2 minute read
Valerie Martin December memories
By Valerie Martin
A cheery watercolour of Grey Point (bottom left) in The Square in Findon by Clifford Meadway. The Gun Inn (with timber beaming) is shown centre.
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Here is the Muntham Clump snow clad landmark as it appeared in 2010. I was fascinated when I saw the scene and snapped this picture (burial site of the Thynne family on the Mumtham Estate.
Local postal arrangements of the past affected the Gun Inn situated in the centre of Findon. There were no post workers' strikes in those days but the following gives you a flavour of the times 160 years ago and was, in fact, reported in the Brighton Examiner dated 21st October, 1862. The mail deliveries were dicey to say the least and rather hazardous and thus the report…
On Monday a man, who was a stranger, was sent with the mail cart to Brighton, returned after an absence of three hours and said that he had lost the road. On the previous Saturday morning the mail cart was five hours after time and then the driver was missing, he and the horse having parted company somewhere on the road. A crisp "Thistledown" huddled at the eastern end of Nepcote Green and caught on camera in the early 1900s. The snow covered lane leading to the north side of Cissbury Ring can be discerned on the left of the property.
My photograph dated 2004 of carol singers outside St. John the Baptist Church in Findon. My stories even make the be-scarved clad snowmen chuckle as I captured them doing a spot of eventide carol singing in the chill air. Please do not bother to go and look for them. They promptly scampered off into the gloom of the woods with their lantern when they realised I was taking their photograph for posterity.
The above intriguing picture shows the Gun Inn in 1863 a year after the newspaper's report. The artist's name is now lost in the mists of time. A bit nearer to our days, Alan Wyatt was the publican of the Gun Inn in the l960s. He used the very same scene on his Christmas Card circulated in 1963 to his customers, neighbours and colleagues at the festive season 59 years ago.
