Memories of Woodingdean Farm

As children we didn’t visit Ovingdean’s Grange Farm very much – Woodingdean Farm was our farm really.  Our first experience of this was when Mother cat from the farm delivered three kittens – literally – through our letter-box. It wasn’t very high off the ground – she just posted them through.  We loved them but we were only allowed to keep two because the farm wanted one of them.

The ferocious geese

I remember that we used to walk across the fields to the bottom of Cowley Drive – where there is a pair of old farmhouses.  We used to go to the farmhouses there to get our eggs. We would only do this if the geese weren’t around – if they were they would chase you around – they were absolutely ferocious.  If they were out we would walk all the way up along the road – this was the long way round!

We just wandered in

The Filkins family lived in Woodingcote House in Ovingdean Road, and Arthur Cowley lived in the next door bit.  He was a lovely man and he had a pond with goldfish and I used to love to sit for hours and watch the goldfish.  We used to go into the farm and watch the milking – there was a milking parlour where this was all done. We also liked to watch the chickens scrapping. No-one ever said we couldn’t go in – we just wandered in and out.