Spring time walk (Chelwood Vachery)

I must apologise for not posting any blogs for nearly three weeks now but I've been extremely busy, Mrs C has had me painting and decorating the house and I've also had problems with my Laptop, apart from that I got a bit lazy. Never mind I'm back now to haunt the internet with my inane ramblings.

After weeks and weeks of incessant rain the weather changed last week for the better, in fact last Sunday was like a warm Summers's day, so Mrs C and I took Little dog for a walk along the banks of the River Ouse near Southease. We then shared a light lunch at the Courtyard Cafe which is part of the recently opened Youth Hostel next to Southease Station. The food was excellent and was very reasonably priced and the views across the valley towards the south Downs were spectacular.

Little dog is getting old, moth eaten and a little grumpy, so yesterday I treated her to a nice walk up on the Forest. We set off from Millwood car park and made our way across country to the Folly bridge at the bottom of Chelwood Vachery. I had an ulterior motive in that I wanted to explore the area around the bridge in some depth and hopefully take some interesting photographs. Little dog and I made a whistle stop visit to the Folly bridge last year in the pouring rain, so did not spend too long exploring. Since then I have read that just down from the bridge is a series of ponds, part of an ornamental garden that had been allowed to run wild.

The name Chelwood Vachery derives from the Norman as a shelter in the woods for cattle, Vache being the French for cow. The ornamental gardens were constructed in about 1910 by the MP Sir Stuart Samuel on ground adjoining his house and consists of a series of ponds controlled by weirs and sluices. There is also a small gorge with a stream running down the hillside which was designed and built by a famous landscape gardener of the nineteen-twenties called Colonel Gavin Jones. It was constructed using limestone boulders from Cheddar Gorge in Somerset.

The Forest garden was acquired by the Conservators of the Ashdown Forest in 1994 and thanks to private donations work began on clearing away the invasive plants, dredging the ponds and restoring the garden in 2008. Volunteers have also worked tirelessly to clear away invasive rhododendron plants to open up the views through the valley. I think that they have done a fantastic job in restoring the valley which is now a light and breezy oak and beech wood.

We spent quite some time taking pictures of the ponds and bridge before Little dog became really grumpy and insisted very vocally that we should continue out per-amble through the Forest. Our route took us in a northerly direction up onto the site of the Emergency Landing Ground near Wych cross with its expansive views back towards the South Downs several miles away. Once past the covered reservoirs (where Little dog disgraced herself by trying to pick a fight with another dog) we turned left and made our way via a circuitous route to the small village of Chelwood gate.

Once through the village we came across two other ponds called Braberry ponds which were just inside the Forest boundary, from here we walked along some very muddy tracks back to the Folly bridge and Forest garden where we stopped for a brew up and lunch. Although it was quite overcast and there was a stiff breeze blowing along the valley bottom I really felt that we were sitting in an enchanted place, one of many such places on the Forest.

After fighting little dog over my Cornish pastie and putting up with her sulks whilst I tried to enjoy my mug of tea in these (now less than) tranquil surroundings we took a brisk walk back up hill and across the heath to my car. Twenty minutes later and Little dog was snoring loudly in her bed.

George Arthur Lumby (An Infantry Battalion)

I have already told you all that I know about my Great Uncle, George Arthur Lumby and soon I will tell you the story of how he died during the Battle of the Somme. But before I do so I feel that I should tell you a little bit about the Army and it's organisation to give you some idea of how I was able to glean the information from Battalion and Brigade War Diaries in order to tell his story.

George was posted to the 12th (S) Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. A Battalion was (and still is) the standard fighting formation of the British Infantry. During World War 1 a British Infantry Battalion contained approximately 1,000 men, on paper (In reality with losses this number was usually less) split into four Companies of about 220 soldiers, each commanded by a Major and designated as A to D, these were sub divided into platoons and then sections.

The Battalion was commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel supported by the Battalion Headquarters staff and also contained ancillary troops such as a Medical Officer and stretcher bearers, Communication staff including runners (the most dangerous job in the Battalion), Trench Mortar section, Machine gun section, Cooks, Quartermaster and Transport sections.

Several Battalions served together in Brigades which consisted of approximately 5,000 men and above them several Brigades were formed into a Division which consisted of about 20,000 soldiers. The 12th West Yorks were brigaded together with the following units to form 9th Brigade which was part of 3rd Division consisting of both Regular and New Army Battalions:-

12th (S) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment
1st Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers
13th Battalion Kings Liverpool Regiment
4th Battalion the Royal Fusiliers
9th Brigade Machine Gun Company
9th Trench Mortar battery

The army runs on paper work even during war time, this is very useful for anybody researching military or family history. During active service every unit of Battalion size and above was required to fill in a War Diary or Intelligence Summary each day to record what the unit was doing at a particular time. There are also typed plans of attack, maps, Divisional, Brigade and Battalion Orders and countless other army forms from which information can be obtained.

War Diaries were recorded on an official Army form, however when a unit was in protracted fighting sometimes they could not get the forms so the days events would be written on any available paper. The most moving example of this that I have discovered was when I was researching the death of my wife's Great Uncle George Read of 1st Royal West Kents.

In April 1915 the Battalion was constantly engaged in bitter and bloody fighting at Hill 60 in the Ypres Salient. The war diaries for this period were written on pages from an old exercise book (Held in the National Archive at Kew) by a Sub-lieutenant in front line trenches during a break in the attacks. When I viewed these entries several years ago, I may have been the first person to hold them for over eighty years and it was difficult not to feel a pang of sadness as the pages were smeared in mud and blood. It was a fine example of living history.