Planet Earth - The Neoproterozoic Era - The Tonian Period

The Neoproterozoic Era (1,000 to 542 million years ago) is the third era that makes up the Proterozoic Eon and this era is made up of three periods - the Tonian, Cryogenian (I bet this one is a bit cold) and the Ediacaran. It should be said that little is known about this era, although scientists are starting to find more about it, especially the third period of it (the Ediacaran). 

For this posting, I shall focus on the Tonian period (the period of 1,000 to 850 million years ago). Despite his presence in the early 21st Century politics, this period was not named after Tony Blair; the word derives from the Greek word "tonas" meaning "stretch". 

During this period, it is thought that the supercontinent, Rodinia, started to break up

I haven't mentioned this before, and it should be a good idea to mention them despite the fact they have been around since 3,200 million years ago. The acritarchs are small organic fossils (normally if the fossil is not formed from a form of an acid soluble compound or a carbonate or siliceous compound but is still organic, it is classed as an acritarch) and the diversity or the paucity of these species recorded in sedimentary rocks reflects the state of the planet with reference to the past ecological events (palaeoenvironment). The acritarch, as you may find out, can represent the remains of the three aforementioned life domains (remember LUCA) of archaea, bacteria and the eukaryote. The presence of the acritarchs found within the Tonian period tend to be chlorophyta (green algae) and fungi ( a form of eukaryotic life that forms a large group of great importance still to life today). Where would Whatlington and Vinehall Street be without beer and bread (both need yeast)?

Next time - the Cryogenian Period

The Christmas Quiz with answers

As promised and slightly late. As it is traditional with Christmas, please find a Christmas quiz, the answers will follow on another post but, of course, the answers are within the blog.

Lucky you - the answers are given here with links to the articles.

1) Who allowed the choir of Whatlington Church out early to get conkers from the church yard?

Mr. Ken Crouch

2) What did the term "plough" imply on an entry in the Domesday Book?

The term "plough" implies eight oxen with the plough, Whatlington had land for six ploughs.

3) What food and drink have the two villages produced? 

The villages have produced barley, beef, lamb, potatoes, raspberries, strawberries, wheat and wine (both red and white).

4) What is the name of the village group that follows the Sussex Fire and Firework Festivals?

The Whatlington Renegades

5) What are the compounds in leaves that provide the orange, red and yellow colourations in autumn?

Carotenes (orange), red (anthocyanins) and yellow (xanthophylls) in the falling leaves.

6) What was the name of the lady who was in charge of the village hall in the seventies who lived in Park Lane?

Miss Pratt

7) What was the first name on the list from the Great War on the War Memorial in Whatlington Church?

Gillachrist Moore

8) What was the first natural force that separated after the Big Bang event?

Gravity

9) What is the age of the Planet Earth when compared to the age of the Universe?

A third

A History of Whatlington and Vinehall Street - A Christmas Quiz

As it is traditional with Christmas, please find a Christmas quiz, the answers will follow on another post but, of course, the answers are within the blog.

1) Who allowed the choir of Whatlington Church out early to get conkers from the church yard?

2) What did the term "plough" imply on an entry in the Domesday Book?

3) What food and drink have the two villages produced?

4) What is the name of the village group that follows the Sussex Fire and Firework Festivals?

5) What are the compounds in leaves that provide the orange, red and yellow colourations in autumn?

6) What was the name of the lady who was in charge of the village hall in the seventies who lived in Park Lane?

7) What was the first name on the list from the Great War on the War Memorial in Whatlington Church?

8) What was the first natural force that separated after the Big Bang event?

9) What is the age of the Planet Earth when compared to the age of the Universe?

Happy Christmas 

Christmas Reading - Have a break from the history of the Planet Earth

It is Christmas Time and often book are given as gifts. 

If you are bored of me talking about the history of the Planet Earth, can I suggest you read from a few of these books:

Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything - It can be found as an illustrated version here or it can be found as a pdf here.

Richard Dawkins - The Magic of Reality - It can be found here as an illustrated copy.

Later today - a Christmas quiz on the early days of the Whatlington and Vinehall Street Archive, answers will be revealed on Boxing Day and then the history of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street will continue. 

Happy Christmas to all our readers across the globe.

Planet Earth - The Stenian Period - The jigsaw on Boxing Day

The Stenian Period ran from 1,200 to 1,000 million years ago and was the last period of the Mesoproterozoic Era. The name derives from the Greek word for narrow polymetamorphic (many rocks that are changed by heat and pressure) bands created within the rock.

The Rodinian supercontinent starts its main construction time of this supercontinent spanned from 1,100 to 780 million years despite some of the material having been already established in the last period, Ectasian. The name Rodinia comes from the Russian for "birth". The evidence for this supercontinent is found within the orogenies of the time (Dalslandian in Europe, the previously mentioned Grenville in North America and the Uralian in Siberia). With geological evidence, it is thought that Rodinia was centred south of the equator. Rodinia is thought to have comprised of the Amazonian Craton, Australia, the Congo Craton, Eastern Antarctica,  the Eastern European Craton, India, the Kalahari Craton, the North American Craton, the Rio de la Plata and Sao Francisco Craton, the West African Craton. So, basically a supercontinent made up of jigsaw parts of huge cratons. 

After the break up of the continent around 780 to 750 million years ago, the fragments became part of the supercontinent Pangaea.

Next time - The Neoproterozoic Era and the Tonian Period

Planet Earth - The Ectasian Period - Caution contains first record of sexual reproduction

The Ectasian period that dated from 1,400 to 1,200 million years ago is the second of three periods that make up the Mesoproterozoic Era. So why the picture above - read on and you'll find out why.

The term Ectasian comes from the Greek word for "Extension" and relates to the continuing expansion of the continents by the progression of sedimentary and volcanic deposits that continue, during this period, to cover the craton (the older and more stable part of the craton). This extension helped to form the basis of the  supercontinent Rodinia, which lasted from 1,100 million years to 780 million years ago, through the break up of the previous supercontinent, Columbia, and through accretion. A mountain range building event, known as the Grenville orogeny, that ran from the Labrador coast to Mexico on the North American continent was also formed over a series of events; it should be noted that part of Scotland has evidence of this orogeny.

It should be noted that this period is potentially the first recorded time that sexual reproduction had been recorded. A form of red algae (Bangiomorpha pubescens - a form of eukaryote) left its microfilaments as a fossil in the Hunting Formation on Somerset Island in Canada and is dated around 1,200 million years old. The microfilaments are evidence for complex multicellularity - multicellular organisms contain cells that perform specialised functions. Sexual reproduction has to solve the problem of generating an organism from germ cells (a biological cell that produces gametes of a sexually reproducing organism and a gamete is a cell that joins with another cell during fertilisation).

