sure that any story we tell about him is no more than a projection of our own preferences.
Maybe one day the archaeologists will come up with some irresistible evidence that tells us for certain who made him, and when, and why. Until that time I shall enjoy the stories and the uncertainty.

Arlington Reservoir Stories

I was invited to the reservoir to tell stories for the Sussex Otters and Rivers Partnership, a group working to make sure there are sufficient suitable habitats for otters in Sussex. I sat in a yurt on the north side of the reservoir amongst the young birch trees, and told traditional stories about otters to groups of schoolchildren who came for the day. As one group arrived at the yurt in the early afternoon, a deer wandered up the track allowing us to have a good long gaze at its beauty. The children were delighted.
As part of each storytelling session, I invited the children to make stories of their own. To help them start, I told them how there have often been tales of otters coming out of the water, shedding their pelts and transforming into human shape. There are also stories of transformations in the opposite direction - of humans diving into the river and becoming otters for a while. The children seemed (mostly!) to enjoy this activity and two particularly memorable stories emerged from the sessions.

Otter Ancestors

Once there was a family of otters living happily by a river. But the humans built a dam across the river so the otters' holts and hideaways were flooded. The otters had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide and it looked as if they would drown in the flood waters. They managed to struggle out of the water onto the field edge, but couldn't be safe there because people and dogs could easily see them, and they couldn't catch the fish they needed to eat.
It seemed as if they would die, when suddenly, in the dusk of the evening they saw two otters coming towards them. But these were not otters they knew, and they had a strange look about them. They were a kind of greyish colour, and didn't look quite solid. They glided rather than ran towards the otter family who were lying exhausted and afraid under the hedge. They were the ghosts of two of the otters' ancestors who'd lived by this river hundreds of years before.
They came close to the tired family and their presence made them all feel stronger. The two ghost otters led the family across the fields through the night, keeping them safe when they had to cross roads or go near houses and giving them hope when they felt they couldn't go on.
Eventually, they came to a small wood where a river ran between banks with rushes and brambles and plenty of old willow trees. The otters could easily find places to hide here. And when they went into the river there were plenty of eels for them to catch and eat. They never saw the ghost otters again.

The Transformation

There was once a girl who went down to the river to swim. She took off her clothes and dived in. As she went underwater she suddenly found that she could hold her breath for a really long time and that she could swim very fast. She looked down at her arms - not arms! She was an otter!
She swam about among the reeds and plants in the river and enjoyed the movement of her body in the currents and eddies of the water. But after a while, she decided to go back to where she'd left her clothes so that she could turn back into being a girl again. When she climbed out of the river and found the place, her clothes were not there. Someone had stolen them which meant that she couldn't change back into human shape. Then she realised that she would have to stay as an otter until she could find someone who would believe her story, that she was really a girl who had changed shape.
She swam around all the rivers and streams of the country looking for a person who would believe her story, but no-one would. Eventually, she died. People from a museum found her otter body, took it away and stuffed it. So she became an exhibit in a Natural History Museum and no-one ever knew that she had once been a human girl.

As part of the Vanguard Way story collecting project I contacted Sompriti, an organisation working with and for Black, Asian and people from other minority ethnic groups in the Lewes district. I offered two storytelling workshop sessions, the second one to be out of doors.
So it was that on June 14th 2002 I accompanied a group of women on a walk and picnic at Arlington Reservoir. We were from diverse ethnic backgrounds including Bangla Deshi, Chinese, Korean and British. It seemed appropriate to make new stories for the Reservoir since it's a new landscape feature, and to bring in voices from people relatively new to our land.
We played a story-making game which involved choosing views and natural objects that we could see around us - which explains some of the slightly surprising incidents in the stories. We enjoyed making them sitting looking out across the reservoir - there were lots of laughs - so I hope you will enjoy them too.

The Fisherfolk and the Buttercups

Once, near this lake, there lived a fishing family. Times were hard for them because there were no fish in the lake. This hadn't happened suddenly, just slowly so that each day there were fewer and fewer fish until finally the family were catching nothing at all. One day, hungry and hopeless, they sat in despair at the lake's edge. One of the children began picking the buttercups that were growing where they sat. She started to throw them into the water. Then the other children and the father began doing the same thing and soon hundreds of golden flowers were bobbing on the little shining waves.
Suddenly, there was a mist rising all around them. It was cold and mysterious and it seemed to be coming from the lake. Then, in the midst of the mist there rose out of the water a huge, ugly old woman holding tightly to a handbag.
"How can I be of service to you?" she asked in a low voice that didn't sound exactly natural.
"Send us fish, good, big, plentiful fish, please," said the fisherman.
"I will do it." said the old woman, and she sank down beneath the surface of the waters. The mist evaporated and the fishing family looked around them. The buttercups had disappeared. The mother felt worried.
"I don't trust her. She was a monster. I don't want fish from her because there's bound to be a trick in it."
"I bet she keeps her monster power in her handbag!" said one of the children.
Everyone agreed.
"I know," said father. "Let's throw in more buttercups to call her up again, and when she appears, grab the handbag!"
The family agreed on this plan, and once more they picked buttercups - there were thousands glowing in the grass by the lake. When they threw them in, the mist rose again, and then that ugly, monstrous old woman came up out of the water. One of the boys dived in, and before she knew what was happening, he grabbed her handbag and swam back to the bank. She let out a great howl of rage and disappeared again, leaving the water bubbling and eddying in a frightening vortex for a few minutes. Then the mist lifted and all was calm. The fishing folk couldn't find anything unusual in the soggy handbag, but from that day on, there were plenty of fish in the lake and the family prospered. They never saw the old woman again, but then, they never threw hundreds of buttercups into the water again either.

