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Nature’s strange collection

Last week I was looking at wild flowers in Fort Southwick. There were such splendid displays of other species that I thought it worth continuing this week. The old fort lies up on Portsdown hill with Southwick village to the north and Portchester to the south below. Frightened silly by Napolean Bonaparte’s excursions across Europe as far as Moscow a few decades earlier, we as a nation still feared French expansionism. Agincourt, Trafalgar, and Waterloo loomed in the psyche. Palmerston imagined an attack from the land this time, after the French had landed somewhere to the east and surprised us from the rear, as Lawrence of Arabia was to do 80 years later at Aqaba, when he took the Turks and their naval guns pointing south, from the north after crossing the deserts south of Petra.

So the British guns pointed, not over Portsmouth harbour, but north, over the Forest of Bere. What a surprise the French would get! One has to remember, too, how the Romans had invaded our land only 1,800 years before and constructed a fort at Portchester and a connecting road between Noviomagus (Chichester) and Clausentum (now Southampton), a road now partly lost to view in the woods. Again, in AD495, a forebear of Alfred the Great, Cynric son of Cerdic, had landed at Cerdicesora, now called Calshot Spit, and fought against ‘the Welsh’ (ancient Britons). Thirteen years later he killed King Natenleod and 5,000 of his Brits at the Battle of Netley Marsh. Thereafter the Kingdom of Wessex was established in AD519, though it was not until 530 that the Isle of Wight fell.

Thus this troubled land, its capture and defence, its strategic value on the doorstep of England was still in the minds of the military men, and so they threw up their ramparts that will last for thousands of years as do the ramparts on Butser, Trundle and Castle Maiden from the Iron Age. Fort Southwick lies between Nelson and Widley, and like them is roughly square but roundedly so. It stretches for perhaps 300 metres. Today the view north is fairly unspoiled, but to the south the conurbation of Portchester has to be traversed, as does the spoilt Horsea Island with its motorway loops before Portsmouth Harbour with its Pewit Island is to be enjoyed. In the Middle Ages, Domesday recorded ten hamlets now occupied by Portsmouth and Gosport, their livelihoods earned by making salt and catching fish.

The fort is mainly underground, with a spider’s web of dark connecting tunnels hacked through the chalk. Here and there, on my visit, I came across large gloomy chambers where the powder for the cannons was stored, each with its glass-sealed alcove behind which lighted candles burned to give illumination to the deadly hoard. The thought of an accident would have been a constant fear for it would have blown the fort and all its sailors into Kingdom Come. There is a surrounding wall of fine arched brickwork, sometimes filled with flint, that give the whole fort the appearance of a cross between Goodwood House and St Pancras Station that like Pompeii has been engulfed by a tidal wave of larva.

It is an eerie and weird place inside, with its memories and ghosts of men long gone, from those who fought in Khartoum to those who died on D-Day. But up the spiral staircases and out into the sunlight away from the ghost town there are meadows filled with flowers; an incredible contrast. One such meadow (the idea would have set the bristles alight on the cheek of any Sergeant-at-Arms in days gone by) was a mass of ox-eye daisies, one of our wild chrysanthemums, and close relative of corn marigold. Amongst them were rough hawkbits and also field milk thistles. But stacked high above these meadows on the walls of the ramparts were all kinds of strange collections of flowers.

One area was a mass of viper’s bugloss, with tall stems covered in bright blue florets with long red stamens protruding from their mouths like tongues. Later, the fruits would resemble adders’ heads, while the speckled stems would suggest shed snake skins to the ancients. It grows very well on Salisbury plain where tank tracks have churned up the land, also on the dunes at Marske in Yorkshire which are called ‘the blue mountains’. It found its way around the Empire too (from Portsmouth?) where in Tasmania it is called ‘the curse’ and in America ‘the blue devil’.

One bank was covered with welted thistles, which were attracting bumble bees, and a patch of valerian had drugged conjoined pairs of marbled white butterflies which find sanctuary in this MOD nature reserve. There were tall belfreys filled with the bells of nettled-leaved bellflowers, competing with tall yellow spires of St John’s wort. There were even areas of downland turf on the drier chalk slopes, filled with thousands of pyramidal orchids, while a dense mat of thyme, gloriously in flower, scented the air right down to the edges of the tarmac of the car park.

