Changing Chalk Stepping into the Downs walk
A blog post written by our Changing Chalk Volunteering and Community Manager, Josie about her experiences on the Stepping into the Downs walk with Janet Keet-Black
'Stepping into the Downs' Stopping Places Walk
The Changing Chalk’s Cultural Heritage project worked with Kate Richardson to conduct a deep dive audit at The Keep Archive in Brighton & Hove, to discover what Gypsy & Traveller materials could be found there. We uncovered items like photos, records, audios and much more.
Janet Keet-Black Gypsy Historian and author of the book 'Gypsies of Britain' acted as a much valued consultant for the cultural audit and worked closely with us as we uncovered the cultural contribution of Gypsies & Travellers in the South Downs.
One of the items we found was a booklet called the Falmer Gypsy Journals 1898-1922 which were kept by virtue of an order of the chief constable of 22 April 1898. They list the sites of encampment (Stopping Places) the number of men, women and children and the names of adults, whether gypsies or van-dwellers, date of arrival and provenance, date of departure and destination, and the nature of any complaints made.
We were intrigued by this discovery and Janet kindly offered to lead a walk to some of the Stopping Places from the journals, and share with us the stories of her ancestors and the people who stopped there, how they earned a crust, how they kept family, what they lived in, and the stories, songs, music and dance which were an integral part of their cultural heritage.
We plotted out a map of 10 Stopping Places (Atchin Tan’s translates from Romany as Stopping Place) inbetween Brighton and Lewes and Janet invited along some of her esteemed friends, musicians, step dancers and members of Gypsy & Traveller communities.
Around 20 people signed up and we all gathered under a shaded tree in Saunders Park opposite Lewes Road Bus garage in Brighton and introduced ourselves, there were members of travelling communities, organisations who work with Gypsies & Travellers, local University professors, National Trust staff and members of the public who simply had a huge interest in learning more about the landscape and Gypsy & Traveller heritage.
Janet told us how before 1953 this area of the City was mainly Downland and Gypsies & Travellers would come down Upper Lewes Road (once Gypsy Lane) from Devils Dyke to the Bear Yard (Lewes Road Bus Garage) which was an old Tram yard and was used as a ‘wintering up’ site for when the agricultural season was over. Caleb Smith stopped in the yard, he had roundabouts and steam engines and coconut shy’s which he took to local fairgrounds in the area, legend has it there is an elephant buried over by Natel Road.
We then moved to Melbourne Street which has a row of houses where Gypsies & Travellers would ‘stop’ in the city to work, Janet told us about Matty Cooper the Royal Rat catcher who used to visit his sister Genty Cooper who told fortunes at Devils Dyke. Matty also had another sister who lived in Melbourne Street. ‘Family say’ was that he had met Queen Victoria (when she was a Princess) when he was stopping outside Claremont House. She was out on one of her walks and came across the encampment and enjoyed painting watercolours of the Gypsies & Travellers who stopped there. Matty Cooper went on to catch rats at Hampton court and Windsor castle. Janet also told us that he lost the shirt off his back and even his dog on the races which is where we were heading to next.
We walked through the Woodvale Crematorium and up to Racehill and Janet told us about her uncle and aunt who were basket makers who stopped there. She told us about different types of homes like bender tents (domes made from bent hazel poles covered in hop sacks) carts and wagons, and that many people travelled on foot or horseback and had no home at all, they used to sleep under a shaded tree and under the stars. She told us that many of the Stopping Places are structured around work and water availability and recalled a memory of when she was a child and had to knock on doors for water, something which I remember myself growing up as a New Traveller. Water and wood were always at the forefront of our provision list.
We started to move out of the City now and headed to Drove Way which is coincidentally right next to my good friend Mary 's horse field, I had planned for Mary and Cherokee a beautiful white and brown Gypsy Cob horse to join us in our trot along Drove way and Janet told us how it merges into Juggs Lane because of the of the fisherman’s wives who used to carry Jugs/baskets full of fish from Newhaven to Brighton to sell at the market.
