Mapping the past for our future-Richard Williamson's Country Life

Last week I rushed at breakneck speed around the parish of Cocking to examine its wildlife for a lecture I was due to give four days later in the church.

The village is compiling a millennium map. I hoped my old Pentax and my Morris Minor would keep performing. There was so much to see: some Byronic scenery, reminiscent of Sintra's craggy cliffs where the poet composed Childe Harold; some tunnels once with the rarest bat in Britain, blue pools and rare flowers.

I first heard of Cocking in geography lessons at school, the Cocking Gap the most famous of the South Downs wind gaps caused by water erosion.

For the remainder of them feature, see West Sussex Gazette, March 29.

Related topics: