Village Living Magazine March 2024

Hello and welcome to the March?april edition of The Village Living Magazine.

In this month’s issue, we have the latest article from Judy Upton on 19th Century Mills and Millwrights of Henfield. We also have Steyning’s Holistics fair in April. Local film in Storrington for March. Just a few of our articles this month. We would love to hear from you whether you are a local business or a local charity.

Also, if you have a local story or event that you would like to share, get in touch.

All our contact details are below. Until our next edition.

The Arts Society Steyning talk

Steyning Holistics Fair International Women’s Day 19th Century Mills and Millwrights in henfield - Judy Upton

Rotary - 40 years Community Service Storrington Film Nights

Copies, Curtains & Ways Of Looking: Experiencing Paintings In The Past

Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe

Monday 11 March 2024

10-12 am The Steyning Centre, Fletchers Croft, Steyning BN44 3XZ

How does our experience of living with and looking at artwork today compare to earlier centuries? This lecture considers the very different conditions in which paintings were displayed and enjoyed in the past, as well as the different responses they evoked. It draws on the evidence within paintings for the many surprising ways in which people handled, hung, used and responded to the art that they owned.

Chantal has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh and a PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. She has taught at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and as a freelance lecturer for a number of societies and institutions in London. Having also trained as a paintings conservator, she brings a deeper understanding to her lectures.

Free to members; visitors £10 donation steyning@theartssociety.org www.theartssocietysteyning.org.uk

Probus Club of Storrington & District

Now meeting at the Random Hall Hotel, Slinfold, we are a social club for retired and semi-retired men.

We meet monthly for lunch, normally with a specialist and often entertaining, after-lunch speaker. Families and friends are always invited to join us in our extensive and varied programme of social activities throughout the year.Interested? For further details please contact our Membership Secretary, Peter Edwards (storringtonprobus@outlook.com) or visit our website at www.storringtonprobus.com

Picture credit: Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe

Steyning Holistic Fair April 20th 2024

Spring welcomes the return of the Steyning Holistic Fair. An uplifting event with lots of exciting stalls in the main hall, therapies in the healing space and inspirational talks in the talks room. Entry is £3 and includes all Talks/ Workshops. Children have free entry. Meet like-minded souls while enjoying homemade cakes, plant-based food and refreshments, all at the Steyning Holistic Fair. From 10am - 4pm

£3 Entry (Includes all talks) Children Free The Steyning Centre, Fletchers Croft, Steyning, West Sussex, BN44 3XZ www.silverdragonwellbeing.com/steyning-holistic-fair

International Womens Day Concert Concert March 2024

Cantatrice (Steyning) and the Paddock Singers (Lewes) with their conductors Zoe Peate and Ruth Kerr are celebrating women in two exciting concerts to be performed at The Drill Hall, Horsham on Saturday 16 March @ 7.30 and Sunday 17 March at Lewes Town Hall @ 3.00pm.

With such a huge array of composers, literary artists, singers and iconic women to choose from you can expect a hugely varied concert featuring Clara Schumann, Petula Clarke, Sarah Quartel, the songs ‘I will survive’,’ I am woman’, and a nod to many female composers & singers who have made a significant mark in their artistic life.

We are incredibly proud to include Caroline Sharman-Mendoza to compliment and engage with the audience by presenting readings and quotes from an even wider selection of amazing women.

TICKETS £12 can be bought from www.cantatrice.co.uk www.paddocksingers.co.uk

Storrington & Pulborough District

President: Pippa Davies

Rotary Christmas tree recycling scheme raises funds for local charities

The Rotary Club of Storrington & Pulborough District has completed its Christmas Tree recycling programme raising over £5,000 for local charities.

Rotary has been raising funds by collecting used local Christmas trees for the past 7 years and donations collected this year will support Chestnut Tree House (Children's Hospice Care) and Turning Tides (Ending local Homelessness) and other local causes supported by Rotary.

Residents Christmas trees were collected in January from residents in Pulborough, Storrington, Amberley, Billingshurst and other local villages by a team from Amazon with Rotary Club Members. They were chipped by TreeSmiths of Horsham and distributed to sites around the district. King & Chasemore - estate agents in Storrington - provided welcome promotional support on their house for-sale boards.

This year the Rotary Club was aided by JustHelping, a UK charity that provides a platform for volunteering and fundraising for local charities. Organiser, Anne Fielding Smith, gives “A huge thank you to everyone who made a donation when booking their tree for recycling”.

