South Downs
Range
The Seven Sisters, near Eastbourne, viewed from Seaford Head
Name origin: Old English dün, meaning 'hill'
Country	England
Region	Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex
Part of	Southern England Chalk Formation
Highest point	Butser Hill
- elevation	271 m (889 ft)
- coordinates	50°58′39.61″N 0°58′53.4″W / 50.9776694°N 0.9815°W / 50.9776694; -0.9815
Area	260 km2 (100 sq mi)
Geology	chalk
Orogeny	Alpine orogeny
Period	Cretaceous

For the 2011 play of this title, see South Downs (play).

The South Downs is a range of chalk hills that extends for about 260 square miles (670 km²)^[1] across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen Valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east. It is bounded on its northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose crest there are extensive views northwards across the Weald. The South Downs National Park forms a much larger area than the chalk range of the South Downs and includes large parts of the Weald.

The South Downs is characterised by rolling chalk downland with close-cropped turf and dry valleys, and is recognised as one of the most important chalk landscapes in England.^[2] It is one of the four main areas of chalk downland in southern England.^[3]

The South Downs is relatively unpopulated, although in Sussex there has been large-scale urban encroachment onto the chalk downland by major seaside resorts, including most notably Brighton and Hove.

The South Downs has been inhabited since ancient times and at periods the area has supported a large population, particularly during Romano-British times. There is a rich heritage of historical features and archaeological remains, including defensive sites, burial mounds and field boundaries. Within the South Downs Environmentally Sensitive Area there are thirty-seven Sites of Special Scientific Interest, including large areas of chalk grassland.^[4]

The grazing of sheep on the thin, well-drained chalk soils of the Downs over many centuries and browsing by rabbits resulted in the fine, short, springy turf, known as old chalk grassland, that has come to epitomise the South Downs today. Until the middle of the 20th century, an agricultural system operated by downland farmers known as 'sheep-and-corn farming' underpinned this: the sheep (most famously the Southdown breed) of villagers would be systematically confined to certain corn fields to improve their fertility with their droppings and then they would be let out onto the downland to graze. However, starting in 1940 with government measures during World War II to increase domestic food production and continuing into the 1950s, much grassland was ploughed up for arable farming, fundamentally changing the landscape and ecology, with the loss of much biodiversity. As a result, while old chalk grassland accounted for 40-50% of the eastern Downs before the war, only 3-4% survives.^[5] This and development pressures from the surrounding population centres ultimately led to the decision to create the South Downs National Park, which came into full operation on 1 April 2011, to protect and restore the Downs.

The downland is an extremely popular recreational destination, particularly for walkers, horseriders and mountain bikers. A long distance footpath and bridleway, the South Downs Way, follows the entire length of the chalk ridge from Winchester to Eastbourne, complemented by many interconnecting public footpaths and bridleways.

The dip slope of the South Downs, as seen from Angmering Park Estate near Arundel (panoramic view).

Toponymy[link]

'Downs' is from Old English dün, meaning 'hill'. The word acquired the sense of 'elevated rolling grassland' around the fourteenth century.^[6] These hills are prefixed 'south' to distinguish them from another chalk escarpment, the North Downs, which runs roughly parallel to them about 30 miles (48 km) away on the northern edge of the Weald.

Geology[link]

Geological map of south-east England, with areas that have chalk bedrock shown in light-green.

A north-south cross-section through the Weald-Artois Anticline, East Sussex.

The South Downs are formed from a thick band of chalk which was deposited during the Cretaceous Period around sixty million years ago within a shallow sea which extended across much of northwest Europe. The rock is composed of the microscopic skeletons of plankton which lived in the sea, hence its colour. The chalk has many fossils, and bands of flint occur throughout the formation.^[7] The Chalk is divided into the Lower, Middle and Upper Chalk, a thin band of cream-coloured nodular chalk known as the Melbourn Rock marking the boundary between the Lower and Middle units.

