As the county is so close to Europe every invader has viewed the open, stony beaches of Sussex with a view to conquest. Almost every generation before us - including our grandparents - have had to face the realities of war.
The great battles of Hastings and Lewes changed the course of British political and social history. The Hundred Years war saw coastal towns under regular attack with Rye and Winchelsea being ransacked.
When Queen Elizabeth - Gloriana - addressed British troops at Tilbury on the eve of the decisive defeat of the Armada, news was spread to London via huge beacons on the heights of Ditchling and Crowborough. Militia men also stood to arms along the coast.
When Napoleon considered invading England, forts and barracks were built in every town and port along the coast. Many still remain. But the terror of war became a living memory as opposed to a history lesson as 'the few' streaked across the Downs in pursuit of German bombers and fighters. There are some thrilling, albeit tragic, stories about those fights to the death which took place in our skies.
The first defence works that can be found on Downland summits date back to the New Stone Age. Remains we se see today were made by the Celts who arrived in Sussed around 550 BC towards the end of the Bronze Age. Around 250bc a second group of Celtic warriors armed with horse drawn chariots arrived. They were excellent ironworkers .According to Julius Caesar they covered themselves in blue woad to make them more frightening in battle. At Mount Caburn near Lewes Roman scabbards have been found.
Unrest in Britain promoted the Romans to mount a full scale invasion of the island. In AD43 Emperor Claudius sent four legions across the Channel. They beat the Britons led by Caractacus in a battle near the River Medway arcing east they met opposition at Mount Caburn near Lewes.
Romans settled relatively peaceably until attacks from Picts, Scots, Francs and Saxons led them eventually to withdraw. In the meantime huge forts were built such as Pevensey, a purpose built military fortification.
Sacons crossed the Channel in three ships, landing in 477 defeating the Britons who retreated into the Weald with battles between the Arun and Cuckmere rivers. They reached Pevensey in 491 and 'killed all who were inside so there was not one Briton left.'
The Saxons too became settlers but were followed by another warlike nationality from northern Europe, the Danes. Saxons built defensive 'burgs' on old Roman sites including Lewes, Hastings and Pevensey. Later Viking attacks compelled the various Saxon groups to fight together and eventually combine under a single leader, forging the British nation. The last Viking raid against the Sussex coast was at Hastings in 1011.
In 1064 King Harold left Bosham harbour by ship but strong winds blew him onto the French coast. Duke William of Normandy welcomed him to his palace at Rouen. Anyone who has visited the Bayeux tapestry will know it tells of Harold's oath on some holy relics supporting the Duke's claim to the English throne. However this was disputed.
By August 1066 William had put together a huge fleet in the harbour at what is now Dives Sur Mer. It set sail on September 12. William met Harold's men who had marched 190 miles from York in four days, having defeated a large enemy force of Norsemen at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Wlliam's fleet made landfall at Normans Bay with 3000 mounted knights, 1000 archers and 4000 foot soldiers.
In October the Battle of Hastings saw Harold's army defeated in what was described as the bloodiest battle on English soil to date. William and Harold lost a third of their soldiers and Harold suffered an arrow to the eye. He pulled it out but four Normans reached the wounded king. 'With the point of his lance the first pierced Harold's shield and ten penetrated his chest drenching the ground with blood' wrote Guy of Amiens.
As London became surrounded and the other two most important cities in the hands of the invaders, leading English figures including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Edgar Aethling asked William to accept the throne. William was crowned King on Christmas day. For hundreds of years after Hastings the kings of England were the overlords of Normandy and much of France. The invaded became the invaders until their empires stretched around the globe.
Next to come were castles. The older wooden buildings were replaced by stone castles, first at Pevensey, later Hastings and then Lewes. Notfar from Ringmer are the remains of an early Norman ringwork on farmland next to Clay Hill House (dated about 1140.) Not far away, at Isfield along the old Roman Road from Lewes to London are the remains of a motte and bailey where the Uckfield Mill Stream meets the Ouse. There are remains of a motte at Hartfield, Mountfield (near Robertsbridge) Dixter and a manor house at Ticehurst. Middle Wood Moat at Waldron is a Norman ringwork comprising a deep circular ditch within and outer banks.
After William's death, battles for the crown ensued with William Rufus mysteriously killed while hunting in the New Forest. English and Norman territories were united under Henry II and when the young king married Eleanor of Acquitaine, the Anglo Norman empire extended from the Irish Sea to the Pyrenees. The great barons resisted King John's political influence and the outcome was the Magna Carta. He was succeeded by King Henry III.
