This story really starts at the Gas Works and Chemical works that were once situated at Shoreham Harbour.  

When the gas was made it was very hot and contained water vapour, as the gas cooled the water vapour condensed and settled in collecting chambers.  This gas water as it was know was rich in minerals mainly ammonia and nitrogen, it also had a very heavy smell not unlike urine.  

This gas water was taken from the Gas works at Portslade to the Chemical works at Shoreham by a ship made from concrete as an experiment during World War One to save steel which was in short supply.  There the chemicals were extracted and turned into fertilizer and dispatched in sacks.  

Around WW2 the German chemical industry found a cheaper way to extract the fertilizer so rendering the whole English way obsolete.   This gas water stock mounted up and a way had to be found to dispose of it. 

Around the early fifties the Government came up with a scheme where they paid farmers a subsidy to have this water sprayed on the land to promote grass growth.  

The company that did the spraying used an old R.A.F petrol bowser towed by a Fordson tractor and fitted with spray booms.   I was at  the time driving a 6 ton lorry fitted with a 1000 gallon tank and with two other lorries it was our job to run this liquid from the Chemical works out to the spray sites.  

The farmers received this proposal with some resistance and took some persuading to part with good money for something which must at the time have looked like a bit of a gimmick. 

A series of trials were set up and one was at Findon.  The site was on top of the hill south of Chanctonbury Ring and the plan was this.  The grass was marked out in wide strips and every other one was sprayed the other left natural.  After a few weeks the difference in the grass colour and growth was noted by the interested farmers and they then signed up to have their fields sprayed.  

A large acreage was sprayed there and in the end Farms all over the area were signing up.  After several months of doing this the Government removed the subsidy and the whole exercise collapsed. 

I believe that the Gas board as it was by then were allowed to discharge this liquor into the sea behind the works I remember in later years people wondering why the sea was a funny colour.  

One might hesitate to guess what the public outcry would be today if such an exercise was done in the same way today, I can imagine driving a lorry up through Findon Village to the top of the hill with that smell coming from the tank more than likely I would get lynched, and what it was like in Findon at the time when the wind was in the wrong direction I can only guess.    

Finally what about the animals that this rich grass was intended for.  OK, I suppose if you did not take milk in your tea or love roast Lamb.