The 19th entury Mills and Millwrights of Henfield

William Cooper was born in Harting- fordbury, Hertfordshire in 1825, the son of a millwright. In 1845, he mar- ried Harriet Lutman and they lived in Shirrell Heath, Hampshire where William Cooper trained as a millwright.

In 1854 the Cooper family moved to Henfield and William went into partnership with local millwright and engineer James Neal (sometimes written down as Neale.) James was born in 1812 in Limpsfield, Surrey. In Henfield he worked as millwright out of premises in Nep Town.

19th century Henfield was a busy town of water mills and windmills. The ironwork of Lydds Windmill (built 1820) south of Henfield Common had borne the inscription ‘J. Neale. Millwright 1844’. Robert Stevens was the miller of Lydds Mill from 1828 to 1860.

In 1847, the West Mill a watermill founded in 1226, operated 24 hours day grinding oil seed to meet the demand for oil cake. The West Mill was downstream of the still existing Woods Mill water mill at Small Dole. It is believed that it or Woods Mill is the watermill mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086. ‘Cooper & Neale. Millwrights 1854’ can still be seen inscribed on the pen-trough of the water mill at Woods Mill.

In 1861. the Cooper family lived in the High Street of Henfield, a few doors away from James Neal. Neal’s eldest son, Cornelius worked as a millwright, and lodged in Church Street with another millwright, Robert Fowler. In 1862 the partnership of Cooper & Neale dissolved and the firm of Coopers became Henfield’s most prominent millwrights.

With the invention of the steam mill the trade of the millwright started to slowly vanish, as did windmills and watermills. Coopers diversified into ‘steam ploughing and every description of agricultural machinery for hire’ as listed in the 1874 Kelly’s Directory. It also lists William Cooper as ‘Millwright, Engineer, Machine Brass Founder and Appraiser.’ In 1876 William Cooper died and his widow Harriet took over running the business. Lydds Mill was known as Barringer’s Mill at the time as Henry Barringer was the miller there from 1866-1878.

In 1882, millwright Robert Fowler was listed in

Kelly’s Directory as the general manager of Coopers. In the same year, West Mill ceased operation and sadly it was later demolished. Woods Mill still operated at this time and the miller there was David Burgess Atkins. The Coote family who operated the mill until 1927 succeeded him in 1883.

In 1881, the miller at Lydds Mill was Arthur Smith, who employed 5 men, a housekeeper named Mary Ann Holder and a servant called Ann Newnham. Charles Packham was the miller at Lydds Mill in 1887 and Kelly’s Directory also lists Robert Fowler as a millwright located at Golden Square. Lydds Mill ceased operation in 1900. Coopers ceased trading in 1904 and Coopers’ yard in the High Street was put up for sale. The site at that time consisted of a carpenters’ shop, wheelwrights’, stores, stables, ladder, shed, office, builders yard and cast lodge. William Cooper had kept cast ironwork up to half a ton in weight for the mills he had serviced.

The elderly John Eardley Hall, of Barrow Hill House had an observatory built on the top of Lydds Mill. In the 1930s, Woods Mill became a popular tea garden. In 1936, Mr. Tobitt, the grocer and owner of an antique shop in Henfield owned Lydds Mill and stored his furniture at Coopers’ Yard. During the Second World War, Lydds Mill became an observation post for the Home Guard and in the early post-war period, in 1950, Doctor Charles Smith bought Woods Mill. After a fire, also in 1950, Lydds Mill fell into disrepair and was unfortunately demolished in 1953. In the 1960s the buildings of Coopers’ yard were demolished and the site became Coopers Way. In 1968, the remaining watermill, Woods Mill, was bequeathed to Sussex Wildlife Trust. This four-storey mill with its Victorian waterwheel, along with the Old Miller’s House can still be seen today.

Judy Upton

Sources: Windmills of Sussex Sussex Industrial History; Photo Credit : Acabashi

Storrington Film Nights

Storrington Film Nights are organised by the Rotary Club of Storrington & Pulborough District.

The next film, on Wednesday 13th March, will be “Past Lives”, starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo & John Magaro. Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life, in this heartrending modern romance.

The showing commences at 7.30 pm, at Sullington Hall, Thakeham Road, RH20 3PP.

Tickets are £5, and are available from the Card Shop in Storrington. Any unsold tickets will be available on the door, on the night.