Previously asexual reproduction, the direct copying of cells without the fusion of gametes into an organism, meant that multicellularity could not exist. So, therefore, it stands to reason that both multicellularity and sexual reproduction and fossilised records of the former are all geological markers within our history of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street 

There is an interesting article about the chemical properties of early life that can be found here.

Next time - The Stenian Period

Planet Earth - The Mesoproterozoic Era - Calymmian Period

So with a few days until Christmas 2011, we enter Mesoproterozoic Era (1600 to 1000 million years ago) or the middle period of the Proterozoic Eon in a period called Calymmian. The title of the period comes from the Greek word for "cover".

The first period of the Mesoproterozoic Era only lasted 200 million years (1600 to 1400 million years ago) but with a brief summary, a lot started to happen - the continuing expansion of land platforms from the original cratons; photosynthetic organisms began to become more diverse; the free oxygen content increased in the atmosphere; a formation of ozone started to create a layer (it eventually settles in the stratosphere and it was thought that eukaryotic nucleated cells appeared at around the same time as the breakup of the supercontinent Columbia (around 1,500 million years ago).

It could be said that the formation of the ozone layer is one of the more important features of the Calymmian Period (although as I am beginning to figure out everything has its place and its importance). The current position of the stratosphere is situated between about 10 kilometres (6 miles in old money - nearly the distance from Whatlington to Hastings on the A21) and 50 kilometres (30 miles - nearly the distance from Whatlington to Sevenoaks in Kent) above the planet's surface at moderate latitudes. But like with all life there is an exception, at both the north and south, it starts at about 8 kilometres (5 miles - the approximate distance between Whatlington and the far side of Battle) above the surface.

Three oxygen atoms combine to form tropospheric and stratospheric ozone or O3; for this blog posting we are more interested in the stratospheric ozone  that plays absorbs a large percentage of the UV-B rays. Weirdly, it still allows a proportion of the damaging UV-B rays through that heats the stratosphere to around a current temperature of minus 3 degrees centigrade or 29.6 degrees Fahrenheit and heats the planet's surface. As an article by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric  Administration) states: "Ozone thus plays a key role in the temperature structure of the Earth's atmosphere". Without the reduction of the UV-B rays, both animals and plants would be damaged  as proved through experimentation. 

Next Time: The Ectasian Period

Planet Earth - Statherian Period

The Statherian Period ran from 1,800 to 1,600 million years ago and despite being a short period in the Palaeo-Proterzoic Era, it was an important time in the development for life on the planet. - 

The two hundred million years ensured that cratonisation led to new land platforms and supercontinents being formed; complex single celled life were formed; variance of archaeans and bacteria came into existence.

The name for this period comes from the Greek word for "stable" or "firm". The planet has already been prone to volcanic activity within the Rhyacian period; the transformation of the planet's atmosphere from methane to carbon dioxide and water vapour created the Huronian Glaciation; the bombardment of extraterrestrial material in the Orosirian period - so it was about time for a period of stability. 

During this time the smaller continents of Atlantica, Nena (Nuna) and Ur drifted towards each other to form a supercontinent, namely Columbia. But when I say drifted, I mean, they became one through a series of processes - accretion (this was mentioned here), continental shelves gaining more stable bases, fold belts (where two separate pieces of land are pushed together and form deformations in the crust), plate tectonics (a theory only accepted in the 1950s and 1960s). Columbia was made up of cratons (a stable part of the continental crust where the basement rock is exposed and then get covered in layers of sediment and, in time, sedimentary rock) and was approximately 12,900 kilometres (8,016 miles) from North to South and 4,800 kilometres (2,983 miles) at the broadest point. But as with all wrapping paper on Christmas afternoon, it gets recycled and the supercontinent started to fragment at the end of the Statherian period.

So as the progression of supercontinents through their lifecycle continues, so does the progression of life. Remember LUCA and how it split into three different life systems - the single-celled, the archaean and the eukaryotes. Well more complex versions of the single celled life and eukaryotes started to appear and become more established in the Statherian period as well as eukaryotes. More of these life forms will come to the surface in this brief history of Whatlington and Vinehall Street, have a good Tuesday.

Planet Earth - The Orosirian Period

The Orosirian Period ran from 2,050 to 1,800 million years ago. It is named after the Greek word for "mountain range".

So it stands to reason that there would be a great deal of mountain development within these 250 million years as well as some impacts from small (a meteor is the visible tail of the meteoroid [a sand to boulder sized particle] and if it lands then it becomes classed as a meteorite) to larger extraterrestrial material. Some of these larger impacts have been recorded within the geology of the newly formed super continents.

One example was an asteroid of 5 to 10 kilometres in diameter (that is 3.1 to 6.2 miles in imperial units) that hit the earth's surface in an area close to the town of Vredefort in what is now South Africa. It left an impact crater of 250 to 300 miles in diameter (160 to 190 miles) but with this type of impact there other effects left. The nearby structures of the Bushveld Igneous Complex and the Witwatersrand Basin were also formed around the same geological period and it is thought that the kinectic movement from the impact may have caused the regional vulcanism (volcanic activity). So why are the geological structures so important, the Bushveld Igenous Complex holds a great proportion of the world's platinum group metals and Witwatersrand holds gold reserves. 

By 2,000 million years ago, it is thought that the luminosity of the sun had reached eighty-five percent of its present luminosity and more free oxygen started to accumulate in the atmosphere.

In 1,850 million years ago, the planet was rocked by another impact from a fireball of between 10 to 15 kilometres in diameter. Sudbury Basin, in Ontario, is about 62 kilometres long (39 miles), 30 kilometres (19 miles) wide and 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) deep and it scattered debris over an area of 1.6 million square kilometres (620,000 square miles). The crater then filled with magma and solidified over time with such economic minerals as copper, gold, palladium and platinum to name but a few. 

Next time - The Statherian Period 

Planet Earth - The Rhyacian Period

The Rhyacian Period ran from 2,300 to 2,050 million years ago.

Groups of intrusions started to form, but what are intrusions? Wikipedia, our friend through this journey through time, describes "an intrusion as liquid rock that forms under the Earth's surface." But it is so much more than this - this liquid rock or magma pushes up through cracks and spaces through the planet's surface to form a different form of solid rock and this process can take millions of years to develop. The magma cools or crystalises into minerals. But when you are talking of a period of the Earth's history that is 250 million years old, the development of intrusions are easy. Don't forget that the last post talked of the increase of mineral diversity or catastrophe three. To remind yourself of what an intrusion may look like - remember Devil's Tower National Monument from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind - that is one. The intrusions that were developed during the Rhyacian period included the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Bushveld Complex.

Another event defined the activity within the Rhyacian Period - this was the development of the eukaryotes. Remember how you were introduced to LUCA a few posts ago. So LUCA split into the three forms that we still know today; the single-celled, the archaea and the eukaryote. 