I was not allowed to point my camera in certain directions (due to the sensitivity of the national interest). But having had my fill of electronic equipment during my years in the Air Force I was thoroughly happy to let my eyes and lens get their fill of this remarkable array of wild flowers. One can only hope that the MOD continue to manage this fort in the years to come in this way. After all, the French seem reasonably friendly these days, as do the Italians, the Germans, and the Danes (yes, I forgot to mention the Vikings), while the ancient Welsh seem happier back in Wales.

Majestically set between the South Downs and the sea, Chichester has justifiably been called a gem. It combines beautiful Georgian architecture and a splendid centuries-old cathedral with bustling, modern shopping precincts. Two miles west of the city is a beautiful, natural harbour with more than 50 miles of shoreline and 17 miles of navigable channels. The city boasts a wealth of living history with an unrivalled collection of attractions.

Chichester, with its roots in the Roman times, is thriving as the 21st century nears. A couple of years ago, the Duke of Richmond, whose seat is just outside the city at Goodwood, launched a city of culture campaign to put Chichester on the international map. He stressed that Chichester was truly unique. Nowhere else could offer the range and quality of what has elsewhere been called Chichester's "string of pearls'.

It is from the Romans that we know of the earliest beginnings of the city of Chichester. The discovery in the 1960s of Roman buildings in Fishbourne, a mile and a half west of the city, proved the largest Roman edifice then uncovered in north-west Europe. Today, Fishbourne is one of Chichester's premiere attractions, offering the chance to walk through the remains of a magnificent first century Roman palace.

Chichester Festival Theatre in Oaklands Park keeps the city at the forefront of the nation's theatre. Chichester Festival Theatre was the first modern theatre in the country to have an open thrust stage with the audience seated around it on three sides. The theatre was the dream of Leslie Evershed-Martin, a former city mayor, and its first director was the legendary actor Laurence Olivier. Later directors included Keith Michel, Sir John Clements, Sir Derek Jacobi and writer/director Patrick Garland. The Minerva Studio Theatre, which doubles as a state-of-the-art cinema, was added in 1989. The main house holds 1,374 while the Minerva has seating for a maximum of 293.

Petworth House, north-east of Chichester, is a magnificent late 17th century house run by the National Trust. The house is set within Petworth Park, a beautiful deer park with lakes, landscaped by Capability Brown and immortalised in Turner's paintings which can be seen in the house. Petworth House contains the National Trust's finest collection of pictures with works by Turner, Van Dyck, Reynolds and Black as well as ancient and neo-classical sculpture, fine furniture and carvings by Grinling Gibbons. Old kitchens and other servants' rooms are also open to the public with additional private family rooms open on weekdays.

In the heart of Chichester is the cathedral, the centre of the city's worship for more than 900 years. The cathedral is the site of the Shrine of St Richard of Chichester, and its treasures range from Romanesque stone carvings to 20th century works of art. Among the delights to be seen are a window by Chagall, a painting by Sutherland, a tapestry by Piper and the beautiful Lady Chapel ceiling by Lambert Barnard.

North of Chichester, the attractions include West Dean Gardens. The gardens, part of the Edward James Foundation, include 35 acres of ornamental grounds surrounding West Dean College which is the venue for wide-ranging arts and crafts courses. There are herbaceous borders, a 300ft-long pergola and a gazebo, all in a tranquil Downland setting in the Lavant Valley.

A working, walled kitchen garden restoration recreates the ambience of the Edwardian age, and there are13 original glasshouses dating from the 1890s. The Park Walk, a two-mile circular route, includes St Roche's Arboretum and magnificent views of the parkland and downland landscape.

Pallant House Gallery, at 9 North Pallant, Chichester, is home to a major modern art collection and each year plays host to several exciting temporary exhibitions. On show at the restored Queen Anne townhouse are works by Moore, Sutherland, Piper, Klee and Cezanne, as well as fine antique furniture, porcelain, glass and textiles. At the rear of the house the Georgian-style garden is stocked with plants which would have been available in 18th and 19th century England, and provides a perfect spot in which to rest and reflect.

The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton is a haven of living history in the heart of the South Downs. The 50-acre site features more than 40 reconstructed historic buildings, including the Bayleaf Medieval Farmstead, a working water-powered flour mill, a 16th century market hall and a Victorian rural school. Visitors can see demonstrations of building crafts and countryside skills, and take part in various special events with countryside themes.