We found a flat place to stop and Janets friend Simon Harmer took a small flat board out of his backpack and laid it on the floor, scuffing it about a bit with his boots until it was flat, Jill Thompson took a set of wooden ‘bones’ from her pocket and started to play them rhythmically, ratt atta tatttt, and Simon began to step dance on his board. Janet said that you can step dance in a second hand pair of army boots and on any old bit of wood or hard surface, she recalls her family member once step dancing on a corrugated iron sheet. Simon added that Gypsies & Travellers used to take the seat board off their wagon to step dance on.
I pulled out some song sheets that I had printed off for Janet, I handed them out to the group, trying not to let the wind take them. There was a rustle of paper as people adjusted their eyes to the text, and then Janet began to sing Red Herring 'Talora rye ladi talora rye aye….don’t you think I done well with my Jolly Herring'… in ode to the fisherman’s wives. We all sang together as best we could and Jill and Simon stepped along to our carefree singing.
The wind pushed us forward and the sun shone on our backs as we wondered off to the next Stopping Place, Cherokee’s trotting hoofs replacing the sound of the step board and the wooden bones. With the lyrics swirling in our heads still, we walked on and left the urban fringes, crossing the road onto Castle Hill Woodingdean. Concrete turned to flint and chalk beneath our feet. Janet took us to a spot right on the top of the hill which would have been a temporary Stopping Place, the wind blew Michaels hat off! Janet pointed out the reason it was temporary was that it was unfavourable in terms of shelter and provisions, but it did have spectacular views.
We carried on with the sea to our right and Falmer and Black Cap Hill on our left, we joined the South Downs way and headed down the hill to Newmarket Plantation, I noticed how soft the grass looked, grazed short by sheep and you could see the beginnings of chalk grassland flowers waking up from their winters rest and enjoying this sunny spring day as much as we were.
A small plantation of deciduous trees and shrubs came into view, it looked like a tropical island floating on a green sea, a welcome bit of shade. We stopped and looked across the valley where Housedean Farm nestled at its base and Janet told us about Isaiah Mellish who used to stop and work on the farm along with many other travellers who had a very positive working relationship with the farm that lasted for generations, and this relationship translated to many other farms in the U.K.
Robert Isaiah Mellish had a daughter called Mary Anne who married a travelling basket maker called Ted Haynes, Mary Anne Haynes was a talented folk singer.
Gypsies and Travellers are acknowledged in the folk world for having preserved traditional songs that otherwise may have become lost, we stood in the dappled shade of the newly leaved trees and sung Hopping Down in Kent with Jill… ‘We’ve only come down hopping, To earn a quid if we can, with a tee-i-eh, tee-i-eh, Tee-i-ee-i-eh’…
Mary Anne Haynes settled in Brighton and that’s where a song collector called Mike Yates discovered her in 1974 and began to collect her songs, many of which we found in the archives. We have created a Spotify playlist here along with other singers like, Minty, Jasper, Phoebe and Levi Smith, Alice Penfold-Brown, Bill Elson, Joe Jones and Chris and Tom Willett.
We climbed back up the hill on to the South Downs Way and began to wind down the bright white chalk path, worn by years of footfall. We headed towards Kingston Ridge and Juggs lane, with views of Mount Caburn and Lewes in the distance, the path became deeper and deeper as it carved its way into cowslip adorned ridges with windswept scrub punctuating the view.
Everyone’s pace seemed to be rhythmic by this time, with Gypsy songs meandering through our thoughts and we stepped our own dances through the Downs, some of us took quiet moments to hang back and take in the landscape and others were deep in conversation like old friends. I heard someone say, ‘this landscape makes me feel like frolicking’ and someone else say ‘this is breathtaking I had no idea’. I was imagining fisherman’s wives walking the same route as us carrying heavy baskets full of fish on their backs, my rucksack felt heavy enough with a flask of coffee and a first aid kit in it!
We found a hidden left turn (one that Janet and I lost when we did our recce walk back in March) which took us down our final slope into a field shared with cows and small daisies, we followed a silver serpentine path that was made simply by bent blades of grass being trodden down, shiny side up.