The Giant and the Mermaid

The giant who lived high on Windover Hill heard many stories as people passed his way. One day he heard about a beautiful mermaid who lived in the lake he could see from his hilltop. The storyteller said that there were many mermaids in the lake and the sound of their singing was truly wonderful, but one of them was the most beautiful singer of all.
Well, the giant was more or less in love just from hearing the story. He didn't know that the mermaids lived in a rich and beautiful city beneath the waves. He could only dream about them because he had to stay in his place on the hillside except on one particular night of the year when the moon was right. It was only on that night that he could walk across the land.
Of course when the special night came he walked straight to the lake and there he saw the mermaids singing and playing in the water. He watched and listened. He was overcome with love, but before he could do or say anything his time away from his hillside was up and he had to return.
Resting for another year before the next special night when he could move, the giant decided that he would make a gift for his beloved. He gathered all the sheep's wool that caught in the brambles and bushes on his hillside and lovingly wove it into a shawl - a light, warm and beautiful shawl. But how could he give his gift?
He had an idea. He called the birds who lived all around him. Would they carry the shawl and give it to his beloved? They tried picking it up. The shawl was so light and fine that they were able to lift it and fly across the land. They took it to the lake and called the mermaid to receive it.
She was so touched by the beauty of the gift and the loving message that the giant sent with it that she sent a message back with the birds. She said that the next time the giant was able to move, she would be happy to meet him.
How did he manage to wait? He had no choice. It wasn't until the full moon of spring that he could move from his hillside. When the night came it was magical.
The giant and the mermaid met beneath the starlit sky and knew that they loved each other with a love that nothing could break. But how could they be together? He had to live in the hillside except on this one occasion of the year, and she lived in the lake, a mermaid, unable to survive for long on land. They parted sadly when his time was up, promising to meet again the next year and to see if they could think of a solution to their problem.
When he was back resting sadly on his hillside, the birds, who were taking a keen interest in this romance, asked him what was the matter. When he told them how the mermaid returned his love, but that they could only be together on one night of the year, the birds felt great compassion for the two lovers. They made a bridge with their wings, a magical bridge in the shape of a great bow arching across the sky, which allowed the giant and the mermaid to meet at least a little more often than once a year
So when you see a rainbow stretching across the land in this area, you'll know that the magic of the birds is allowing two unusual lovers to spend some quality time together.

Visitors in the 1970s

Arlington Reservoir was made in the 1970s by damming the Cuckmere river and cutting out a wide basin to hold the water. The 1970s were a time of space exploration in two directions. Everyone knows that humans were sending spacecraft away from Planet Earth, but not many people know that at the same time aliens were coming to see what was going on here. The occupants of one alien spacecraft saw the great valley being dug for the reservoir and decided it was a good place to land and hide before exploring this new planet. They landed safely but before they managed to organize their explorations, the electrical system in their craft broke down and they had no lights. By now, the river was flooding the valley and the craft was under water.
The aliens stayed aboard, fearful of what they would find in this new world. They had comprehensive survival systems in the spacecraft and could sustain themselves indefinitely. There were luminous golden fish in the water which they were able to use for light.
One day a magical bird feather drifted down to the spacecraft beneath the waves. Some of the aliens felt brave and adventurous. They used the magic of the feather to make a ladder so that they could climb up to the surface of the water. Imagine their excitement as they came up and looked out at a completely new world. Some set off there and then to explore and, as you may know, they have occasionally been sighted by people willing to believe in the possible existence of unfamiliar creatures. Others of the aliens felt less brave. Many stayed below in the spacecraft though sometimes they gather enough courage to climb up the magical ladder and peep out across the surface of the lake.
You might see them if you sit long enough on the quiet banks of Arlington Reservoir - they look like little splashes in the water. The fishermen will tell you it's just a fish jumping for a fly, and sometimes it is. But sometimes it isn't. Only keen eyesight and strong belief can tell the difference.
Story-makers: Hermione Ravenscroft, Shen Ching, Hokyung Lee, Debbie Sutherland, Lorraine Senecchia, Anne Almond, Evelyn Dickins, Luisa Serrecchia, Shamsun Nahar, Rosalind Hawthorn, Lai Fong Lee, Yuko Namata, Pat Bowen

Michelham Priory

Some of the priory buildings date from the 12th century and there was probably a farm and watermill on the site before that. So there are many ghost stories - a grey lady haunts the bridge by the gatehouse and the bedrooms. A baby girl of the Sackville family (owners from 17th to 19th centuries) is said to have drowned in the moat - is this her mother? The ghost peers mournfully into the faces of sleeping guests and then drifts away through the walls.
John Leem, prior from 1376 to 1415 may be the black robed Augustinian monk who has been seen beckoning folk into the priory. He was one of the more conscientious of the Medieval Priors. The monks had, for long periods, a bad reputation in the area and the priory was involved in various unsavoury matters. One "inspection" in 1441 resulted in the canons being ordered to keep silence during mealtimes and not frequent the alehouse outside the gate. The Prior was ordered to take better care of buildings, discipline, everything in fact AND be content with just 4 horses in his stable.
In 1135 Richard L'Aigle (who'd once owned, but then forfeited lands in this area) lodged in London with the Becket family in Cheapside. He took Thomas, the son, on a hunting trip and when they were riding over the plank bridge by the mill stream here, Thomas' horse stumbled and horse and rider fell into the racing stream. The miller heard shouts and closed the sluice gates just in time to prevent horse and rider from being swept to certain death against the great mill wheel. It was considered to be something of a miracle that both horse and rider were rescued unharmed from the water, but not such a surprise when later, Thomas a Becket made a name for himself.

Enterance fees for Michelham Priory

Adult £6.00,Senior/Student £5.00, Child £3.00, Family (2+2) £15.20
Disabled/Carer £3.00.