So what is a eukaryote? It is an organism that contains complex structures with cells that have membranes, which also contains its own copy of genetic material contained within the nucleus. They also contain specific and specialised equipment within a cell, these may be mitochondria (remember these?) or chloroplasts (these help plants make energy from solar energy. So the Rhyacian Period was when the eukaryote started to develop, I won't spoil the ending but have a look around you and see what could be a eukaryote.

Planet Earth was still covered in snow and ice due to the conversion of the primitive atmosphere from methane to carbon dioxide and a abundance of water vapour. This first ice age was known as the Huronian Ice Age or the Makganyene glaciation. It is thought to have ended around between 2,200 and  2,100 million years ago.

Evidence of this glacial period has been found in Lake Huron where there were there have found sediments from three glacial periods interspersed with non glacial periods. The latter name, Makganyene, refers to similar deposits laid down in the Transvaal group of mountains in South Africa. Why do we worry about these names and the evidence that they provide? I guess, it is to see where we are going and what we have missed, in the words of G. K. Chesterton:

"The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present" (1933)

Next time - Another period but which one?

Planet Earth - The Siderian Period

Hello, back again, as explained in the last post we shall now be looking in lit bit more detail as to what happened in these periods that make up the eras. As we get closer to 2012, we find that more has been found and purported to be found, so there will be more to say. I shall endeavour to be as concise as possible. I will only try to add what I think is pertinent to the evolution of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street.

The Siderian Age ran from 2,500 to 2,300 million years ago and oxygen was produced as a waste product by anaerobic (without oxygen) algae (as previously mentioned here); this had an effect on the previously formed iron by creating an iron oxide, later named magnetite (Fe₃O₄) and is known for its magnetic properties. This had the side effects of taking iron out of the sea water, which previously had a greenish colour and was now a lot clearer, as well as creating a more oxygen-rich atmosphere. There are still examples of the banded iron formations, which  were created in this age, in the sediments of Minnesota, USA. For those that know Whatlington and Vinehall Street in Sussex may well be aware that the early development of these two villages did rely on the iron resources.

It was during this period that continents began to show above the waters on the planet. But all was not well, especially above the planet's surface. This abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere created an event that was later known as the oxygen catastrophe. Before this event, organic matter, such as the aforementioned algae and dissolved iron, would capture any free oxygen.

But after the event, the rising saturation of free oxygen in the atmosphere led to the deaths, on a planet wide scale, of anaerobic life. It also oxidised methane (CH₄) to create a weaker greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O). Like a line of dominoes, one change can lead to a lot of other changes or, as we like to call them on Earth, catastrophes. 

Catastrophe One - The Huronian Glaciation - the water in the atmosphere led to one of the longest and most severe glaciation events, which lasted from 300 to 400 million years covering both the Siderian and Rhyacian periods. It could be said that this glaciation may have also started from a decrease in volcanic activity and the angle of tilt in the earth.

Catastrophe Two - Increase in Biological Diversity - the abundance of free oxygen in the atmosphere led to opportunities in the chemical reactions between substrates and the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and surface's fresh water. The energy (in the form of adenosine triphosphate or ATP) created within cells, known as mitochondria, are thought to have formed after the Oxygenation Catastrophe.

Catastrophe Three - Increase in Mineral Diversity - it is thought the Oxygenation Catastrophe is responsible for creating 2,500 new minerals from the 4,400 known minerals found on Earth by the processes of hydrating and oxidising. There are still some minerals to be discovered, but an article by Robert M. Hazen in the Scientific American journal:

"Most of these new minerals occurred as thin coatings and rinds of altered material on existing rocks. Many rare mineral species are known from only a handful of precious crystals that weigh less than a gram. But the Great Oxidation Event" or the Oxidation Catastrophe "had global mineralogical consequences as well. Most notably, the planet rusted - across the globe, the black basalt...turned red as the ferrous iron of common basalt mineral oxidised to hematite and other rust red ferric iron compounds". Scientific American March 2010 (Accessed 17/12/2011 - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=evolution-of-minerals&page=1) 

Next time: The Rhyacian Period

Planet Earth - The Proterozoic Eon - Parish Notices

As we enter the Proterozoic Eon, a period from 2,500 million years ago to 542 million years, we find that more information has been found out and thus this large time frame can be split up into smaller sections. Thus this eon, a primary division of geologic time lasting over 500 million years and there have only been four named. You better check up on these, there may be a quiz for the Christmas edition of the blog.

An eon is then split up into Eras (a division of geological time that last several hundred million years), Periods (a period of geological time lasting tens of millions of years and longer than an epoch), Epochs (a division of geological time lasting tens of millions of years and shorter than a period) and Ages (a unit of geological time shorter than an epoch a few million years).

So the Proterozoic Eon is then split into three eras – the Palaeoproterozoic Era (2,500 to 1,600 million years ago), the Mesoproterozoic Era (1,600 to 1,000 million years ago) and the Neoproterozoic Era (1,000 to 542 million years ago).

Thus the next posting on the blog will be describing what happened in the first period, the Siderian Period, of the Proterozoic Era (2,500 to 2,300 million years ago). I hope I haven’t lost you, but I had to describe these section descriptions so that we can get through to the details that so made the planet a suitable place for both Whatlington and Vinehall Street. Should I also include Woods Green that is nestled between the formerly mentioned and the latterly mentioned villages? I await your thoughts.

Planet Earth - The Archaean Eon (edited and added)

Okay, so I seemed to have fallen at the first hurdle of getting a post out per day, but I had a great evening talking with two inhabitants of Whatlington, one from Battle and one from Cranbrook. The results of this will go on the blog soon, but we still have 3,800 million years to go. 

So may I introduce to you, the Archaean Eon or Era - It is dated, through chronometry, from 3,800 million years to 2,500 million years ago. It is said that the surface of the planet had solidified and with the accretion of extra-terrestrial material on to the planet; the day's length had increased from 7 hours (Hadean Eon) to fifteen hours. The heat flow of the planet was three times greater than the present level. This is due to three factors; the aforementioned accretion, heat from the proto core and the heat from the decay of radioactive elements. The tectonic and volcanic activity was thought to be high, although evidence of tectonic plate movement is still being examined by scientists to see if it occurred at that time.

The palaeo-atmosphere of the Archaean environment is thought to have 75% nitrogen and 15% carbon dioxide; the luminosity of the sun was estimated to between 70-80% of the present sun.

Water, in a liquid form, is thought to have been present as it has been recorded in deformed gneisses (a form of metamorphic rock).

