Lewes History Group

Online talk

Hamish MacGillivray: The Sterns of Highdown: Cocktails, Campaigns and Chromosomes

What happens when you find the Highdown visitors book revealing forgotten Anglo-Jewish aristocrats, plant hunters and scientists?

Hamish MacGillivray stumbled into this scenario while working for Highdown Gardens researching at West Sussex Record Office (WSRO) in Chichester. This was part of a Heritage Lottery funded project (2019 to 2021) to discover more about Sir Frederick and Lady Sybil Stern, who created the unique chalk Highdown Gardens at Goring-by-Sea.

The Sterns are highly respected in the horticultural world, but the evidence of their other obsessions and their famous and not so famous visitors disappeared for over 50 years. This talk is a peek into some of the stories surrounding the Sterns and lockdown research networking, all inspired by the Highdown Visitors Book.

Your speaker Hamish has worked in the museum and heritage sector for over 30 years in many roles including toy curator, exhibitions project manager, oral historian, and Visitor Experience consultant for the National Trust.

He was the freelance researcher/writer for the new Highdown Gardens website and visitor centre displays. He is not a gardener, but enjoys trimming ivy hedges.

The talk will last up to an hour, with an opportunity to ask questions via the chat box.

Tickets: £5.00 from Eventbrite

As part of the Lewes “Walk this Way” festival Debby Matthews is running two Gideon Mantell themed historical walks:

Sunday 20th March

Historic Walk around Southover in the Footsteps of Gideon Mantell with Debby Matthews, 10.00-11.30. Approx 2 miles. Up to 20 people. Using contemporary maps and diary entries we will get a view of Southover, this suburb to the south of the ancient burgh of Lewes as it looked in the early 1800s, before the railway came.  Meet at Mantell’s birthplace, 23 Station Street, Lewes BN7 2DB. Ends at Southover Grange, BN7 1TP.  Dogs welcome.

Sunday 27th March

Historic Walk around Georgian Lewes in the Footsteps of Gideon Mantell with Debby Matthews,10.00-11.30. Up to 20 people. Using contemporary maps and diary entries, local historian Debby Matthews will show walkers how the buildings in Lewes town developed at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries to become more like the town we know today.  Meet at Mantell’s birthplace, 23 Station Street, Lewes BN7 2DB. Ends at Castle Place, BN7 1XU by the Barbican, where there is a plaque to Mantell.  Dogs welcome. 

Register for the walks via Eventbrite

Richard Wicker was raised in Mayfield and worked at the dairy in Glynde. He was a volunteer RAF sergeant, shot down over Germany in August 1940 and held as a POW until the end of the war.

On returning home, like many veterans, he would never mention what he had been through.  Instead, he wrote in secret. Later, his family stumbled upon the memoir, and combining it with his letters home and entries from his war logbook, they published his account as a book.

This book is available from Richard Wicker’s grandson David Bradford – editor of the book and LHG member for £8, or for £9.99 either from Skylark Bookshop or online from the publisher Troubador.