Southwater Local History Group Local Walks – Further Afield
If you are rambling around Shipley and wander through the churchyard. you may come across a simple rock with a memorial plate marking the grave of the composer John Nicholson Ireland.
Shipley resident, Hilaire Belloc, famously lived in the windmill and John Ireland followed suite; this one, Rock Mill, is at Washington.
Like many authors and composers, Ireland was not born in Sussex but also like them – Kipling, Belloc, for example, or E V Lucas about whom we wrote last month, he came to love the county and adopted it. He first came to Sussex in the early 1920’s at the age of 40 and took rooms in Ashington. From there he enjoyed wonderful views of Chanctonbury Ring, then in its pre-1987 storm glory. It was after a visit to Steyning one afternoon that on his way home he saw a For Sale board at the end of the Rock Mill Drive. It seems he had yearned to live there for years, so lost no time in contacting the agents and buying it. He lived there for the rest of his life. Many of John Ireland’s works have strong Sussex connections: The Downland Suite, Equinox, Amberley Wild Brooks, the Cello Sonata inspired by a place on the Downs known as the Devil’s Jumps behind Kingley Vale and Legend for Piano and Orchestra, which was apparently composed after a mystical experience when picnicing on the Downs.
Chanctonbury Ring itself is a place of many strange and scary encounters and even burly bikers have been known to flee, bravado giving way fright after attempting to stay over night in the ring. If you read “The Old Ways” by Robert MacFarlane, you’ll find a hair-raising account of his night there!
Very highly regarded in the musical world, on 10 September 1949, his 70th birthday was celebrated in a special Prom concert, at which his Piano Concerto was played by Eileen Joyce, who was also the first pianist to record the concerto, in 1942.
Enjoy walking over some of the land he knew and loved and maybe listen to some of his music – there’s a very wide choice – A Downland Suite would be a good starting point!
Contact Jeremy Senneck on 01403 731247 for any SLHG information while group meeting are suspended during the Covid19 restrictions.