By the end of the Archaean Eon, evidence of geological  features included continent-continent collisions, intracontinental rifts, sedimentary basins, volcanic arcs and the forms left by the creation and destruction of proto and supercontinents. Rocks with Archaean history can be found at the Baltic Shield Canadaian Shield, Greenland, India, Scotland, Southern Africa and Western Australia. These rocks are often named as banded iron formations, greywackes, mudstones and volcanic sediments, there were few carbonate rocks due to the acidic levels in the oceans (more can be found at Archaean Palaeo-Geology).

A recent article in the New Scientist, 25th of November 2011, suggests that there is evidence that supports the theory of the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). It reports that a mega-organism that lived in the Archaean oceans gave rise to the three domains of what we now know as life - the single celled, the archaea and the eukaryotes. This mega-organism or LUCA was not the first example of life, but it was the first successful one that can be supported by present day evidence of inherited proteins from LUCA.

"Caetano-Anollés searched a database of proteins from 420 modern organisms, looking for structures that were common to all. Of the structures he found, just 5 to 11 per cent were universal, meaning they were conserved enough to have originated in LUCA" (New Scientist 2011). LUCA also gave rise to cell membranes, organelles (cell compartments with specific functions); it had a varied metabolism and it may have used ribonucleic acid (RNA), which stores information and controls the chemical reactions. As Caetano-Anollés states, "LUCA was a clumsy guy trying to solve the complexities of living on primitive Earth" (New Scientist 2011).

Despite there being no known fossils of eukaryotic life from the Archaean Eon, we have seen, above, that inherited proteins show a last universal common ancestor; but we do have fossils of mats of a form of bacteria, Cyanobacteria or blue-green algae, which is thought to have created free oxygen in the atmosphere. These mats are also known as stromatolites - a structure formed in shallow water that bind cement and trap grains of sediment within a biofilm of the micro-organism, such as the Cyanobacterium. Stromatolite fossils are easily found within the Pre-Cambrian period (dates from 4,600 million years ago to 542 million years ago - a period of time that represents 88% of geological time).

Today Stromatolites can be found in the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and Western Australia near salt and fresh water, although there is one example that lives in the Jenolan caves in Australia and survives from calcium rich water that percolates through limestone.

Next time - The Proterozoic Eon 

Planet Earth - The Hadean Eon - Part Two

It started from approximately 4.5 billion years ago and ended approximately 3.8 billion years ago; the Hadean Eon named by the geologist, Preston Cloud , in 1972 was used to represent a time of bombardment by extra-terrestrial material, fire and possibly like a vision of hell. 

The examination of the moon's surface and by dating moon rock, it has helped to partition the Hadean Eon into further time periods:

Birth of the Moon - (4.527 billion years ago) an approximate date for when a bombardment hit the molten proto-planet Earth and thus created a satellite.

Pre-Nectarian - (3.92 billion years ago) an approximate date of the crust's formation of the moon.

Nectarian - (3.85 billion years ago) an approximate date of when the terrestrial bombardment started to recede.

Using locations in western Greenland, north western Canada and Western Australia, there are provisions of  evidence of Hadean sediments (Greenland) and zircon crystals (Australia and Canada). The crystals are estimated at 4 billion years old and the sediments to 3.8 billion years old. The latter rock has also evidence of banded iron beds with the potential for organic carbon and with that it suggests that photosynthetic life had already been established.

But as with all science and their associated theories and evidence; the suggested period of Hadean-like life as purported by Preston Cloud may be be different. During the time of bombardment, approximately 4.527 billion years ago, an impact into the partially molten planet may have formed the Earth's satellite, the moon. This dislodgement not only moves material but it also dislodges water molecules that have been trapped within the planet's rock structure and surface into the proto-atmosphere. This is due to the gravity of the planet being less strong due to the planet being 40% of its present size. This proto-atmosphere consisted of a heavy carbon-dioxide atmosphere laden with hydrogen and water vapour (a combination of hydrogen and oxygen). The raised atmospheric pressure, due to the presence of carbon dioxide led to collections of water be present on the planet's surface despite a suggested surface temperature of two hundred and thirty degree Centigrade (446 degrees Fahrenheit in old money).

The study of the zircon crystals in 2008 has shown that liquid water may have been present 4.4 billion years ago and they may also hold evidence of plate tectonic activity approximately 4.0 billion years ago. The action of subducting (sinking) plates traps both rock and carbon dioxide, so as the process carried on  it took more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This reduced the greenhouse effect leading to a cooler surface temperature, the formation of rocks and even life. This, of course, at present is partially conjecture based on archaeo-geological (or palaeo-geological) evidence and next time, we enter the Archaean Eon. 

Planet Earth - The Hadean Eon - Part One

Hope you are still with me - please bear with me whilst I distill the vital ingredients for the history of the Hadean Eon of Earth's History. However can I suggest you listen to the recent episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage that explains the origins of life - I will be using the information from this show as well as other resources - this happens to be a happy example of synchronicity. Synchronicity happens to pop up a lot in the history of both Whatlington and Vinehall Street from the dawn of time until 2012.

Planet Earth - the early years, I mean the really early years

Hello there and welcome - the last five posts have taken you, the reader, as well as me; the writer who has sneakily used other people's work to take you from that point of 10^–43 seconds after the Big Bang Event (BBE) to an estimated time of 9.2 billion after the BBE. Yes, of course I have taken necessary steps to simplify parts and if you would like to add some descriptions in the comment section below this post.

So, of course, our next question or at least the path of where we gain our next part of the history of Whatlington and Vinehall Street is how did planet Earth form from the stellar material (or supernovae) that is ejected from collapsing old stars. It should also be stated, at this point, that the current estimated age of Earth is 4.578 billion years and those kind compilers at Wikipedia, as you can guess, have designed a geological clock (see below) on which I base the next section of the Whatlington and Vinehall Street Archive. We are often reminded that three is the magic number, the age of Earth is approximately one third of the age of the Universe.

(Click on the image to see a better view)

It is purported that certain planets in our solar system were formed from the solar nebula, the disc shaped cloud of dust and gas, whereby dust grains start to orbit around what may be described as a protostar - a contracting mass of gas that represents the beginning of a star - his process is known as accretion. The accretion of the dust grains leads to clumps reaching sizes of up to 200 metres, these larger clumps bind together to form planetesimals - a minute planet of up to 10 kilometres in size. With increasing accretion due to gravitational force, these planetesimals increased in size by centimetres over the millions of years. 

Due to the position of Earth, and the other terrestrial planets, in relation to the Sun - volatile molecules were unable to condense such as methane and water. However the planetesimals could only form elements with high melting points including such metals as iron (Fe), nickel (Ni) and aluminium (Al) and rocky compounds such as silicates (SiO₄). But due to the low presence of these metals and compounds in the solar nebula, they form 0.6% of the solar nebula, the so-called terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) were limited to being of a smaller size compared to the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). The liquid metals started to sink towards the mass's centre of the proto planet that would be known as Earth. This led to an event entitled the Iron Catastrophe, a supposed date of this event is 500 million years into the formation of Earth, where the collection of iron and nickel at the central mass led to the separation of the mantle and core. This led to the layered structure of Earth and its magnetic field. 

Before I leave you today, a cloud of gaseous silica was said to have surrounded the planet like an early form of atmosphere, this cloud would condense and form the rocks on the Earth's surface. This led to another form of atmosphere that was created when the proto Earth had increased its size to approximately 40% of today's size by accretion - thus the force of gravitational attraction retained a proto atmosphere that also stored water.

Have a good day and thus we travel further on to the Hadean and Archaean Eons next time.

A romp through spatial time

From that time of 1 second after the Big Bang Event (BBE) to 400,000 years after the BBE, the temperature of the expanding quark-gluon fog  had decreased from 10 billion degrees Centigrade to a more amenable 2,700 degrees Centigrade. This decrease in the temperature allows the electrons, sub atomic particles with a negative elementary electrical charge, to combine the previously mentioned protons and neutrons to create atoms. It is suggested that the first few elements that are created by the collection of atoms are Helium (with one atom) and Hydrogen (with two atoms). It is also suggested that light starts to begin the process of illumination.

For the next billion years, the first natural force that was separated after the BBE, gravity starts to make both Helium and Hydrogen to join together, or coalesce, to form giant clouds and this is aided by the drop in temperature from the previously recorded positive 2,700 degrees Centigrade to negative 200 degrees Centigrade. These giant clouds start to form galaxies and I don't mean the chocolate or the mobile devices! The smaller clumps of Helium and Hydrogen of gas collapse to create the first examples of stars, a massive sphere of illuminated and ionised charged particles or plasma, within the universe.

After that initial billion years, it is purported that the temperature drops further to negative 270 degrees Centigrade for the the next 13.7 billion years. This allows the previously mentioned galaxies, a massive mixed system of dust, gas and stars (as well as the remains of previously formed stars) that are conjoined by gravity as well as the recently discovered but not very well understood dark matter. It is called dark matter due to the fact that it neither emits or scatters light nor does it emit or scatter electromagnetic radiation. It is stated that 95% of all matter in the universe is either dark energy or dark matter. During this 13.7 billion years, as old stars collapse and they eject heavy elements into space and this material is recycled into new planets, this being a body that travels around either a star or the remains of a star and is neither big enough to create thermonuclear fusion, and stars.  

The universe has been aged at 13.7 billion years, a year being defined at 365.25 days or 86,400 seconds, however for the sake of this blog, I am ending this section of the blog at 9.2 billion years as I am leaving 4.5 billion years for the formation of the planet we know as Earth. 

I hope you are enjoying this romp through time, please add a comment if I have got things wrong or just say that you are enjoying it.

Supersymmetry Breaking, the Quark Epoch and the Hadron Epoch

Another day and slightly closer to finding why Whatlington and Vinehall Street are where they are today and how their past has formed the present.

Supersymmetry Breaking

The is first period was when the last two forces, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force were separated and the subThe universe starts to cool from its original heat of 1,000 trillion, trillion degrees Centigrade to only 10 trillion degrees Centigrade; this cooling allows those quarks - remember those particles we met last time - to combine and form protons and neutrons. A proton is known as a subatomic positively charged particle of one elementary charge, the number of protons in an atom is shown in its atomic number on those old posters of the Periodic Table.

Back to the science, a neutron is the subatomic hadron particle that has no electrical charge with a mass slightly larger than a proton. 

The Quark Epoch (between 10^–12 seconds and 10^–6 seconds after BBE) had too high a temperature to allow the quarks to form a hadron. The hadron is a composite particle made up of quarks held together by, what is known in the particle physics community as, a strong force.

During the Hadron Epoch (Between 10^–6 seconds and 1 second after BBE) the temperature of the plasma-gluon cloud, remember that one, cooled to 10 billion degrees Centigrade and this allowed the quarks to cool and form hadrons. Neutrons slowly become protons and our first element, Helium, starts to form a nuclei. But the temperature is still too hot for atoms to form.

Next time - we fast forward our trip to the formation of the third rock from the sun.

The Electroweak Epoch and The Inflationary Epoch

I hope that I haven't lost you so far with a very concise history of the expanding universe so far, we have only covered up to 10^–36 seconds after the Big Bang Event (BBE). But within this expansion will be two villages, namely Whatlington and Vinehall Street.

There are two schools of Big Bang Cosmology, the traditional and the inflationary. The traditional school states that the electroweak epoch began at 10^–36 seconds when the temperature is low enough to separate the strong force from the electroweak. The inflationary school suggests that the electroweak epoch began when the inflationary ended at 10^–32 seconds after the BBE. Cox and Cohen (1996) appear to subscribe to the inflationary school and put the inflationary epoch before the electroweak epoch.

The Inflationary Epoch describes a time of super fast expansion of the universe from the size of an atom (between 30 & 300 picometres or 1.0 x 10^-12 metres) to that of a grapefruit (between 5 & 8 centimetres or 0.01 metres) in the period of 10^-21 seconds; thus the expansion increased both lineal and volumetric dimensions. A theorised version of the BBE when it was the size of a grapefruit was theoretically donated to the Museum of Curiosity, a BBC Radio 4 programme, by John Gribben. It is said that if the speed of expansion decreases the universe becomes more chaotic and conversely if the expansion gains accleration it creates a more ordered universe.

Within this expansion is a collection of anti-quarks (the opposite of a quark), electrons (stable subatomic particle with a charge of negative electricity), gluons (a massless, neutral vector boson that mediates strong interactions between quarks, binding them together within hadrons), quarks (an elementary and fundamental particle of matter) and other particles. It is also known as a quark-gluon plasma. The temperature within this expanding space is still around 1,000 trillion, trillion degrees centigrade. This quark-gluon plasma will help to repopulate the universe as it enters the electroweak epoch. I am sure when I was young, there was a type of yoghurt or cheese called Quark.

The Electroweak Epoch was a time (from 10^–36 seconds or the end of the inflation epoch to 10^–12 seconds after the BBE) within the universe's evolution that the 1,000 trillion, trillion degree centigrade heat was able to combine both the electromagnetic force with the weak interactions to form one electroweak interaction. The energetic interactions of the previously named particles within the dense and hot quark-gluon plasma created large quantities of exotic particles - these included the W, Z and Higgs boson. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is attempting to recreate the Higgs boson and other particles. The quarks start to gain mass like the stomach of a person during the meal on Christmas Day.

In brief, a really small cloud of particles expanded to a slightly bigger cloud with these particles becoming slightly heavier and less chaotic. We haven't even reached a second after the BBE yet.

