A celebration of a chalk stream in verse.
On Sunday we took a walk along a stream . Not any old stream but the only chalk stream in East Sussex, a globally rare waterway. In Lewes the Winterbourne runs from the A27 near the garage down along ancient ways to the centre of Lewes to reach the Ouse at the railway land . The Winterbourne festival celebrates this wonderful natural waterway in a week of events around Lewes .
Today’s event was a walk to follow the stream from “Hope in the Valley” back to the river Ouse. Along the way we stopped to hear poems from a number of local poets about what this precious stream means to them. We heard about the flora that grows and bird life that flits in the bushes and treetops. The reading in situ helps us see and really feel the message of the poem – walking the dog with the moonlight reflecting in the inky water, watching a kingfisher or cormorant. Inside a schoolyard we hear poems written by the children whose playground games are accompanied by that stream steadily moving onwards to bigger things.
This stream is one of the wild spectacles that is best in winter. The rain and storms that batter the chalk hills bring an urgency and energy to its course. By summer it may even dry up all together. Now it babbles beautifully, crystal clear over a waterfall near a splash pool where people come to swim, in water that stays at a constant 10°.
Some poems reflect on the darker side of the river. One poet looks over at her house as she recalls the destruction and horror as the floods pushed the bourne back up stream to burst out of those concrete unforgiving channels between streamside homes.
The bright green leaves emerging are Hemlock water dropwort, an umbellifer a little like cow parsley which is beautiful but can be a deadly plant. We are reminded that we are descended from people who learnt to avoid it while foraging!
Along the way there is space to look and listen and enjoy these wild spaces, bright celandines and lush ferns on the banks, snowdrop and crocus along residential streets, a bee buzzing high above our heads, a squirrel scampering through Southover gardens, wrens in the bushes even a stunning buzzard hunting worms in a park .
As we reach the end of the journey we are not the only ones congregating where this chalk stream joins the river. Thin lipped mullet swirl in circles, where they have travelled up the Ouse from the sea to feed and to recuperate from their ocean journeys. It seems that the precious cold spring water helps them to recover from wounds and sea borne fungal infections.
Water ways, grassland meadows , hedgerows, woodland, chalk cliffs, vegetated shingle. All these are precious parts of our eco system. Only if these are protected, cherished and celebrated does our wildlife have a chance to survive and thrive, and us with it.
Maybe a festival of Seaford habitats should be next?!
The Winterbourne festival runs all week including an exhibition of the stunning artwork in the poetry book you can buy here
You can also find out more about the mullet here or in the latest Seaford Natural History society newsletter
