Poynings  Fulking and Edburton Village Trail

The trail starts from the church steps leading to Holy Trinity church.

At the entrance take note of the Poynings Shield depicted in stone and when inside, look for what is reputed to be the oldest ladder in the County.

Poynings gets its name from the de Poynings family of the 14th century. However the village itself goes back beyond the Norman Conquest, when the de Poynings family arrived, to the 9th century Saxons who were first to build a church here.

Return to the roadside and cross over to the unusual shelter, built as a dedication to Cora by the impresario Sir Emile Littler.  He and Cora his beautiful wife, herself a famous stage star, adopted two daughters who are also mentioned on the shelter seats. Before leaving, look around for a plaque and take note of the verse depicted.

Go past the pub until you see a commemorative plaque. It is dedicated to a famous family who have been bakers, millers and brewers since the 16th century. To this day they still own Forfars the largest privately owned bakers in Sussex.

Two brothers of the family who fought in WW2 were to win the Military Cross.

What is the name of the family?

As you walked to the plaque did you notice the building that was once the Zion Chapel?

 What date it was built?

When starting the trail you went to Cora’s Corner and saw the four-line verse. Before leaving for the next village can you quote a line from it?

When the Fulking village sign comes into view take a good look at it then carry on as far as Clapper’s Lane and turn right towards the cricket field. You will see another Fulking village sign - do you notice any difference?

Turn back towards the village and, as you pass along the main road find the bus shelter and look carefully to find when and why it was built.
     

A little further on is a well with a well-known Hymn displayed. Whose is the nearby plaque dedicated to?

                             
At the village pub (where you may feel a coffee is needed) there is the old village pump house that until the 1950s supplied the village pumps. How many did you notice in the main street?

It is said that Ruskin the renowned poet often stayed in the village to watch the sunsets. However he was also a fully qualified geologist and when he learned a new water system was to be installed, he offered his scientific knowledge, to help and advise with building the pump house.

As you leave Fulking look back at a third Fulking village sign, does it differ from the other two?

Carry on to the next village Edburton so named after the granddaughter of Alfred the Great and daughter of King Edward the Elder. She was to become St Edburga who from the age of three was educated as a nun at Winchester. She gave her name to the village and built a small church here in the 10th century but when this was destroyed the one you now see was built in the 12th. 

The church lies between two well-known commercial properties, Springs Smoked Salmon and Tottington Manor.

Not so well known is that the area between them was the centre of great wartime activity. Above the village was the RAF radar station Truleigh Hill but below (quite literally) ordinary men and women were being trained in sabotage acts such as stretching razor wire across the road to decapitate enemy motorcyclists, and other equally hideous subversive acts, had Germany invaded and occupied Britain. This was part of Churchill’s secret army made up of ordinary civilians from all walks of life, and were trained in underground dug outs. One of these used to be accessed through the cellar floor of Tottington Manor and was in fact the HQ of the Sussex division.

Make your way to the church of St Andrews and go inside and see the small confessional windows on each side of the chancel.  However what you are to find is another window dedicated to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
The society (of Quakers) sent some of the first missionaries to America in 1703. In the window is a replica of their Seal that was given in memory of the first missionary, who later, having adopted the protestant faith became Rector of the Church.

 Who was he?

The church has many fascinating objects not least of all a leaden font (one of only three in the county), and a ground piscine both around one thousand years old. It is well worth looking around.