Next time - Supersymmetry Breaking, the Quark Epoch and the Hadron Epoch.

Next time, The Quark Epoch and The Early Universe, have a good day.

The Grand Unification Epoch

In the period between 10^–43 and 10^–36 seconds after the Big Bang Event, space becomes superheated to 1,000 trillion, trillion degrees centigrade. The fluctuations in this temperature or the phase transitions (a bit like condensation and freezing) led to the remaining natural forces to split.  This is known as the Grand Unification Epoch where "the strong nuclear" interaction "splits from the other forces" (Fox & Cohen 1996). It is said that this epoch ends when the forces of the Grand Unification Theory separate in to strong and electroweak forces.

Bear with me, it gets more descriptive soon. If, of course, you think I may have got something wrong, feel free to add a comment - next time The Electroweak Epoch and The Inflationary Epoch.

The Planck Era

With reference to the work of both Professor Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen, Wonders of the Universe, a timeline had been designed to adhere to the current scientific theories as to how the universe expanded and formed after the initial event, aptly named "Big Bang". Possible theories may come later as to what created this event, but suffice to say that for the basis of this blog we are more interested as to how two small conjoined villages, Whatlington and Vinehall Street, in East Sussex came to in existence.

Professor Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen have broken up the events of the estimated 13.7 billion years of the universe's life based on both time and the approximate temperature of space (a video of the timeline can be seen here but it will describe the next few posts). 

Gravity, the natural force of attraction exerted by a celestial body upon objects at or near its surface, is separated from the other forces of nature (the other three forces of nature are electromagnetism, strong nuclear interaction and weak nuclear interaction) at a time point up to 10^–43 seconds after the Big Bang event. This period of time, thought to be the shortest known, is called the Planck Epoch (after Max Planck).

The next posting - The Grand Unification Era

An Experiment - A nearly complete history of Whatlington and Vinehall Street

As you may have seen, last week's posting was not added, this was due to some research into the next stage of this blog.

I have decided to try and write a complete history of Whatlington and Vinehall Street, this does however mean going back at least 13.7 billion years. It is hoped that a short description of an event will be published every day (for at least December and then once a week) and that will take us from that very first event of the expanding universe until the year 2012.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Remembrance Sunday and the Village Hall

As you may have guessed, if you are a reader (avid or not), this post is late but I give you a recollection of last week's Remembrance Service.

The service was held in Whatlington Village Hall, next to the River Line, as the village church is still out of action due. But seats were arranged in a semi-circle with the table acting as an altar near the stage. Some of the congregation members would have remembered the Second World War, one patrolled the cliffs at Fairlight (near Hastings) with the Home Guard.

The service sheet for Rememberance Sunday had a list of the dead from the Whatlington War Memorial for both World Wars. The first person on the list will be familiar to those who have read Charlotte Moore's book about her family house - Hancox: A House and A Family.

1914 - 1918
Gillachrist Moore
Alfred Foster
Arthur Hyland
David Hyland
Frederick Potter
Edward Brooman

1939 - 1945
Anthony Cundy
Charles Masters
Leonard Masters

But can anyone tell me anything about the other people on this memorial. I hope to add a picture of the memorial at some point, does anyone have one.

After the service, I got talking to a couple of the parishioners and started to ask questions about the village hall. How long had the original building been up? There is a sepia photograph of the hall as well as the mill and the mill house. This photograph is found above the service hatch. So let's try and find out when the hall was built.

There is a wooden plaque hung on the wall that lists the Whatlington Parish Council Chairmen:

L. Welstead 1894
H. L. D. Overy 1898
W. W. Adamson 1905
H. F. Buller 1907
J. H. Pound 1909
W. M. Goldsmith 1910
Rev. F. J. Browell 1945
W. W. Deeprose 1949
W. L. T. Lane 1958
W. W. Deeprose 1965
D. J. C. Elliott 1972
R. J. Fuller 1987
R. K. Fisher 1995

I know a reasonable amount about three people, on which I will add later posts, and I possibly know two other names and potentially one name in the late 1800's. But what do other people know.

One last thing about the village hall, for the meantime, by the door leading to the kitchen door is a tray wired to the wall. On talking to one of the parishioners, I was told that it could be described as a tray that may have a design similar to work of Romany Gypsy origin. Does anyone know what the significance is for this tray?

Who works in the Church?

Apologies for the delay in this week's offering; for which there is a potted history of the Parson's nomenclature and a poem on what to call the parish priest.

It is said that the term of rector or vicar goes back to Mediaeval times. If a parson of a university college or a cathedral chapter is employed by a living patron then the parson is said to do the job "vicariously" and thus the term vicar appears. The vicar may get tithes of a lower value compared to the patron.

However if the patron was a Bishop, the parson was then appointed in their own right and being known as the Rector gained the major tithes as a stipend. The tithes may have gone with history but there is a possibility that the local church may have the title to some property. Land that has the word "Glebe" in its name often refers to property that has a church living connected to it.

The Vicar may live in a vicarage and the Rector may live in a rectory, but hopefully neither live in the local churchyard...yet!

A past vicar of Goring gave rise to write a poem on a priest's names.

Call me 'Brother' if you will
Call me 'Padre' better still
Though plain 'Mister' fills the bill.
If that title lacketh thrill
Even 'Father' brings no chill.
Pastor, Rector, Vicar, Friend,
Titles almost without end
Do not grate nor yet offend.
But how that man my heart doth rend
Who merely calls me 'Reverend'!

I am sure that some readers of this blog will recall past vicars of Whatlington who were often tied with Sedlescombe, a later post will recall these figures of the church. If you are reading this post the week when it was written (the 9th of November 2011), a new series of Reverend is being shown on the BBC.

With thanks, more about the Renegades and Philadelphia Turner

You may have noticed if you are a regular reader that there was no posting last week, I apologise for this.

Secondly, if you are an avid reader of the Whatlington News edited and compiled by Steve Turner, you will have noticed a double page spread on this blog. Thank you Steve, this has already prompted a reply to Steve with regards to the piece on the Whatlington Renegades.

I quote from the email sent to Steve, who sent it to me, from Liz Beeching:

"Hello, 

Beechings here, we or rather John  made a banner to take to Battle Bonfire when the children were small (30)  years ago. As he was told off for not asking, he was then later asked if he could turn up with a "new" society next year and thus a bigger banner was made and lots more of our mates joined in.

The Firework company grew out of the above as they got to do the display by default at Hastings, we are the founder members of this society."

So give them a wave as they wend their way through the High Street of Battle on Saturday evening. I have it on record that Steve may be adding more about the Renegades in later monthly issue of the Whatlington News, but I shall also update you on the adventures of the Whatlington Renegades.

On curiously flicking through Google as one does I came across a Family Tree Maker site with some genealogical data. 