We could hear the sound of traffic replacing the sound of insects and Skylarks and we walked out of the green and into the grey, crossed a bridge over the A27, rambling through some scrubby woodland, past the allotments and into Hope in the Valley, the roaring traffic made me feel heavy, I was beginning to yearn for the Skylarks already, but over the sound of traffic I could hear music! Just as Janet had planned it, her friend Tony Dunn was sat on a stool near the railway arch playing the Concertina. The group gathered around and Janet, Simon and Jill began to step dance, Simon twirled Jill around and around and around and we couldn’t help but clap along.
Janet told us about her friend Vanslow Smith who was a direct descendant of Matty Cooper the Royal Rat Catcher. Vanslow and his family stopped at Hope in the Valley, they used to make baskets, clothes pegs, plant pots, eel baskets, rabbit snares, walking sticks and moccasins and they used to make their own music too. There were 9 of them in the family and they formed a band playing the violin, mouth organ, accordion, banjo, and they step danced and sang.
Janet explained that this is why she arranged for Tony to meet us here so we could enjoy the final Stopping Place before we headed to the Linklater Pavillion on Lewes Railway Land for an after event and refreshments.
When we arrived, we flung off our walking boots and stretched our toes, filled up our water bottles and settled down to watch Jake Bower’s film about the making of ‘Priscilla Queen of the South’ we ate cheese and crackers and passed around a punnet of grapes.
After the film we were blessed with poems, songs and traditional paper flower making with Romany poet Chris Penfold-Brown. Chris’s poems provided an insight to the challenges of being a Traveller in a world where people want to vilify anyone who lives and looks differently. Her experience of being a young Romany girl at school, feeling different and trying to fit in but not knowing how, reminded me of my short stints in school too. My dad came to collect me from the head teachers office after I was accused of stealing by children who consistently bullied me. Dad and I walked down the school corridor, him in his rainbow jumper with his long curly hair bouncing out of his hat, we hopped into his car, a London Taxi Cab painted in New York Taxi yellow, and we never looked back.
Musicians Keith and Gill Phillips joined Tony to play a few more songs and Simon taught the group how to step dance, our tired feet took the challenge excitedly, I even got my tin whistle out! My parents taught us to play folk music when we were kids, and we busked as a family band to earn our crust.
We ended this wonderful day with final conversations and one more song from Jill Thompson, ‘if I were a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing, I’d follow the vessel my true love sails in, up in the top riggin’ I’d would there build my nest'…..
We all went home feeling a grateful tiredness, thankful for comfy boots and our knees holding up, thankful for the conversations had, and sharing this day with strangers who became comrades who we marched with and shared sandwiches and songs with, we had been taken on a journey into the past, we stepped across the Downs and stepped into the lives of the Gypsies & Travellers who we share this land with, and now thanks to Janet, we have a deeper understanding of the Gypsy & Traveller heritage in this rare and beautiful landscape of the South Downs.
Read feedback from the group who came on this fascinating walk
This way of sharing history is effective as well as charming. I have grown up in the area and yet knew little of the history Janet told us. Janet got the balance right between telling us about real people, explaining the politics and allowing us also to walk, chat with new people and enjoy the glorious countryside.
This was so well facilitated, woven and held, with a real camaraderie and ease among us all, I loved the music, poetry and step dancing and the unpretentious earthed quality of it all. Truly superb. Very grateful for it.
My favourite bit was coming down from Juggs Hill to Hope in the Valley and discovering a fantastically elegant gentleman playing the melodeon. Some of the party began to step-dance towards him.
I loved Janet's storytelling - bringing a beautiful new layer to my connection with place here- I loved even standing at the start in saunders park, and for a moment being transported thanks to evocations of here as it once was, to a time with the Bear Yard, a stopping place for gypsies and travellers, and with the Downs spilling beyond the Hollingbury bridge by Sainsburys as recently as in the 1950s.... Loved it all
I enjoyed Everything - learning about the history of these communities, the interesting people who were on the walk, as they all had their own experiences. Also, the music, the poetry, the story-telling and the step-dancing all added to the event.
Janet will be planning another walk into the history of Gypsies & Travellers in the Devils Dyke area of the Downs on Aug 29th 2025. To find out more please email josie.jeffery@nationaltrust.org.uk