Join us at one of our regular drop-in sessions held 2.00 - 5.00 pm every second Wednesday of the month at the White Horse in West Street.  Please contact us to let us know you are coming and what your interest is!

80th Anniversary of the end of World War II

As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE day, you may like to learn more about the Ditchling men who lost their lives in both World Wars - young men many of whom grew up in the village and were part of the local community attending the village school, joining the scouts and playing in the cricket or football teams.  Their names are carved on the war memorial and their stories can be found here as well as in our publication, 'For the Fallen'.

A second publication, 'Memories of War' is an absorbing compilation of personal recollections and experiences of people connected with the village of Ditchling during the two World Wars. Dame Vera Lynn recounts her memories of working in war-torn London and entertaining troops overseas. Other contributors describe the Home Guard, ARP, German Prisoners of War, schooling and evacuation, with a prevailing sense of community and camaraderie.

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“Evidence is always partial.  Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge.  And history is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past.  It’s the record of what’s left on the record.  It’s the plan of the positions taken, when we to stop the dance to note them down.  It’s what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it – a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth.  It is no more “the past” than a birth certificate is a birth, or a script is a performance, or a map is a journey.  It is the multiplication of the evidence of fallible and biased witnesses, combined with incomplete accounts of actions not fully understood by the people who performed them.  It’s no more than the best we can do, and often it falls short of that.”

Hilary Mantel

 'The Stone Carver's Tale' by Ditchling History Project:

We are delighted to announce that we have been chosen as one of three runners up in the  20sStreets competition run by The National Archive (more ...)

Fond memories of Ditchling Resident, Dame Vera Lynn, 1917 - 2020

Crowning the Fair Queen, 1960

'Ban the Lorries' Protest March, 1973

The Fair Proclamation, 1982

Crowning the Fair Queen, 2000

In the Sussex village of Ditchling we are mourning the loss of our long time resident, Vera Lynn.  She was part of the village from the days when she would push, Virginia, her daughter in her pram to do some shopping in the High Street.  She opened many a village fair and enjoyed sitting in the village barn gardens having tea with everyone else.  Many a time she would be seen walking to the village shops with her husband, holding a wicker basket to collect a loaf of bread. They would stay to have a coffee in one of the coffee shops where she would be greeted as Mrs Lewis which she preferred to Vera Lynn when she was in Ditchling.  Even though we have seen little of her in recent years it was always good to know she was here and we would notice the BBC equipment outside her house when there were wartime anniversaries.  She will long remain a source of pride that she lived in our village for so many years.  More ...  Should you wish to add a memory to our tribute page, please contact us.