A lady called Philadelphia Turner, who was born in Whatlington (no actual date was given) in 1784, being baptised at Whatlington church on the 5th of December 1784. She was the youngest of eight children of Ted and Ann Turner. She married William Eldridge of Iclkesham in Sussex on the 8th of January 1811 at Udimore church.. She died on the 17th of June in 1861 and was buried at on the 20th of June at Northiam aged 75.

Past "In Memoriam" Notices

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that November is a month to remember, I am still awaiting to hear from you with regard to the War Memorial.

But on looking through some old scrap books, I came across a couple of obituary notices from the Whatlington News (dated Easter 1999). The first is of a long term resident from Whatlington and the other was a familiar figure from the village.

Whatlington bids farewell to Lily

Whatlington has lost a long-established resident. Lily Upton, born in Salehurst, had lived there since 1946 and at Brambles on the Green since 1951. She and her husband Jack, who celebrated their golden wedding anniversary six years ago, moved to Roselands in Brede just before Christmas and Lily died there peacefully on the 7th of January.

It was a great loss to her friends, of whom I must be one of the oldest as I had known her since she came to work for my grandmother at Vinehall in 1936. During the war she served for six years in the Naafi, where she learned her matchless skill as a sausage roll maker! Later, she was housekeeper for my mother in Battle for 25 years, becoming a wonderful carer and a really supportive friend. 

Lily would have made an excellent professional nurse, and it was a great joy to her when her daughter Rosemary qualified as as S.R.N.. Later, she and Jack were thrilled when their grandson Russell passed out top of his year with distinction at Plumpton college; he now farms at Burwash.

Essentially a practical person, neighbours could count on Lily's help. Her cooking was famous and her delicious and generous contributions were welcomed at village events. A lover of the countryside, she was a keen gardener with green fingers as well as a skilled flower arranger. recently she got out very little but she still enjoyed the beauty of the flower festivals in the Church.

Always courteous, she was a splendid letter writer: her friends will miss the notes she made sure of sending on special occasions. 

At her funeral in Hastings on January 21 the Rector spoke warmly about Lily and everyone expressed appreciation of her friendship as well as their sympathy for Jack, Rosemary and Ralph and Russell. 

Benedicta Whistler

Last month we had the sad news of the sudden death of David Frith. David was a popular man who seemed to make friends readily. He was known to many through his work as a postman, and through his keen interests in bee-keeping. Many people were recipients of a jar of David's honey.

A couple of years ago, David married Frances and they moved to live in Polegate. David recently had undergone surgery in Eastbourne General Hospital. 

He died on February 21st and his funeral was at Whatlington on March 3rd followed by his burial in our churchyard. We offer our sympathy to his wife Frances, to his daughter Carol and to all the family. may David rest in peace with the risen Lord whom he loved and served.

Father Colin Pritchard

As I said at the beginning of this posting, both these notices were originally printed in the Whatlington News around Easter 1999. The reason why I posted these past "In Memoriam" notices is that I am interested in what people remember of both of these people and look forward to reading your comments.

Red leaves, what used to happen in the Village Hall and a lot of questions

So another week had arrived and I hope that the shock to the system with the Indian Summer two weekends ago was not too great. However that sudden burst of warmer weather will have helped to create a autumnal rainbow of colours. 

Why do they turn different colours in autumn? A relatively easy article to read from How Stuff Works explains that the green leaves, containing chlorophyll, turn carbon dioxide, sunlight and water into energy through photosynthesis. Easy so far.  As stated earlier, the chlorophyll aids the transformation with the assistance of pigments carotene and xanthophyll. These pigments are found in all leaves, the carotene adding an orangey hue, similar to egg yolks, and the xanthophyll adding a yellow colour. However, when autumn comes, the deciduous trees prepare for hibernation in a two step process: primarily the tree creates a cork like layer at the end of each leaf so that it may eject the leaf at some point later in the year and thus it seals off the tree from potential infection; secondly, the production of chlorophyll decreases and this gives the carotene and xanthophyll a chance to add oranges and yellows to the leaf.  

The red colour comes from a different substance that is not present in all leaves, this is anthocyanin. Even if this substance is within the leaf, it may not produce the red colour in autumn as it depends on certain environmental parameters. The tree will try to recover as much sugar and energy from the leaf before it falls to the ground, and this is where the anthocyanin becomes necessary. It is thought that if the weather is still sunny and quite dry int he late summer and early autumn, a greater number of anthocyanins are released from the tree sap to the leaves in order to make more sugars and other nutrients. Some scientists say that other stress events, such as near freezing weather, can increase the level of anthocyanins. It is also thought that the red pigment acts as a protection for the leaf. So with the weather we have had, I expect to see increased amounts of orange (carotenes), red (anthocyanins) and yellow (xanthophylls) in the falling leaves. 

 I had a wonderful chat with the ladies in the Battle branch of Age UK East Sussex recently. There was Sally Davis and Rosemary Gallagher. Rose took over the organisation of the children's party in the village hall a few years after Cyril and Alice Carey had managed it, as Cyril had died and Alice had moved to Hollington; George Sax was the chairman of the committee and a flier had been sent to all the villagers stating that if no-one came forward to take on the running of the party, it would no longer exist. Rose was secretary and Chris Hayles was treasurer in the early 1980s. Can anyone remember these parties and have I spelt Chris's surname correctly?

Rose, came to the village in 1972, also ran the Whatlington Table Tennis Association in the Village Hall in the late 60's and early 70's, does anyone remember this or did you win any prizes there? It ran on a weekday night with the table tennis table being transported down the hill to the village hall. Latterly, a table tennis table was bought, but with dwindling numbers and the rise of Village Hall hire costs, the club sadly closed. 

Not only did Rose run these two clubs, she also organised a Saturday morning club for parents to drop their children off at the Village Hall so that shopping could be done without taking the children to the shops. All sorts of activities used to occur here, especially drawing and painting. At the time, Miss Pratt of Park Lane used to be in charge of the Village Hall. Can anyone remember this was? Sally Davis came to the village in 1979 with her husband, Clive.

November comes

Yes, I know we have only just entered October and what a glorious start to it with balmy weather and the fauna and flora not knowing what to do, I would like you to cast your minds forward to the next month. The month where we remember two days, the fifth and the eleventh.

A few years ago, I wrote an article in the Whatlington News about the Whatlington Renegades. Some of you may ask who are they? Google provides 174 articles about them. They are one of many bonfire societies in Sussex, thirty-nine in fact with seven coming from Lewes. The first Sussex bonfire starts on the first Saturday of September with the Uckfield Carnival Bonfire and ends with the Barcombe and Robertsbridge Bonfires on the third Saturday of November. 