The strata of southeast England, including the Chalk, were gently folded during a phase of the Alpine Orogeny to produce the Weald-Artois Anticline, a dome-like structure with a long east-west axis. Erosion has removed the central part of the dome, leaving the north-facing escarpment of the South Downs along its southern margin with the south-facing chalk escarpment of the North Downs as its counterpart on the northern side, as shown on the diagram. Between these two escarpments the anticline has been subject to differential erosion so that geologically distinct areas of hills and vales lie in roughly concentric circles towards the centre; these comprise the Greensand Ridge, most prominent on the north side of the Weald, where it includes Leith Hill, the highest hill in south-east England, the low-lying clay vales of the Low Weald, formed of less resistant Weald Clay, and finally the more highly resistant sandstones of the High Weald at the centre of the anticline, whose elevated forest ridge includes most notably Ashdown Forest.^[8]

The chalk, being porous, allows water to soak through; as a result there are many winterbournes along the northern edge.

Geography[link]

The South Downs is a long chalk escarpment that stretches for over 70 miles (110 km), rising from the valley of the River Itchen near Winchester, Hampshire, in the west to Beachy Head near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east.^[9] Behind the steep north-facing scarp slope, the gently inclined dip slope of undulating chalk downland extends for a distance of up to 7 miles (11 km) southwards. Viewed from high points further north in the High Weald and on the North Downs, the scarp of the South Downs presents itself as a steep wall that bounds the horizon, with its grassland heights punctuated with clumps of trees (such as Chanctonbury Ring).

In the west, the chalk ridge of the South Downs merges with the North Downs to form the Hampshire Downs. In the east, the escarpment terminates at the English Channel coast between Seaford and Eastbourne, where it produces the spectacular white cliffs of Seaford Head, the Seven Sisters, whose undulations reveal a cross-section through a pre-existing landscape of parallel ridges and dry valleys that has been exposed as the high chalk headland has receded through erosion by the sea, and Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain at 162 metres (531 ft) above sea level.

The South Downs may be said to have three main component parts: the East Hampshire Downs, the Western Downs and the Eastern Downs, together with the river valleys that cut across them and the land immediately below them, the scarpfoot.^[10] The Western and Eastern Downs are often collectively referred to as the Sussex Downs. The Western Downs, lying west of the River Arun, are much more wooded, particularly on the scarp face, than the Eastern Downs. It is the bare Eastern Downs - the only part of the chalk escarpment to which, until the late 19th century, the term "South Downs" was usually applied - that has come to epitomise, in literature and art, the South Downs as a whole and which has been the subject matter of such celebrated writers and artists as Rudyard Kipling (the "blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed downs") and Eric Ravilious.^[11]

Four river valleys cut through the South Downs, namely those of the rivers Arun, Adur, Ouse and Cuckmere, providing a contrasting landscape. Chalk aquifers and to a lesser extent winterbourne streams supply much of the water required by the surrounding settlements. Dew ponds, artificial ponds for watering livestock, are a characteristic feature on the downland.

The highest point on the South Downs is Butser Hill, whose summit is 270 metres (890 ft) above sea level. The plateau-like top of this vast, irregularly shaped hill, which lies just south of Petersfield, Hampshire, was in regular use through prehistory. It has been designated as a National Nature Reserve.

Within the boundary of the South Downs National Park, which includes parts of the western Weald to the north of the South Downs, the highest point is Blackdown, West Sussex, which rises to 280 metres (919 ft) above sea level. However, Blackdown geologically is not part of the South Downs but instead forms part of the Greensand Ridge on the Weald's western margins.

A list of those points on the South Downs above 700 feet (210 m), going from west to east, is given below.

