About this blog...

Poppies on Barrow Hill, Upper Bush, 2021: a view soon to be lost to the whim of a non-dom billionaire (see below...)

This blog is a casual record of my interest in the countryside covering the Halling, Cuxton and Luddesdown areas and my interest in its history and wildlife, particularly the woodland plants and butterflies. I have made every effort to get my facts right, but where they are wrong, then I apologise. 

Unlike as so often happens on Facetube, WhatTok or Twitbook however, there is no intent to deliberately misinform or malign. I am always happy to acknowledge, apologise for and then correct any errors where they occur and if you find any, let me know of them via the comments section (you will need to have a Google account to do so, however - it keeps the amount of obnoxious and sometimes quite disturbing spam to a manageable minimum).

I also revise old posts from time to time, especially when I find new information on a given subject. Posts are dated from the day I take the photographs and make the observations, not when I publish them. Sometimes there is quite a time gap between the two.

Unfortunately, of late this blog has become a bit of a protest page against the winery development plans for Upper Bush and Luddesdown. I am sorry for the rants but I hope they are factual and informative when it comes to calling out the outrageous bid to build a billionaire's vanity winery on our precious Green Belt land and a designated Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty. Again, please let me know in the comments section if I have anything factually wrong: I do want to try and present arguments against this project as accurately as I can.

I object to this development on principle only: huge new developments such as this (and particularly ones that are for solely commercial rather than communal gain) are precluded by national planning guidelines in protected areas, which Bush Valley is. Approval of it would set a precedent for commercial development of green belt land and designated areas of outstanding natural beauty right across the UK.

This development is moving into the "end game" in terms of planning approval and either way, this blog will soon get back to being a sleepy and little-read backwater of local history and views.

Please note that this blog is not in any way affiliated to Halling View, the Halling Parish Council magazine.

Brownfield development in Halling - St, Andrews Park on the site of the old Rugby cement works

My local area has mercifully only seen brownfield development in the past few years. However, it is only a matter of time before both our local farmland and woodland starts disappearing under an avalanche of the high-density, low-quality, over-priced and often highly-flammable cattle crates that greedy developers have the audacity to call "housing" these days.

I hope to capture a small record of our local North Kent countryside, in the brief few years before all of this comes to pass.

I am not overly proprietary or possessive about any of the pictures in this blog, especially the historical ones. I find it rather risible that some folk stick their own copyright on historical photographs that they did not take themselves. Unfortunately there are a few plagiarists out there who regularly raid this blog for titbits without acknowledging the source, but I guess that's the price to be paid for freely sharing knowledge (hence the watermarks on some images).

All of the "scenery" photographs are ones I have taken myself with a little pocket digital camera (currently a Sony HX60), hence the often dubious quality.  I am also lucky to have access to a slide collection of over 700 images put together by the late Derek Church, and have used scanned images from that source to illustrate some of my "history" posts. Many of these were in poor condition and I have spent quite a bit of time digitally restoring them. 

Mr, Church wrote the definitive history of Cuxton, "Cuxton - A Kentish Village", and also helped Halling local historian, the late Ted Gowers, with his book on Halling, "Across The Low Meadow".  Some slides are copies of old photographs and maps, others are snapshots of the area taken in the early seventies by Mr. Church himself, who used them to illustrate his popular talks on local history. Many of these pictures appear in the books I have mentioned. I draw heavily on both books when discussing local history.

I also have some copies of photographs used by Mr. Ken Law, who used to present local displays of old photographs of Cuxton, and in doing so fired my enthusiasm for local history.

Occasionally I "steal" images from online.  I always try to credit the source if I can.

These pictorial views, past and present, really belong to us all - no-one has a "copyright" on them, in my opinion. It's "our" history and "our" countryside, not "mine" or "theirs". So please feel free to take your own copies of any of the images on here, or reference any of the posts. If you do though, it would be nice if you could at least acknowledge the source...