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Sheepcote Valley

Did you know? - a famous film
By Martin Nimmo

One of the best-known films made in Brighton was "Oh What a Lovely War", filmed in about 1968, largely on the pier. However, not many people remember that the trenches were built in Sheepcote Valley, then a land-fill site for Brighton Corporation.

A more picturesque view!
At the time, I had been wondering how to illustrate this site for a geography project, and was saved from having to show dustcarts emptying themselves into the general melée and bulldozers shifting the rubbish about (surrounded by screaming sea-gulls), by the film-makers making the area far more picturesque - if only temporarily!

Sent to website by email 27 January 2003
This page was added on 22/03/2006.

Comments:

My dad, George Fuller, worked at Sheepcote tip for many years, and his dying wish was to have his ashes scattered there. So in September 1988, my mum and I carried out his last wishes. If anyone ever sees his ghostly figure, it's not a lost soul but a happy one!
By Shirley (26/06/2003)
As a lad I can remember playing in the bomb craters of 'O What a Lovely War' and looking at the trenches with my mates. We saw the fake hill made out of scaffolding and the flat houses.
By Peter Bridger (24/02/2005)
I'm not sure when the area was first used for landfill. However, in the early 50s, us kids would have a great time playing war games over at Sheepcote. It was a great setting as there were loads of dumped army lorries, jeeps and the like, obviously war surplus. All that history now buried under tons of household rubbish.
By Geoff Wells (27/02/2005)
My brothers used to take me over there in the 1930s. There were 3 large hills of dirt and I was told that they were giants' graves and that I must not climb on them.
By Colin Webb (07/04/2005)
The three large hills mentioned by Colin Webb were used during the Second War by the army as part of a rifle range. Trenches were dug in front of the chalk hills (called butts) and targets set up in front which were used for rifle practice.The Sheepcote tip area was also used for practice with a bomb that, on exploding, threw out a type of burning jelly. As kids, my mates and I used to go over there after school and when the soldiers had gone we'd dig the used bullets out of the chalk as souvenirs. At the bottom end of the site, just north of where the camp site is, a searchlight battery was stationed and used to illuminate German aircraft for the ack-ack guns that were stationed on the hills either side of Sheepcote Valley.
By Peter Pryer (28/01/2006)
John Shortt, my GGGrandfather, and his family lived in Rifle Butts Cottage in Sheepcote valley in 1871. He was a marker and The Keeper of the Rifle Butts where The Sussex Volunteer rifles practiced. So its use for this purpose goes back much further than the Second World War.
By Jack Short (19/05/2006)

When we were kids in the late 40s and the 50s Sheepcote valley was one of our main playgrounds. It was a dumping ground full of the most interesting things you could imagine. We would go through East Brighton Park, skirt around the camping ground and then on to the rubbish tip. As said in another comment there was a lot of war surplus armoured cars-lorries-bits of planes and just loads of other stuff. We used to build our own pedal bikes and the valley was full of old bits of bikes. Being a rubbish dump we used to go home filthy dirty and happy as sandboys. Later on there was loads of dark grey soot that came from the power station at Portslade being dumped there. It was transported from the power station by S. M. Tidy in green tippers that had a job getting up Wilson Avenue, crawler gear all the way. This soot was another joy to us kids. We would jump from a great height (to us) and land up to our knees in this stuff and get really dirty in the process. We also used it as a scramble track for our pedal bikes with cowhorn handlebars. The bits and pieces we took home with us were our treasures. It's a wonder our parents didn't go around the bend with the junk that kept finding it's way home. Lovely days.

By Mick Peirson (08/11/2006)

Sheepcote Valley in the late 60s was like a giant theme park to us kids. Our Disneyland. How we ever survived I'll never know. Piles of cars and trucks to be climbed on and over. Tyres to be rolled down the hills. Rats to be shot. Strange gasses escaping from the ground. Chalk cliffs to be climbed up or tumbled down.
Sheepcote Campsite was like a different world with its pin tables and jukebox in the camp recreation area.
As we got a bit older we discovered the Northern European girls on their camping holidays in their tents. Great fun.

By Paul Hubbard (08/10/2008)

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