Winchelsea: Britain’s oldest new town
Winchelsea offers battle scars, Christmas window displays, subterranean tours and a mysterious rough-and-tumble street game. Odo took its seasonal break in East Sussex to find out more.Read More →
Winchelsea offers battle scars, Christmas window displays, subterranean tours and a mysterious rough-and-tumble street game. Odo took its seasonal break in East Sussex to find out more.Read More →
An unassuming footpath, Framfield Number Nine had no pretensions to be anything other than a simple thoroughfare.
Then, in 1989 it was abruptly blocked by a barn. The footpath then found itself at the centre of a landmark legal battle that influenced two acts of Parliament and with the help of the Ramblers, helped strengthen walkers’ rights.Read More →
Few people have left their mark on a town as profoundly as Little has on the East Sussex seaside-resort of Hastings. Appointed the town’s Borough and Water Engineer in 1926, he helped shape Hastings for 34 years. It was Little’s expertise and enthusiasm for reinforced concrete that earned him the nickname “The Concrete King” and it was with this material that he left his mark on Hastings, much of which can still be seen today. Read More →
We’ve all heard of King Alfred: the 9th century king who defeated the vikings and united the English. He’s a figure shrouded in mystery and romanticism and an important part of his story lies in wait in a hidden East Sussex village. Sort of.Read More →
Prior to the invention of refrigeration, fresh food would either have to be eaten immediately or preserved in a way that would impact its flavour. With the invention of the ice house (or ice well), the residents of Mari (an ancient city in modern-day Syria) came up with a solution to this way back in 1780 BC.Read More →
Visited by ODOmatt January 26th 2019 Located between Eastbourne and Brighton, the small industrial port town of Newhaven has its fair share of peculiar history, but none more so than an unlikely visitor in 1913… Yes, Ho Chi Minh once visited the salty shores of East Sussex. Before becoming the world’s most famous revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh worked as a pastry chef on the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry line. The town hit national headlines in 2013 when it announced controversial plans to commemorate the famous visitor with a small centennial commemoration stone. Thankfully for all Sussex-based Odd Day Outers, the stone got laid. Ho Chi Who? HoRead More →
The building was supposedly constructed by Benedictine Monks from the nearby Wilmington Priory in 1280. It continued to be used by the clergy until 1970 when it was sold into private ownership. It remains occupied to this day, so we ask other Odd Day Outer’s to be mindful not to disturb the occupants.Read More →
Part of the ‘Once Existed’ Project – Visited by the ODOstefan, Eloise, Darla, Theo, Rachel and Matt on the 11th August 2018. This is the one we’ve been waiting for, the Holy Grail of lost villages and once existed settlements – Tide Mills truly is the Pompeii of the East Sussex coast. ‘Tide Mills’ refers to the tidal powered mill and village that sprang up east of Newhaven in the 18th century: one of only ten ‘surviving’ tidemills in the UK. A goldmine of abandoned buildings, the story of Tide Mills is one of mutiny, war, nightmare bosses, high-quality milling and seaplanes.Read More →
A Historical Footnote – visited by ODOmatt on the 28th February 2018. A chip in the wall of an old country church marks the spot where, one Sunday afternoon in 1634, one of Britain’s most notorious soldiers tried to assassinate a rival. This is where historical footnotes get into the fine print, but if you stick with it, this nondescrpit indentation illuminates a whole world of scandal, war and adventure in the age of revolution.Read More →
Part of the ‘Once Existed’ Project – Visited by the ODOmatt on the 10th February 2018 Splashing through muddy lanes and traversing crumbling roads, it soon became clear that Fiat 500s were not made for hunting lost villages. The car largely in one piece, I eventually found my own form of unofficial parking outside the only surviving building in Hamsey: St. Peter’s Church.Read More →