The April film, on Wed 10th, will be “Scrapper”

There is a Bar and a Raffle during the interval. Anyone requiring transport should contact John Ollerton 07523 322554. For further information please contact Ken Collins 01903 740745.

Wednesday 13th March 2024

Performance commences at 7.30pm

There will be an interval and Bar & Raffle.

Personal Favourite Subjects

Regular readers of this page may have gathered that I enjoy ‘Street’ photography and I often include bikes in my pictures. To me, bicycles have an appealing skeletal, structural form, often adding bright colour and throwing interesting shadows. They are a very recognisable shape so just by filling a corner of the frame with a section of a spoked wheel seems to add an identifiable visual full stop to keep the eye of the viewer in the image.

Another visual aspect that appeals to me is a colour match between foreground elements and the background. Two images here have bikes in the foreground of a similar colour to the background. A few months ago I had a short break in Krakow and wandered the back streets, camera in hand.

There are many well used cycle lanes offering easy access for cyclists into town and some interesting shop fronts, so composing these photographs wasn’t difficult. The light was good for highlighting shapes and textures and throwing shadows so I set to

work creating a short series of themed images. I hope you like them.

You can see more of my images here: www. instagram.com/shoreham_steve

Now on Threads: @shoreham_steveSteve Boyle

You can see more of my images here: www.instagram.com/shoreham_steve

ROPETACKLE CINEMA presents

An EXHIBITION ON SCREEN PAINTING THE MODERN GARDEN: MONET TO MATISSE

Claude Monet was arguably the most important painter of gardens in the history of art, but he was not alone. Great artists like Van Gogh, Bonnard, Sorolla, Sargent, Pissarro and Matisse all saw the garden as a powerful subject for their art. These, and others, feature in an innovative and extensive exhibition from the Royal Academy of Art. The film takes a magical journey to discover how different contemporaries of Monet cultivated modern gardens to explore expressive motifs, abstract colour, decorative design and utopian ideas. A film by Exhibition on Screen.

Cert U, duration 93 mins.

Wednesday 6th March, 7.30 pm. £12. Tickets available from Box Office or on-line - see details below.

A ROPETACKLE FILM CLUB FILM WOMEN TALKING

A timely, topical and thought-provoking drama with a star-studded ensemble cast - presented as part of the Ropetackle Film Club 2023/24 season. It is free to club members who may also purchase guest tickets (£7). Additionally there are a limited number of general admis- sion tickets available priced £9.

Cert 15, duration 104 mins.

Thursday 14th March, 7.30 pm. Limited general admission tickets available from Box Office or on-line, £9. For information about the Ropetackle Film Club, see https://ropetacklecentre.co.uk/film-club/.

A RELAXED VIEWING FILM open to all FUNNY FACE

Relaxed Viewing films are open to everyone, but the softer lighting and relaxed layout make them particularly suitable for people with memory loss or dementia. Photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) chooses bookshop assistant Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) for a new modelling role for a fashion magazine. Jo hates fashion but the job would take her to Paris where she hopes to meet her idol, a philosophy professor – only in Paris, the two worlds begin to collide. Kindly sponsored by Sussex Community Foundation.

Cert U duration 103 mins. Includes subtitles.

Monday 18th March, 2.00 pm. £5. Tickets available from Box Office or on-line - see details below.

MY FIRST CINEMA

THE SNAIL AND THE WHALE

A tiny snail goes on an amazing journey by hitching a ride on the back of a huge humpback

whale. Based on the book by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Alex Scheffler.

Cert U, duration 24 mins. Animation.

Friday 22nd March. 11.00 am. £4.00 child & adult pair, £3 per additional child or adult, under 18 months old free. Tickets from Box Office or on-line - see details below.

A MATINEE FILM A HAUNTING IN VENICE

A terrifying mystery set in eerie, post-World War 2 Venice on All Hallows’ Eve, featuring the return of the celebrated sleuth, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh). Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in Vienna, Poirot reluctantly attends a séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets.

Cert 12, duration 103 mins. Presented with subtitles.

Tuesday 26th March, 2.00 pm. £5. Tickets available from Box Office or on-line - see details below.

A FAMILY FILMSUPER MARIO BROTHERS

A film to delight everyone whether you are new to the loveable Brooklyn plumbers or revisiting childhood memories. Enter a world of nostalgia, humour, and excitement as Mario and friends puzzle their way through the Mushroom kingdom to rescue Luigi and save the world from fire-breathing Bowser. A top cast bring the characters to life in an exhilarating and heartwarming tale of heroism and brotherly love.