Simon de Montfort, arrived in England with ambition and secured the title of the Earl of Leicester. After endless skirmishes and divided support for both Henry III and de Montfort across the country, on May6 a baronial army set off from London to track down the Royalists and bring them to battle. De Montfort, whose estate was at Sheffield Park ,reached Fletching covering the 40 miles from London in a day. Henry posted a lookout from Offham Hill and on May 14, 1264 the army was on the move. De Montfort moved to Hamsey reaching the battlefield soon after sunrise, and Mount Harry before dawn. The King waited while(about 5-6,000 men) Montfort's men were arranged into three divisions or wards. Even experts say it's difficult to say that the Battle of Lewes happened in one particular place but it appears it raged the length of the southern facing slopes from Offham Hill to the town itself.
Skeletons of victims of the slaughter have been found as far apart ast he site of the Offham chalk pits and Lewes prison. Fighting continued in the town which was in flames from fire arrows shot from the battlements of the castle with warriors falling to their deaths into the river and the marshes to the south. Casualties have been estimated at 3,000 with about 20 per cent of all combatants killed or seriously wounded. A group of fugitives was cornered and butchered near East Hoathly, now known as Terrible Down. De Montfort had the battle buthad to win the peace. He ruled England for less than 15 months. After facing a huge Royalist force he was killed and his body mutilated. In1965 a monument was erected at his grave at Evesham. It was unveiled by the Speaker of the House of Commons to acknowledge his legacy -the English parliament.
Wars at sea followed when a fleet from the Cinque Ports - Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich with Winchelsea and Rye - attacked Dieppe and destroyed French ships which had assembled in the Seine estuary for an attack on England. In 1242 the Cinque Ports obtained permission to ravage the French coast again but it was during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) they were most frequently in action. Again leading men in England and France were locked in endless disputes over the rights to property both sides of the Channel.
In 1385 Sir Edward Dalnrigge crenellated his property at Bodiam, neart he River Rother,. Now this is one of the picturesque castles in England. Herstmonceux Castle was built in the penultimate decade of the Hundred Years War by Roger de Fiennes. In East Sussex the Wealden forests glowed with the fires of the gun foundries and Elizabeth I ordered a chain of fire beacons to be set up from West Wittering to Fairlight including Brighton, Seaford, Wilmington, Willingdon, Beachy Head and Cross in Hand. From the coast the alarm was passed to London via Ditchling, Firle and Crowborough beacons to the capital.
The Sussex militia were assembled in the summer of 1586 when 50 ships were sighted off Brighton and an order was issued to round up all recusants (Roman Catholics) The English fleet put to sea and slipped round the Armada to place itself windward. Hundreds of sailors were recruited from Sussex ports to fight with the Navy. The two fleets fought periodically with the combined fleets of Howard and Sir Francis Drake producing a total of only 20-30 fewer vessels than the Spaniards. By the 26th the Spaniards had reached Beachy Head but became lost in the Calais Roads The English dispatched eight fireships into Calais at midnight on August 7 finally defeating the Spaniards whose fleet was scattered.
The English nation, divided by religion and loyalty, drifted into civil war in 1642 after Charles I challenged the principles established after De Montfort's Battle of Lewes victory. Sussex saw none of the War's great battles although there was plenty of fighting between Royalist and Roundhead and the occupation of Sussex with its cannon foundries was of importance to both sides. Sussex was divided by a Parliamentary east and Royalist west. It was at Buxted in 1543that the first cannon had been cast as a single piece in England and for the next 200 years the gun foundries of the Weald were the most important in the country. Sussex-made guns were regarded as being the finest in Europe Sussex was ordered to provide 600 men for a regular standing army, the foundation of the modern British Army.
Seven Sussex politicians were among the 59 signatories to the death warrant of King Charles I. With the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658, General Monk dissolved Parliament and set Charles Stuart, King Charles I's son. on the throne. Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver, escaped to the Continent from Lewes.
The War of Austrian Succession saw a vast French invasion fleet put to sea, only to be forced back to harbour by a severe gale. During the Seven Years War of the 1750s Ltn Willliam Roy surveyed the Sussex coast. At Newhaven a battery was established on Castle Hill overlooking the harbour. To cover the flat ground between the estuary f the Ouse and Seaford Head two more batteries were built at Blatchington Down and Seaford Beach.
