Changing Chalk - Hearts and Histories of the Downs

May 2025

This Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month 2025 we bring you events, archaeology and information resources. Plus a travelling Exhibition

This June we are planning a lot of events and activites to celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Hisotry Month. As we finalise them we will add them here. 

 

June 2025 : Stories from the Stopping Place, an excavation at a possible Stopping Place site used by the Gypsy and Traveller Communities.

The Big Dig continues between 14th and 20th June 2025 in Eastbourne. We will be investigating more of Eastbourne's Downland stories with an excavation at a possible Stopping Place site used by the Gypsy & Traveller communities around 1900. 

We are looking for volunteers to help us with the excavation and to continue researching some of the stories of people using this Stopping Place over 100 years ago.

We welcome all volunteers and we particularly encourage people from Gypsy & Traveller communities to apply. Full training, resources and travel expenses will be provided.

This excavation will give us a snapshot of how parts of Eastbourne developed as a Downland settlement and celebrate the cultural contribution of the Gypsy & Traveller communities to the town. 

Visitors are welcome to pop by and see what we’ve uncovered and find out more about some of the stories of people rediscovered through the research. 

Vist HistoryStories to find out more and to get invloved in the dig. 

April 2023

More about our Archaeology Apprenticeships

Kayleigh is our first archaeology apprentice at Changing Chalk. She has  been working with the National Trust as the Archaeological Apprentice of the Changing Chalk partneship since January 2023. 

Read her story here.

 

 

 

August 2023

Learn more about the history of the South Downs from Neolithic to World War Two

Working in partnership and using over 100 years of aerial photos and lidar (light detection and ranging) imagery, we have been able to create a new interactive map that will provide a platform for a citizen science survey. Through this map people can explore the archaeological sites on the South Downs near them and can contribute their own knowledge to the project.

Read more about the report that's just been published and investigate the new interactive map here.

June 2023

Cultural Heritage

Meet Prissy. This magnificent iron horse is part of the Changing Chalk Cultural Heritage project. We aim for Prissy to stand proud on the South Downs to reflect the rich cultural heritage of the Downs. For hundreds of years, the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities have lived and worked here, working the land or working at the funfair that used to run at Devil’s Dyke in Victorian times.

As part of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, Prissy’s creator, Jake Bowers brought the sculpture and his travelling forge to Devil’s Dyke to give people the opportunity to forge part of her mane. We also were joined by cultural auditor, Kate Richardson and Janet Keet-Black, a member of the community, Gypsy historian and author of ‘Gypsies of Britain’. They explained more about the intimate links between the community and the Downs and how to search the records to trace where they travelled over the years. And to join Prissy the Gypsy Cob sculpture, came some real-life Gypsy Cobs, Sapphire and Cherokee to meet the people at the event.

If you would like to watch the film of how Prissy was made and find out more about Jake and his work you can go to his website here

Prissy is currently installed at the University of Sussex campus (outside the business centre if people want to go see her) to celebrate their pledge to support the GRTSB community into higher education, plans are in progress for her to find a more long term home in the South Downs.

September 2024

Bringing history alive for residents of Peacehaven

Between the 11-13th October 2024 Heritage Eastbourne will be asking residents of Peacehaven to dig an archaeological test pit in their gardens. The aim is to uncover any hidden history that might be there, that they hope will give an insight into how parts of Peacehaven have developed as a Downland settlement, and help to discover more about the daily lives of the town's residents throughout history. 

Archaeologists will be on hand to supervise and ensure all excavations and recording are done correctly and full training and resources will be provided. 

There  was also an excavation in The Big Park (Centenary Park) between 20-27 September. 

if you want to take part contact gary.webster@nationaltrust.org.uk for more info. 

June 2024

This Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month we bring you some history from the generations of GRT communities that have lived and worked on the South Downs

The following piece of writing is written and researched by Romany Gypsy Historian Janet Keet-Black. Kate Richardson and Janet Keet-Black are both researching GRT histories in local archives as part of the Changing Chalk project.   

 

 Home - The Keep 

Romany & Traveller Family History Society | Research your roots and learn about your heritage. (rtfhs.org.uk) 

 

Travelling and Occupations 

Not all Gypsies were hawkers and not all hawkers were Gypsies. There were many settled people who took to the roads with their wagons and wares, thereby swelling the ranks of traditional Travellers. They were the forerunner to the baker, fishmonger and greengrocer vans. 

Other non-Gypsy travellers included drovers, broom and brush makers, charcoal makers, masons, bell hangers and thatchers.

Brighton fishwives regularly walked into Lewes via Juggs Road carrying freshly caught fish in jugs, while shepherds drove their sheep and pigs over the downs to graze in the low weald, then drove them back for slaughter. 

For most traditional Travellers, the start of the travelling year was early spring, although there were some who travelled year-round.

During winter, however, many gravitated towards towns and large villages where they stopped in yards, lodging houses, paid rent on private houses or found stopping places on the outskirts.

Whilst some continued to follow ‘typical’ Traveller trades, others found work as ostlers, coal heavers, fly-drivers or pot men amongst others.

Some women took on laundry work to supplement their hawking. This resulted in many Romany/Gypsies and show people being ‘hidden’ in towns and villages at census time, which can make identifying them difficult, especially when all family members claimed they were born in the place where they were recorded and/or were following non-typical Traveller occupations.

Added to this, some families returned to the same place each year and in some cases to the same property, many in the growing coastal towns of Sussex. 

Gradually, some families became semi-settled but still retained an element of their culture and traditions by travelling for the harvest and hop and fruit picking, leaving their homes to travel over and along the downs to reach the farms and hop gardens which were expecting them. 

Outside of harvesting and fruit-picking time, Travellers took their wares and services around both villages and towns.

Villagers were somewhat dependant on the visits of travelling tradesmen and hawkers; it was far cheaper to have pots, pans and chairs mended than it was to buy new and village women seldom had the time to travel into towns to shop.