Cuckmere & Friston Forest - Sussex - 21.5.2015

Friston Forest, seen beyond the water meadows of the Cuckmere Valley, is a fairly recent arrival in the local landscape. During the second world war, much of the farmland in this area was taken over as training grounds for army units, both British and Canadian. The land on the far side of the valley served as a training ground for tank crews. After the war it was decided that the underlying chalk geology was a valuable water resource. To keep the aquifers as pure as possible, it was decided to turn the area into a forest. This avoided having potentially polluting developments on it and the run off from animal husbandry or crop growing.