The Memorial Stone

Much faded now, this is the lichen-encrusted inscription on the memorial stone to Garth Christian and Charles Constant who campaigned for the creation of the nature reserve in the 1960s both of whom died in 1967. The inscription reads:

"You who walk these commons, remember with gratitude Garth Christian and Charles Constant whose loving imagination and unsparing labour led to the establishment of the Chailey Common nature reserve. Their ashes are scattered on the land they loved"

Kenneth Eager from the Guild Workshops in Ditchling undertook the preparation and cutting of the stone. The Guild Workshops were chosen as a tribute to Joseph Cribb another of the earliest members of the Society who had also died in 1967. Although Joseph Cribb was a coleopterist of some repute and an adviser to the Amateur Entomologists Society, he was probably best known as a notable sculptor and woodcarver. Indeed, he was apprentice to the famous Eric Gill, founder of the Guild and known for his work on, for example, Westminster Cathedral and Broadcasting House.

There is one curiosity about the stone - I have a photograph taken at the unveiling in 1971 - on that photograph the inscribed date '1971' is missing and must have been added in situ some time later.