Stoughton walk on 12th July 2023

We gathered at the Hare and Hounds in Stoughton for Pauline's 5.4 mile walk before haring off around the countryside on the road to East Marden then crossing fields and through Inholmes Wood. As we turned off the path we were treated to a display of a variety of butterflies, so we stopped and marvelled. Looking across the valley we could see the Farm we would walk through towards the end of our walk. Passing Wildham Barn we returned to the road we had left, but in the opposite direction to the Lamdown Hill car park. The bridleway lead us uphill at the edge of the woods towards Chilgrove where we stopped for coffee at a convenient felled tree trunk. A birthday celebration box of chocolates was passed around several times before a full rendition of Happy Birthday was sung. We turned south on another bridleway and passed Blackbush House. The property was built in the 18th Century by the Sir James Peachey, who moved in Royal circles. He was Groom of the Bedchamber in 1751 of George II in 1751 and built it as a smallpox isolation hospital. A local Chichester surgeon, Mr. Newland, was also at this time inoculating some of his patients at St. James Hospital, the former leper house. It was he who carried out the inoculations at Blackbush House. A rare photo of the house, taken in the 1950s, shows that it had no windows on the side facing towards West Dean House, two miles to the east. This was to prevent any possibility of infection escaping from a window and being blown to West Dean by the prevailing wind. As we broke out into open countryside, some ragwort was found being denuded of leaves by black and yellow striped caterpillars of the Cinnabar Moth. They had not eaten all the leaves so we missed their demonstration of cannibalistic tendencies. A path to the right put us on the Monarch’s Way which is a 625-mile (1,006 km) long-distance footpath in England that approximates the escape route taken by King Charles II in 1651 after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester to escape capture and made his way to France. This path led us back to the road to Stoughton and a communal lunch at The Hare and Hounds.