Stories from the Stopping Place
Explore the Stories from the Stopping Place this Summer in Eastbourne!
The Big Dig continues with the Changing Chalk Partnership in Eastbourne. We will be investigating more of Eastbourne's Downland stories with an excavation at a possible Stopping Place site used by the Gypsy & Traveller communities around 1900 later this year.
We are looking for volunteers to help us with the excavation and to continue researching some of the stories of people using this Stopping Place over 100 years ago. We welcome all volunteers and we particularly encourage people from Gypsy & Traveller communities to apply. Full training, resources and travel expenses will be provided.
This excavation will give us a snapshot of how parts of Eastbourne developed as a Downland settlement and celebrate the cultural contribution of the Gypsy & Traveller communities to the town.
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​Contact us for more information and to get involved
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Thanks go to Janet Keet-Black Gypsy Historian and author of Gypsies of Britain. Working with Changing Chalk as a consultant, helping with the archival material and community mapping
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Changing Chalk is a multi-partner project connecting people, nature and heritage across the eastern South Downs. Led by the National Trust, Changing Chalk is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players and The Linbury Trust.
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A Stopping Place in Eastbourne
Around 1900, Hubert Visick, an orthodontist in Eastbourne wrote about some of the Gypsy people he met in Sussex. One of the families he met were Odger Hilden and Agnes Lee who, around 1900, were living at a stopping place In Eastbourne. The location was described as being “half way up the hill after leaving Old Eastbourne, the road skirts a thin beech wood… If we take a rough cart track just above the [wood] to our right, we shall soon come out on the rim of a great green bowl hollowed out of the side of the Downs. This is known as Cherry Garden Hollow. In a short distance, the track widens out into a level grassy floor…once upon a time there must have been a small chalk pit here. Now underfoot and all around is deliciously scented Downland turf; there are bushes and stunted treed to break the wind and upon which to hand washing. But, best of all, there is an abundance of firewood to be picked up in the wood just below…. The ground falls away so steeply that you experience the sensation of being parted from earth and all its troubles.”
Jack Hilden
Odger and Agnes probably lived in a Bender Tent and were Hawkers when they were at this Stopping Place. They were also expecting their first child and Hubert wrote how they’d made this chalkpit their home and had a number of good friends locally. “The lady from the Tally Ho! (a pub just down the road) had constituted herself chief adviser and friend for the coming event [the birth of their child] … She used to come up every day with some dainty to tempt the appetite. George, the old shepherd, going off on his daily round, never failed to stop and leave a beer bottle full of milk, and sometimes a bit of cake.” Their child John Henry Hilden was born and was christened at St Marys Church, Old Town.
Coming soon!
We'll be trying to find out more about the Hilden Family and others who made the town what it is today. The children in this photo are two of the children of Jack (John Henry) and Mary Hilden. They got married in West Blatchington in 1925.
All of the photos of the Hilden Family were taken from the article Hubert Visick wrote for the Sussex County Magazine in 1949.