Cert PG, duration 92 mins. Animation.

Tues 9th April, 2.00 pm. £4. Tickets available from Box Office or on-line - see details below.

A ROPETACKLE FILM CLUB FILM THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

Rated as one of the best movies of all time, if not the very best - presented as part of the

Ropetackle Film Club 2023/24 season. It is free to club members who may also purchase guest tickets (£7). Additionally there are a limited number of general admission tickets available priced £9.

Cert 15, duration 142 mins.

Thursday 11th April, 7.30 pm. Limited general admission tickets available from Box Office or on-line, £9. For information about the Ropetackle Film Club, see https://ropetacklecentre.co.uk/film-club/.

ARELAXED VIEWING FILM open to all ON THE TOWN

Relaxed Viewing films are open to everyone, but the softer lighting and relaxed layout make them particularly suitable for people with memory loss or dementia. Sailors Gabey, Chip and Ozzie (memorably played by Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin) are let loose on a 24-hour pass in New York. Wonderful music and terrific shots of the city. Kindly sponsored by Barchester’s Charitable Foundation. Cert U duration 98 mins. Includes subtitles.

Monday 15th April, 2.00 pm. £5, carers free. Tickets available from Box Office or on-linesee below. Includes refreshments.

Contact the Ropetackle Box Office at www. ropetacklecentre.co.uk, by phoning 01273 464440 or in person at the Ropetackle Arts Centre.

Friendly Golf Society

We are a small, friendly golf society comprising around 15 active members, all of which are retired and have a range of handicaps. From April to October, we arrange 18 hole competitions (three of which involve annual trophies) each month at venues in nearby areas like Worthing and Horsham.

The cost is around £40 per competition which covers a bacon roll, coffee or tea, prizes for the "longest drive" and "nearest the pin" and the cost of the game itself.

We also play 9 holes each fortnight at Burgess Hill at a current cost of £11per round. The society does not charge an annual membership fee.

Whatever your handicap, if you are interested in playing or require further information, we would be delighted to hear from you. Just contact Ron Watson at 07836273197 (or email ron@ronw.co uk) for more information and/or to join our society.

General Knowledge

Crossword

person of high rank (5)

14. To encourage (4)

17. Suitable position in life (5)

18. To acquire (4)

20. Substance (7)

21. Not based on truth (7)

22. Small island (4)

24. Predatory insect (6)

25. Circular band (4)

27. Ceremonial staff (4)

29. Sphere (3)

30. Tooth on a gearwheel (3)

Answers: Across: 7. Kickoff, 8. Earnest, 10. Bow, 11. Brig, 13. Uniform, 14. Adware, 15. Wall, 16. Onset, 19. Tonne, 21. Nisi, 23. Scheme, 25. Reunion, 26. Fume, 28. End, 31. Gastric, 32. Calorie.

Down: 1. Bifold, 2. Sky, 3. Afar, 4. Seagull, 5. Cry, 6. Devious, 9. Term, 11. Brew, 12. Baron, 14. Abet, 17. Niche, 18. Take, 20. Nourish, 21. Nonfact, 22. Isle, 24. Mantis, 25. Ring, 27. Mace, 29. Orb, 30. Cog.

A privilege for our family to help yours

Losing someone close to us is a painful and challenging experience. Our aim at H D Tribe is to make the whole funeral process as simple and as stress-free as possible for you, by offering a complete funeral service,

by H D Tribe’s long-established reputation for quality, dignity and reliability.

Darren became the manager of our Storrington office in 2020, having joined the H D Tribe family in 2018 as a chauffeur bearer. Deciding to become a funeral director after witnessing the importance of the role whilst experiencing his own bereavement, Darren has become Passionate about the village and community of Storrington that he serves. “I feel privileged to be part of such a historic village, with so many wonderful families. It is an honour to be able to help them through such challenging times, by creating personal funerals and allowing them to celebrate their loved one’s life, however they feel best.”

Darren and his wife Sophie have recently expanded their family with the arrival of their daughter Olivia. As a family, they love the outdoors. Exploring the South Downs countryside and taking advantage of their National Trust and English Heritage memberships in their spare time.

www.hdtribe.co.uk

Darren Fehrenbach

Storrington Office