THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — These Chronicles are created by Valerie Martin and contain scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

Copyright Valerie Martin 2004

Originally published in Along the Furlong in December 2004

This is the story of the Christmas coach running through Findon.  As December waned in the winter of 1836, the bitter treacherous weather hardened in the village. The trees in the village were stiff with rime. On Saturday, Christmas Eve, it grew dark and the sky became heavy with cloud apparently confirming the old shepherd’s forecast for a white Christmas. A few snowflakes swirled around the brown smoke curling from the chimneys of the houses silhouetted against a sludge-green scarred hump of Church Hill.

The villagers looked out of their windows and saw snow falling as a mysterious fuzziness silently crept up and engulfed the downs. Unhurried flakes began to outline the trees overhanging the tracks. Nepcote Green and the fields leading down to the village became blurs under a blanket of snow. It was going to be a white Christmas definitely.

Blasts of wind swept up the valley driving the snowflakes in hurrying multitudes.  It was a tremendous snowfall, which practically submerged the community. The Christmas melody of St. John the Baptist church bells rang out over the scene. In the comfortable Gun Inn, the village folk sat talking by the light of the cosy log fire.

The snow was so deep in Worthing in 1836 that the horse drawn coach could not depart for its journey northwards through Findon on Christmas Morning.  During the winter months there was one coach scheduled to travel up from the coast to London each day and one down (there were three extra coaches in the summer season). William Colee and James Mitchell drove the horses operating these Worthing to London coaches.  

William enjoyed relating the story of how the Londoners travelling on his coaches would always say they could smell the sea when they passed through Washington. In reality it was not the sea but the aroma of rotting seaweed that met their nostrils. This had been carted up from the shore at Worthing and used as fertilizer on the market gardens inland.   It must have been quite a sight to see the horses break into a trot to get their wagons of seaweed up the steep, loose shingle with their brasses jangling and the drivers shouting encouragement.  

On Christmas Morning 1936 the coach due to gallantly return from London to Worthing via Findon and set off with James Mitchell holding the reins on the box seat and encountered bad weather but struggled on. 

Thomas Norton was the ostler at the Red Lion in Ashington in 1836, (there is a Red Lion in that village to this day), and he did not bother to prepare the relief horses because he assumed the London coach would not turn out in such weather. Instead he sat in the comfort of the inn's parlour where he continued to sup and play cards with his post boys for "gin hot", (a heated infusion of the aforementioned distilled spirit and beer). One of the post boys ventured out into the yard just before 3 p.m. and returned in haste shouting that Jim Mitchell with the London coach and its four grey horses were approaching the inn through the blinding snow.

Thomas leapt up and hurried to the stables to prepare the relief team. The only passenger to alight from the London coach was a soldier on his way home and he trudged away in the snow.

The coach set off once more towards Findon with fresh horses. Up to now no thought of danger had occurred. The team resolutely attempted to boldly charge the snowdrifts and the coach swayed from side to side. It took a terrible pounding. The horses slithered and snorted in the icy lane, their breath lying like that of dragons on the evening air. With great difficulty the new team made heroic progress and ascended Washington Bostal.

The horses struggled to near the lodge gates at Highden but the poor creatures had to give up and could make no further headway in the deepening snow and the carriage stuck fast in a drift.    It was numbingly cold under a greying sky. The blizzard gathered force; its gusts were paralysing and the clouds closed in and densely overspread the sky. The main road ahead was blocked with snow right up to the top of the hedgerows as if to choke them.

The petulant bitter wind blew in the faces of the snorting horses as James Mitchell, with his cape flapping and awry, extricated himself and alighted. The cold sliced his cheeks as he battled to unharness his tired greys with the intention of taking them to safety. Man and beasts stumbled miserably the half a mile southwards to the warmth and shelter of North End Farmhouse where the team was soon safely ensconced in the stables. In their wake, the tracks they had made were soon obliterated by the drifting whiteness.

The abandoned coach was firmly stuck in the drift and appeared forlornly frozen for perpetuity.   Mist enveloped the trees and rolled down the slopes, dissolving and condensing by turns so that the coach was at one moment clearly seen and the next, entirely hidden from sight.  

All roads in Findon remained impassable and the village was almost submerged. In parts of the community it was said that the snow was as high as a tall man's head. Tradesmen venturing out sometimes disappeared completely in the snow, their goods and all.

After a few days, commodities began to run short in Findon and, in turn, the housewives bitterly complained. There was hardly any food to put on the table to feed the families. The village was severed from the rest of Sussex. The local farmers in the neighbourhood banded together and sent forth their men. With the help of the villagers (wielding any tools they possessed) a carriageway was carefully chiselled from the six-foot deep road blockage. One hundred men were employed on the great snow project of 1836 and it was their supreme efforts that eventually cleared the residue of the great blizzard and a passage was finally cut to place Findon on the map again.

James Mitchell's equipage was snowbound and stuck fast for eight long days before it could be rescued and continue its relatively short journey to the coast that memorable Christmas.

Continue if you would like to read about Grey Point's Christmas Parties.

 Back to Christmas Index

 Back to Main Index

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created exclusively for documenting life in Findon.