History[link]

Plan of Cissbury fort showing shafts

Archaeological evidence has revealed that the Downs have been inhabited and utilised for thousands of years. Neolithic flint mines such as Cissbury, burial mounds such as the Devil's Jumps and Devil's Humps, and hill forts like Chanctonbury Ring are strong features in the landscape.^[12][13]

It has been estimated that the tree cover of the downs was cleared over 3000 years ago, and the present closely grazed turf is the result of continual grazing by sheep.

National park[link]

Proposals to create a national park for the South Downs date back to the 1940s. However, it was not until 1999 that the idea received firm government support. After a public enquiry that took place between 2003 and 2009, the government announced its decision to make the South Downs a national park on 31 March 2009. The South Downs National Park finally came into operation on 1 April 2011. Within its boundary are included not only the South Downs proper but also part of the western Weald, a geologically and ecologically quite different district.

The South Downs National Park has replaced two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)s: East Hampshire AONB and Sussex Downs AONB. During the enquiry process a number of boundary questions were considered, so that the National Park contains areas not in the former AONBs, and vice versa.

National Nature Reserves[link]

The South Downs contains a number of National Nature Reserves (NNRs).^[14]

The NNRs on the Sussex Downs comprise Kingley Vale, near Chichester, said by Natural England to contain one of the finest yew forests in Europe, including a grove of ancient trees which are among the oldest living things in Britain (the reserve is also one of the most important archaeological sites in southern England, with 14 Scheduled Ancient Monuments); Castle Hill, between Brighton and Lewes, an important example of ancient, traditionally managed grassland; Lewes Downs (Mount Caburn), a traditionally managed chalk downland (and also an important archaeological site); and Lullington Heath, on the northern fringe of Friston Forest north-west of Eastbourne, one the largest areas of chalk heath in Britain.

The NNRs on the East Hampshire Downs comprise Butser Hill, near Petersfield, a large area of chalk grassland on the highest point in the South Downs (a large area is also designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument reflecting its historical significance, particularly in the Bronze and Iron Ages); Old Winchester Hill, a lowland grassland on the west and south facing scarp slopes of the Meon valley; and Beacon Hill, a high quality chalk grassland 5km west of Old Winchester Hill.

Tourism, leisure and sport[link]

In 1923 the Society of Sussex Downsmen (now the South Downs Society) was formed with the aim of protecting the area's unique landscape.^[15]

The South Downs is a popular area for ramblers with a network of over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of well-managed, well-signed and easily accessible trails. The principal bridleway, and longest of them, is the South Downs Way.^[16] The Monarch's Way, having originated at Worcester, crosses the South Downs and ends at Shoreham-by-Sea.^[17]

Sports undertaken on the Downs include paragliding, mountain-biking, horse riding and walking.^[18] The popular Beachy Head Marathon (formerly Seven Sisters Marathon), a hilly cross-country marathon, takes place each autumn on the eastern Downs, starting and finishing in Eastbourne.

Landmarks[link]

The Long Man of Wilmington, inscribed into the scarp face of the South Downs in East Sussex

Two of the landmarks on the Downs are the Long Man of Wilmington, a chalk carved figure, and Clayton Windmills. There is also a war memorial, The Chattri, dedicated to Indian soldiers who died in the Brighton area, having been brought there for treatment after being injured fighting on the Western Front in the First World War.

South Downs in literature[link]

Rudyard Kipling who lived at Rottingdean described the South Downs as "Our blunt, bow-headed whale-backed Downs".^[19] Writing in 1920 in his poem The South Country, poet Hilaire Belloc describes the South Downs as "the great hills of the South Country".^[20] In On The South Coast, poet Algernon Charles Swinburne describes the South Downs as "the green smooth-swelling unending downs".^[21]

The naturalist-writer William Henry Hudson wrote that "during the whole fifty-three mile length from Beachy Head to Harting the ground never rises above a height of 850 feet, but we feel on top of the world".^[22]

Poet Francis William Bourdillon also wrote a poem "On the South Downs".^[23] The South Downs have been home to several writers including Jane Austen who lived at Chawton on the edge of the Downs in Hampshire. The Bloomsbury Group often visited Monk's House in Rodmell, the home of Virginia Woolf in the Ouse valley. Alfred, Lord Tennyson had a second home at Aldworth, on Blackdown; geologically part of the Weald, Blackdown lies north of the South Downs but is included in the South Downs National Park.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Part of the Downs near Devil's Dyke, Sussex

• 

  South Downs close to Beachy Head

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Brandon, Peter (1998), The South Downs, Chichester, UK: Phillimore, ISBN 1-86077-069-X .