As a result of invasion scares from 1765, the south coast was completely militarised. Low lying areas such as Romney Marsh and the Pevensey Levels were to be flooded by opening the sluice gates of the drainage ditches. Martello towers were also built. At Newhaven a new battery was erected at the foot of Castle Hill with six guns defending the harbour entrance. Newhaven was becoming one of the most important Sussex ports.
During World War I large tented camps were created at Tide Mills, Chailey Common, Ashdown Forest, Forest Row, King's Standing, Camp Hill and Pippingford for the troops destined for the trenches . By September 19`7 six Zeros were operated out of Polegate but the most important airbase was in Newhaven on the East Beach. The guns of the Western Front could be heard in Sussex and wounded men were taken to the county for treatment and care.
During World War II, Hitler's invasion plan, Operation Sealion, prompted fears a large force would land somewhere along the south coast. Newhaven Fort was armed with two 12 pound guns and five 6 inch guns, two of which on the ramparts of the fort. Guns from Newhaven to Pevensey were under immediate command of Fortress Control Newhaven. A complex of tunnels cut into the hillside at South Heighton was under the control of the Royal Navy.,
All road signs and place names were painted out and the chalk features of the Long Man at Wilmington and the White Horse near Alfriston were grassed over. The lights at Newhaven were replicated at Cuckmere Haven to deceive German bombers.
The numerical superiority of the Luftwaffe was reduced by radar teams 'ability to pinpoint German attacks and direct RAF fighters to intercept enemy bombers before they reached their targets. Friston, seven miles from Eastbourne, was an emergency landing ground for damaged aircraft returning from raids across the Channel. Dogfights took place all over Sussex. By late September 1040 most families in the South East had become accustomed to a daily routine of air battles. On the morning of Friday, September 27, 160 Hurricanes and Spitfires were scrambled to intercept an incoming German bomber force whose target was London.
Mayfield school lboy, George Tuke, stood riveted to the spot in the road outside his home on the Five Ashes Road. A Messerschmitt 110screamed past the tall trees with a Hurricane in hot pursuit. Both planes blazed at each other. Moments later the two aircraft were over Horam, still at rooftop height and still firing. Next the aircraft were seen at Hailsham. Doug Weller stood near his dad's New Barn Farm in Station Road. He said: "The morning was bright and clear. I stopped the tractor and settled near a deep ditch for my lunch break. I saw a Messerschmitt approaching over the rooftops of Hailsham and I could also see a Hurricane flying out and away in a wide sweep into the flight path of the Messerschmitt. As he passed below and beneath the Messerschmitt he banked so the tip of the wing made contact with the Messerschmitt's tailpiece. Both planes crashed and a huge column of black smoke rose from the next field where the Hurricane was a blazing inferno. Horst Liensberger, Albert Kopge and Percy Burton lay dead,t heir bodies a stone's throw apart."
The largest offensive operation was the famous - or infamous - Dieppe raid which was a political rather than military necessity and, as a result, a complete failure. Men of the Canadian Second Corps departed from Newhaven on August 19, 1942 but Dieppe's defences were far too strong and only a h handful of men managed to fight their way into town. Of the 4,963 Canadians, only 2,120 returned to Newhaven, many seriously wounded.
The districts between Newhaven and Portsmouth were designated a concentration area for the first and 30th corps in preparation for Operation Overlord, the ground invasion of France. From February 1044troops poured into Sussex with the Downs between Clayton and Lewes used for gunnery practice. Local farmhouses were targets for the Canadian army and most were damaged, to be rebuilt after the war at the Canadians' expense. Newhaven continued to be a departure point for troops and provisions for months after D Day. During the war more than103,000 bombs of all descriptions dropped on Sussex and 4,910 people were killed or injured.
Fear of a nuclear attack during the Cold War prompted the RAF to construct a gas and nuclear proof communications bunker within the chalk headland of Beachy Head to accommodate 200 people. It was abandoned in 1957 and remains sealed. Another large complex to house troops and the South East Regional Government was built in the Ashdown Forest near Duddleswell and maintained up until 1992.
As the authors of Battleground Sussex, John Grehan and Martin Mace said: "The true legacy of centuries of armed struggle against oppressive monarchies and aggressive invaders is the freedom and democracy we now enjoy. In pursuit of these ideals, the shores, seas and skies of Sussex have been scenes of terrible slaughter. It should never be forgotten that the peace and prosperity we take for granted was won by the sword and defended by the gun."
Susan King Senior Reporter Sussex Express Mobile 07976 800 195