Wildlife and Culture

The Ashdown Forest is important for its heathland and birds, and is also home to fallow deer, badgers, foxes, and to all manner of smaller mammals, such as stoats, weasels, and voles. Its birdlife includes hawks, owls, finches, and warblers. Rye Harbour Nature Reserve is internationally important for birds, including the rare little tern, and also has a wide variety of rare insects and plants. More generally, the Weald is significant for its dense cover of ancient woodlands, rich in wildlife, while the South Downs are noted for their flower-rich downland pastures—some of the most diverse habitats in the country.

Sussex is rich in literary connections, although the only really eminent writers actually born in the county are Percy Bysshe Shelley, at Warnham, near Horsham, in 1792, and the lesser known poet, William Collins, born at Chichester in 1721. However, many authors have chosen to live and work in Sussex. They include: William Blake, who began two of his major works, Jerusalem and Milton, while living at Felpham; Edward Gibbon, who wrote part of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the house at Sheffield Park, and is buried in the nearby church at Fletching; John Galsworthy, who lived at Bury from 1926 until his death in 1933; Hilaire Belloc, whose home was a mill at Shipley, near West Grinstead; and A. A. Milne, who lived at Hartfield, and used the surrounding area as background for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. The National Trust owns Batemans, near Burwash, which was built in 1634 and which became the home of Rudyard Kipling; Lamb House in Rye, where Henry James, and later E. C. Benson, lived; and Monk's House in Rodmell, near Lewes, the home of Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard.

The county's most notable dish is Sussex Pond Pudding, consisting of a suet pudding, the centre of which is filled with butter, demerara sugar, and a large lemon, which has been pierced all over by a skewer. A suet lid seals the pudding, which is then steamed. Sussex is also noted for Southdown lamb.

Sussex is one of the major cricketing counties. There is a famous racecourse at Goodwood, and racing also takes place at Fontwell Park and Brighton. International show jumping events are held at Hickstead, and Cowdray Park is one of the country's best-known venues for polo. International professional tennis tournaments for women are held in both Brighton and Eastbourne. Yachting is popular all along the coast.

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Content by Ulf Dantanus - Designed by Noah Hearle - 5/19/01