Further reading[link]

• Hudson, W.H. (1901), Nature in Downland, London: Longmans and Green, http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924022545093#page/n15/mode/2up .

External links[link]

• Sussex South Downs Guide

Coordinates: 50°55′N 0°30′W / 50.917°N 0.5°W / 50.917; -0.5

Gavin Bryars
Background information
Birth name	Richard Gavin Bryars
Born	(1943-01-16) January 16, 1943 (age 69)
Origin	Yorkshire, England
Occupations	Composer
Instruments	Double bass
Website	gavinbryars.com

Richard Gavin Bryars (born 16 January 1943)^[1] is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.

Early life and career[link]

Born in Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, Bryars initially studied philosophy at Sheffield University before studying music for three years.

The first musical work for which he is remembered was his role as bassist in the trio Joseph Holbrooke, alongside guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley.^[2] The trio began by playing relatively traditional jazz before moving into free improvisation. However, Bryars became dissatisfied with this when he saw a young bassist (later revealed to be Johnny Dyani) play in a manner which seemed to him to be artificial, and he became interested in composition instead.

Bryars's first works as a composer owe much to the New York School of John Cage (with whom he briefly studied), Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and minimalism. One of his earliest pieces, The Sinking of the Titanic (1969), is an indeterminist work which allows the performers to take a number of sound sources related to the sinking of the RMS Titanic and make them into a piece of music.^[2] The first recording of this piece appeared on Brian Eno's Obscure Records in 1975. The 1994 recording of this piece was remixed by Aphex Twin as Raising the Titanic (later collected on the 26 Mixes for Cash album).

A well known early work is Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971), which has as its basis a recorded loop of a vagrant singing a hymn of that name.^[3] On top of that loop, rich harmonies played by a live ensemble are built, always increasing in density, before the whole thing gradually fades out. A new recording of this work was made in the 1990s with Tom Waits singing along with the original recording of the vagrant during the final section.

Bryars was a founding member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra whose membership consisted of performers who “embrace the full range of musical competence” — and who played popular classical works. Its members included Brian Eno, whose Obscure Records label would subsequently release works by Bryars. In one of the first three releases from the label, Brian Eno's album Discreet Music, Bryars conducted and co-arranged the three pieces Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel which constitute the second half of the album.

Bryars's later works have included A Man In A Room, Gambling (1992), which was written on commission from BBC Radio 3 and Artangel. Bryars's music is heard beneath monologues spoken by the Spanish artist Juan Muñoz, who talks about methods of cheating at card games. The ten short works were played on Radio 3 without any introductory announcements, and Bryars is quoted as saying that he hoped they would appear to the listener in a similar way to the shipping forecast, both mysterious and accepted without question. His Cello concerto Farewell to Philosophy was recorded in 1997 by Julian Lloyd Webber.

Bryars has written a large number of other works, including three operas, and a number of instrumental pieces, among them three string quartets and several concertos. He has written several pieces for choreographers, including Biped (2001) for Merce Cunningham. Between 1981-1984 he participated in the CIVIL warS, a vast, never-completed multimedia project by Robert Wilson.

Bryars founded the music department at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University), and taught there for a number of years. He lives in England, and, in the summer months, on the west coast of Canada.

He was born on the same day (16 January 1943) as another prominent English composer, Brian Ferneyhough.

