Hilaire Belloc bought King's Land (in Shipley, Sussex), 5 acres and a working windmill for £1000 in 1907 and it was his home for the rest of his life. Belloc loved Sussex as few other writers have loved her: he lived there for most of his 83 years, he tramped the length and breadth of the county, slept under her hedgerows, drank in her inns, sailed her coast and her rivers and wrote several incomparable books about her. "He does not die that can bequeath Some influence to the land he knows, Or dares, persistent, interwreath Love permanent with the wild hedgerows; He does not die, but still remains Substantiate with his darling plains."

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Thursday 15 October 2015

DAVID JONES – The Battle of Mametz Wood 1916...

Sketch drawing in pencil by David Jones inscribed ‘March 1916 / Front line trench on the La Bassée front’.


David Jones was a member of The Ditchling Community, which partially took its inspiration from the Distributist writings of Belloc and Chesterton. Father Vincent McNabb, famously berated them for not getting their hands dirty. He considered them to be too artistic and not agricultural enough.
On the 14th of November, at Ditchling Parish church, there will be an event to commemorate Jones along with a musical performance.

6pm concert in St Margaret’s Church, Ditchling
7.30pm-9.30pm drinks and talks at the museum
£22 inc. concert, talks at the museum (dedicated to the Ditchling Community) and drinks.

Opus Anglicanum’s narrator Zeb Soanes (BBC Radio 4) tells the story from Part 7 of David Jones’ In Parenthesis describing the battle in which he took part; the five singers perform music of Schubert, Palestrina, soldiers songs, and Cheryl Frances-Hoad In the crypt of the wood, inspired by David Jones’ drawing ‘Vexilla Regis’ in Kettles Yard and commissioned by Opus Anglicanum for this sequence.

After the concert the evening will continue at the museum with drinks and a chance to see our David Jones exhibition and hear talks by Ewan Clayton and Dr Hope Wolf.


 BOOKING: www.ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk