Demise of a village

She spends most of her working days there but has to travel to get home five miles away.

Neither she nor her sons can afford to live in Ditchling, even though she is part of the lifeblood of the village, a popular and well-liked member of the community.

She ran The White Horse pub in West Street for 13 years and now works at The Sandrock Inn in the High Street.

Her eldest son Stephen is the village postman.

He, too, makes the journey into the village to deliver his former neighbours' mail every day before returning home to Burgess Hill.

Mrs Maybury's dilemma is similar to that of scores of people across rural Sussex, whose way of life has been eroded by an affliction spreading through traditional country villages.

They are becoming too pricey for local people to stay.

She had to move out of Ditchling after The White Horse was sold by the brewery.

She could not afford to buy a home in the village, even though her children grew up there. Now she lives with her sons Stephen and Nigel, who have bought the house in Burgess Hill.

Mrs Maybury said village life had changed dramatically since her younger days, especially in the last five years.

She said: "We had a bank, a butcher's, a greengrocer's and a couple of clothes shops. All the shops have closed down and have been turned into houses.

"People didn't want or need to travel to shop at one time. Now the people who have moved here tend to nip to Burgess Hill or Haywards Heath to the supermarkets and don't really spend much time in the village, just in their cars.

"It has been a gradual decline of village life.

"The people who move into the village don't tend to join in the community. It's not just the new, expensive houses, all the houses cost a lot now.

"That has got a lot to do with how the village has changed. It's a bone of contention.

"House prices get pushed up and the young people like my sons cannot afford to live here.

"My Nigel especially would love to live in the village if he could afford to, but he can't."

Mrs Maybury is not the only one concerned about the demise of Ditchling.

Last week villagers heard the Sandrock Inn had been sold.

Many were convinced the pub would be closed and turned into houses, signalling the disintegration of the community.

To them, losing the pub would mean losing one of the last bastions of village life.

Stephen Woodward, the new owner of the Sandrock Inn who has business links with Keymer Double Glazing, did not want to talk about his plans.

However, he did say the pub would not close "for the foreseeable future".

Michael Stratford, a company director who has lived in the High Street for more than 20 years, is among those worried about Ditchling losing its village atmosphere, its community and many of its long-standing residents.

He said: "The picturesque village of Ditchling is well known for its arts and crafts of days gone by, with Eric Gill, Charles Knight and John Skelton among the many artists and sculptors.

"Nestling at the foot of the South Downs, Ditchling has a virus called 'spec building', wealthy development companies taking advantage of infilling for the development of over-priced houses from £650,000 to £750,000, some used as weekend retreats."

Infilling aims to stop developers building on green belt areas and current planning guidelines favour available plots of land within towns and villages rather than the outskirts.

This means towns and villages are slowly being built up.

Mr Stratford said: "The infrastructure of any village evolves round the church, the shops, the village green and duck pond, the many societies and the pub.

"Ditchling has lost its shops from 26 down to five. If councils continue to permit these types of closures and developments, the village infrastructure will be lost forever. The community is being torn apart. Traffic is increasing, the population is increasing but we are losing facilities.

"If the pub closed, it would be disastrous for the village. It's the heart of the community.

"Everyone feels strongly about this."

Mr Stratford said his adult sons would move back to the village if they could afford to but had instead moved north, where property prices were roughly half.

Staff at the Sandrock did not want to talk about the future of the pub but echoed the views about Ditchling's village atmosphere dying.

Pub manager Vernon Garritt, who leaves next month, said he and his wife Valerie felt the village was their home but were moving back to Valerie's native Grimsby because they could not afford the house prices in Ditchling. They have to leave the pub when the new owner takes over.

Mr Garritt said: "We wanted to bring our son up in the village but instead he will be brought up in Grimsby.

"We will miss village life, We feel we have become part of the community. I organise a lot of events at the pub and at one time they were very popular but it gets harder and harder to get anyone interested.

"Many of the original regulars, especially the younger lot who are just starting out in life, have left.

"If we can't afford to live here how could a young couple who have just left home afford to buy a house here?"

Traders say the only passing trade is from hikers and tourists visiting Ditchling Museum since new regulations were introduced a few years ago.

They say developers are quick to capitalise on the financial pressures facing village businesses and rising property prices by offering shop owners large sums of money for their premises which are then being converted to homes.

Homes in the village are so desirable, property agents know they will command a high value.

Some worry the trend will turn Ditchling into a commuter village only for wealthy Londoners and the like.

Arthur Raynor, who runs Spitfire Art, an aviation prints and paintings shop in Ditchling High Street, said he had watched nine shops and businesses close in the past five years.

Even he is considering moving after the offers for his property, which is his home and business, reached £350,000.

He bought it for £87,000 six years ago. Mr Raynor said: "Ditchling is dead. It's not too bad for people like me who have to go out of the village to do any business anyway. If you can't do that then it must be very hard to survive as a business.

"Increasing traffic and a lack of parking facilities have been a problem for years. Cars can't stop. So not only have the shops lost passing trade but people who tend to move into the village have friends and family elsewhere, so much of their leisure time is spent outside the village as well.

"They work outside the village and shop outside the village and it has had an affect.

"It has tended to suck the lifeblood out of the village. The only people who can move into the village now are bound to be more professional types and are moving in because it is quaint and they are bound to be more mobile, so they don't spend a lot of time here.

"There have been developments in Ditchling but they have tended to be larger, expensive houses. There is a shortage of houses which people who have grown up in the village can afford."

The bigger picture is more complex to blamed solely on developers and traffic.

Villages across Sussex have been changing in similar ways during the past ten years and will continue to do so unless action is taken to give rural parts of the country a stronger independent economy.

Country managers have predicted masses of people across Mid and East Sussex could be victims of poverty within five to ten years as traditional businesses fade away, such as farming.

This has a knock-on effect as less money is spent in the shops and shopkeepers lose their traditional customers.

Residents in village communities across Sussex, from Hartfield to Ringmer to Pulborough to Glynde, have expressed fears about losing vital services, pubs, shops, bus services and post offices.

Diversification is the buzz word among experts trying to find solutions to the very rich living side-by-side with the very poor in many villages.

In Ditchling, it is not all bad news. The new owners of the corner shop and delicatessen Chesterton's village store, Ellen and Robin Fisher, run the store with their son Kenneth and are an example of how village businesses can take on the big supermarkets and win by diversifying their range.

They have been in the village for 17 months and so far the business has been a success.

Celebrity television and radio presenter Jamie Theakston is one of the handful of people who grew up in the village who has been able to afford a house there.

His father Geoff, who has lived in and around Ditchling for more than 30 years, said many of his son's generation had moved back to the village in recent years.

He said: "I still think it is fairly villagey. I don't think it has lost a lot. There is a problem at the bottom end of the property market but that has been happening in villages all over for a long time.

"I still see many old faces. If pubs did start to close that would be very, very sad. They are a crucial part of village life."

Geoff Miller, who has lived in Sussex for most of his life, was one of the newcomers who bought an executive home in Ditchling after his retirement.

He said he and his wife decided to move to the village because they wanted to be part of a community where there were still shops and services as they got older.

He said: "There is even a medical centre here which will be a great advantage as we get less mobile.

"There was a furore when these houses were built but we think it is wonderful to live in this part of Sussex.

"I think the problem with many villages is that there are no homes under £100,000. It means villages will lose their younger residents and be left with an elderly population which is a problem that needs to be tackled."