In his June 2008 appearance on Desert Island Discs author Peter Carey chose Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet as his eighth and final record choice.

Personal life[link]

Bryars is married to Anna Tchernakova, a Russian filmmaker, and they have three daughters and a son.

Selected works[link]

• The Sinking of the Titanic (1969, First performance: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 1972).
• Necropolis Soundtrack Film Franco Brocani (1970).
• Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (for Pre-recorded Tape and ensemble), 1972.
• Medea (Opera, libretto after Euripides. ) 1982, revised 1984 and 1995.
• CIVIL WarS (incomplete Opera collaboration with Robert Wilson), 1984 . Some sections of the music exist in completed form, as follows:
  • On Photography for Chorus (SATB), harmonium, piano.
  • 2B for Percussion ensemble.
  • Arias For Marie Curie, The Queen of the Sea, Captain Nemo, The Japanese Bride.
• String Quartet No 1 Between the National and the Bristol, 1985.
• Cadman Requiem (Dedicated to Bill Cadman), 1989.
• String Quartet No 2, 1990.
• A Man in a Room, Gambling for speaking voice and string quartet (Text: Juan Muñoz), 1992.
• The North Shore for viola and piano, 1993.
• Three Elegies for Nine Clarinets, 1994.
• Cello Concerto Farewell to Philosophy, 1995.
• Adnan Songbook, 1996.
• Doctor Ox's Experiment, opera, 1998.
• String Quartet no.3, 1998.
• Biped - music for the dance by Merce Cunningham, 1999.
• G (Being the Confession and Last Testament of Johannes Gensfleisch, also known as Gutenberg, Master Printer, formerly of Strasbourg and Mainz) Opera, 2002.^[4]
• Nothing like the Sun - 8 Shakespeare sonnets for soprano, tenor, speaking voice, 8 instruments, 2007.
• Piano Concerto ("The Solway Canal"), 2010.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gavin Bryars.com - The official Gavin Bryars website : bio, discog, news, etc.
• Schott Music Limited
• Myspace.com/gavinbryarsmusic - The official Gavin Bryars MySpace page : information and sound clips
• Gavin Bryars discography
• Clip of Cello Concerto
• Cello Concerto Reviews
• BBC interview (2004)
• Culture Kiosque Interview (2000)
• Morton Feldman interviewed by Gavin Bryars and Fred Orton (1976)

Andy Cato
Background information
Birth name	Andrew Derek Cocup
Also known as	Caia, Journey Man DJ, Big C ,System The ,Seventh Sense
Born	1973 (age 38–39)
Origin	Barnsley, Yorkshire, England
Genres	Electronic music
Instruments	Trombone, piano, bass guitar
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Columbia UK
Associated acts	Groove Armada, Caia, Weekend Players, System The, Seventh Sense,
Website	http://andycatomusic.com/

Andy Cato is one half of the electronic dance band, Groove Armada, the other half being Tom Findlay. He is also involved with Rachel Foster in Weekend Players, another electronic dance group.

Early life[link]

Cato grew up in a village near Barnsley and played the trombone in a colliery brass band, as well as the Doncaster Youth Jazz Orchestra and won the Young Jazz Musician of the Year Award in 1996.

Education[link]

Cato was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, an independent school for boys in Wakefield, followed by the University of Oxford (Merton College), where he studied history.

Groove Armada[link]

After the University of Oxford, he moved to London, where he began acting as a disc jockey at nightclubs and composing music. He set up the label Skinny Malinky. He met Tom Findlay in 1994 in Cambridge, through a common friend who was his girlfriend (and now his wife), Jo, whom he met at Oxford. In London they had a dance night called Captain Sensual at the Helm of the Groove Armada.

External links[link]

• Andy Cato: MySpace
• Groove Armada
• Pack Up And Dance
• Columbia Records page
• Making ringtones for O2 in 2005
• Jazz Weekly interview
• TuneTribe article
• Sydney Morning Herald 2003 article