One forum describes the Whatlington Renegades as "in their skins and skulls appear to have escaped from a Conan movie." One website shows a picture of Gerry Glenister's badged tailcoat who used to carry the drum for the Whatlington Renegades, does he still carry the drum? I have found a photo on Flickr with the badged drummer, is this Gerry? 

I have found a photographic blog with some of the Whatlington Renegades making torches for an early bonfire on the 10th of October 1998. Included are John Beeching, Peter Breach, Brian Gasson,  Gerry and Jean Glenister, Eileen LeNett, Min, Roy Robins and Margaret Trowell. This site describes the Whatlington Renegades as a society with no rules or membership usually found drumming at the rear of the procession.

But can anyone tell me who runs this society today, is it still John Beeching? What can they tell me about their history of the society? You never know, we may get something before the fifth of November.

Of course, the other time in November is when we remember the fallen from the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries. Does anyone have a photograph of the War memorial at Whatlington Church? I expect the service will be held at the Village Hall, but can anyone tell me of past Remembrance services?

I have just looked at the audience statistics for the blog, admittedly we haven't got many readers yet, but a waterfall starts with one drop. However we have had five visits to the site from Russia, does anyone have any ideas why Russia may be interested in a small Sussex village?

Donation to the Church Appeal Fund

This week, I have been asked by Hilda Aplin, the Whatlington Village Voice reporter, to post on the Whatlington and Vinehall Street Archive an article that was first reported in the Battle and Rye Observer (Friday the 23rd of September 2011):

What a tremendous boost the Appeal Fund has had this week; the balance of it has nearly doubled!

When I opened the post last week, I was thinking about the church's forthcoming Harvest Festival and what I needed to buy. Harvest is a time when we thank God for all the fruits of the earth.

This Harvest time will be extra special for the church this year and we have much to be thankful for; as inside the letter was a cheque for £10,000 for the Appeal Fund. Our generous benefactor, who has kindly donated this money, wishes to remain anonymous.

I am absolutely dumbfounded by their generosity and it means that the Appeal Fund now stands at £28,519.15; more than ever I had expected, in this deep economic climate.

Can I thank the person, through this column (and blog); that is of course if they read this column (or blog). 

I also had a generous donation from Tom and Jacqueline for smaller amounts but still valued as much. I cannot emphasise enough that we all give what we are able to; some can give more or less than others as some people have more than others, but that amount donated does not matter t me. What I think about is the love, kindness and thought that come with the gift!

The Parochial Council were invited to visit the wood yard where the roof timbers (for the church) are being renewed or repaired this week, but it was felt that as the timbers are likely to be re-erected at the beginning of October at the church, that members would rather see the timbers in situ.

This archive will return to normal service next week, but thanks once again to the anonymous donor(s).

The Harvest Festival

To those of you reading this, we are now obviously in September with the autumnal mornings. I am often told, by a few fellow villagers, that it is great hop picking weather. Does anyone know what this means? What is hop picking weather? Does anyone know if they were any hop gardens in Whatlington or Vinehall Street. I know there used to be some in Robertsbridge and Salehurst, there even used to hop gardens owned by the Guinness Estate in nearby Bodiam. The website of Bygone Bodiam shows some of the hop gardens. 

Did anyone, in the village, ever use beer tokens or those old clay ginger beer bottles? A photo can be seen here.

I hope everyone, who reads this blog, that lives in the village knows that there is a vineyard. I know of two people, who live in the village used to prune the vines, and I have picked the grapes. Sorry, you are supposed to cut the stalk of the bunch of grapes with secateurs. However with that hop picking weather, a form of foggy or misty morning where the sun's angle is starting to become lower in the sky, means that you will get really wet arms and upper chest from the picking through the foliage to find the grapes. Has anyone got any stories of pruning and picking the grape in Whatlington or does anyone know of any land within the village boundaries where a vineyard may have been. It should have a south facing slope but it could be south west or south east facing. I am hoping that someone will be able to tell me more exacting conditions for a vineyard.

Other activities within the village that could provide produce for a Harvest Festival include a strawberry and raspberry pick your own farm; milk from three dairies; beef from cattle, lamb from sheep; wheat, barley and potatoes. I shall give you some answers next week, but have I missed any produce that has been grown in the village?

Next week, what did villagers do in the village hall? 

As September arrives we think of past and present church services...

As the church at Whatlington, St. Mary Magdalene, is a relatively rural church, it may stand to reason that a few of the past services used to be, and still are, based on the more rural or agricultural pursuits or maybe I am wrong - please feel free to comment below if I have got things wrong or even right!

Plough Sunday - does anyone remember the Young Farmers taking a tractor and plough, or was it a horse, to Sedlescombe church? This ceremony is said to go back to Victorian Times, according to the Church of England's Seasons and Festivals of the Agricultural Year, or further still as it could have been used to celebrate the first working day after the Twelve Days of Christmas. This ceremony is celebrated between the 7th and the 13th of January (the Sunday after Epiphany). The document also goes on to state that the ploughs used to be kept in the church during the winter.

Creation - The Church of England has recently created a form of celebrations based on the biblical traditions surrounding the Creation and a date put forward to celebrate this day on the Second Sunday before Lent. Does anyone in the village know if this has been celebrated at Whatlington?

Rogationtide - There are 4 Rogation days including April 25th and the three days before Ascension Day and it was originally thought, in Graeco-Romano days, as a way of invoking the work of the Gods to rid the crops of mildew. This grew into a festival of beating the boundaries of the Parish and the fields as well as a blessing of the land. One such example of this service in Whatlington went from St. Mary Magdalene Church to Leeford Farm then a hike to Maddamswood onto Vinehall and then back to Hancox with the service finishing on the green by the Royal Oak. Can anyone remember when this happened and has it ever been repeated?

Lammastide - often called Loaf Mass, as the service was held as a thanksgiving for the first fruits of the wheat harvest. The first of August was usually used as Lammastide and the local farms would bring their first sheaf of wheat as well baked items using local produce. I had heard that Vinehall Farm would bring their sheaf, does anyone know who else brought their sheaves? I also heard that the local baker, Mr. Honeysett from Mountfield would bake a loaf in the shape of a wheat sheaf for both Mountfield and Whatlington churches, does anyone else know of this tradition?

Harvest Festival or Sunday - This occurs around the time of the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox (about Sept. 23), which often occurs in October, and was first recognised by the Church of England in 1862. Can anyone tell me what happened in Whatlington Church with regard to this service?

With reference to the Church of England's Seasons and Festivals of the Agricultural Year, a recent addition has been added to create prayers in times of agricultural crises. This has recently included the recent outbreak of foot and mouth in England that restricted the movement of both mammal and person across the countryside, can anyone remember what happened at the church at this time?

As you may see, I have asked a lot more questions this time, so how do you answer these questions, either by sending an email to wvarchive@hotmail.co.uk or by adding a comment below. Thank you.