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BITS AND BOBS<br />
TOWN PLAQUES #15: FORMER BURIAL GROUND, CLIFFE<br />
By the late 1970s, traffic problems in <strong>Lewes</strong> had improved considerably<br />
with the building of Phoenix Causeway and the by-pass in the previous<br />
decade – no longer was a two-way Cliffe Bridge the only way to cross<br />
the Ouse! However, for those living in South Street (effectively the link<br />
road to the A27) the relentless noisy traffic past their doors was unbearable.<br />
Plans were prepared for what was at that time to be the longest<br />
road tunnel in the UK not passing under water. Several cottages on the<br />
south side of Malling Street were cleared, as was the burial ground belonging to the church of St Thomas a<br />
Becket in Cliffe High Street, to make way for the new roundabout at the tunnel mouth. A stone plaque on<br />
the retaining wall records this loss. The 420-metre tunnel opened in December, 1980 preceded by a “walkthrough<br />
Sunday” when <strong>Lewes</strong>ians could stroll through to admire this feat of engineering. Marcus Taylor<br />
LEWES WORTHY<br />
“I think in the early days it was considered all a bit of a joke. Nobody really expected the Bluebell Railway<br />
to last more than six months,” says Bill Brophy, chairman of the Bluebell Railway Trust. “Nobody’d done<br />
it before, the odds were horrendous, and of course, the small membership didn’t have any money.” But,<br />
luckily, Bernard Holden (1908-2012) was an optimist.<br />
During the Blitz, he’d helped plan train routes around bomb-damaged lines. Later in the war, he’d run<br />
trains in India, having to contend with Japanese troops, wild animals and monsoons. “You’ve got to be a bit<br />
of an optimist to deal with that, haven’t you?” says Brophy. By the late 1950s, when four students knocked<br />
on his door asking for help reopening the Bluebell Line, Holden was already a long-serving railwayman.<br />
Around this time “British Railways had an image problem”, which they partly blamed on steam trains,<br />
Brophy says. “There’d become a time when it was frowned upon if you put up a picture of a steam train<br />
in the office.” So Holden, as a British Rail employee taking a lead role in the Bluebell project, was taking<br />
quite a risk.<br />
‘His support, expertise and connections were vital’, his obituary in Bluebell News noted. He went on ‘to<br />
lead the project for half a century.’ An astute man, an enemy of wastefulness who even reused envelopes,<br />
Holden was also an energetic, good-humoured figure. In 1991, by which time the Bluebell was getting<br />
200,000 visitors a year, he was interviewed by The Times. ‘Friends used to think I was a nutter,’ he said. ‘But<br />
they don’t anymore.’ Steve Ramsey