The evening opened with notices and dates for forthcoming events before our speaker Lucy Pitts was introduced to regale us with local tales of mystery, and since it was Halloween, it was a wonderfully apt subject.
Lucy is local businesswoman with a love of where she lives. She is the creator of a successful online magazine and website all about Sussex called Sussex Exclusive. It covers the whole county and all aspects of Sussex life from food and drink, things to do, walks, culture and history, health and much more. Because of her work, Lucy evidently knows Sussex very well and obviously loves the hills, fields, trees and houses of this old region where The Wild Men of Sussex have dwelt for ages past. She travels the length and breadth of the county following and investigating some of the stranger stories that have emerged over the centuries.
Lucy is a very spiritual person and real storyteller, speaking vividly for an hour of odd tales and goings on. Captivating tales that flowed geographically from one another, from her seemingly inexhaustible well of knowledge.
She told us of the horseman seen on the road from Pyecombe to Poynings - a strange light moving ahead of a car travelling though the night, the light disappearing, and a ghastly and bleeding face at the car window...
Lucy told us of the ruins at Cowdray Parkand the curse of the Cowdray dynasty. The family had done well from the dissolution of the monasteries and were granted many lands, including that of Battle Abbey in East Sussex. The tale goes that a disaffected monk cursed the family 'By fire and water thy line shall come to an end and it shall perish out of the land'. There was no cataclysmic extinction, but Lucy told us how fire and drowning were involved in some of the deaths so that gradually over the following centuries each and every branch of this once rich and powerful family has indeed died out. Only the ruins remain.
The ancient yew trees at Kingley Vale affect Lucy very deeply. It is a quiet and mysterious place amongst the oldest of the trees, but up the hill the trees are younger and there are a series of mounds in the earth. Legend has it that these are the Devil's Humps and contain the remains of Viking chiefs. By landing at Bosham and avoiding the heavy fortifications of Chichester, the Vikings marched off to raid villages to the north and west. Nevertheless, the men of Chichester raced out to give battle and defeated the invaders at Kingley Vale. It is said that at certain times of the year, the very ground is red as if with blood, (or for the more prosaic amongst us, it may be the carpet of red yew berries under the ancient trees.)
We were all transfixed by the ghostly and unexplainable stories and Lucy's ability to evoke the spookiness of her experiences in her storytelling. It was also fantastic to have this new dimension added to our knowledge and understanding of Sussex, Lucy's stories will certainly add to our pleasure as we travel around the county.
If you were at the meeting I strongly urge you to go to some of the locations Lucy spoke of and see if you can feel the spirits as strongly as she does... In the meantime please follow the link below to access Sussex Eclusive Magazine and website.
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