Sussex Tours

21/09/2023

Excellent news! The film will be on general release on Friday 6 October 🎬

Bernard Jordan, the 'Great Escaper', and his wife Rene were residents of Hove.

We hear more about Bernard's extraordinary adventure during the guided walking tour 'Bombs, Battlefields and Bravery Remembered'.

Michael Caine attended the premiere of his new film 'The Great Escaper,' based on a true story and co-starring Glenda Jackson, who died in June at 87. Caine, 90, recently suggested the movie is 'probably' is last

18/06/2023

With its mixture of pretty cottages and elegant Georgian Houses, quaint shops and galleries, and even a picture perfect duck pond, Rottingdean certainly is an attractive village. Combined with its wealth of history and the interesting people associated with it, it’s also a great place to explore on a guided tour.

What’s more, there are plenty of places to enjoy a Sunday lunch after the tour with several pubs, tea rooms and cafés available to visitors!

https://facebook.com/events/s/rottingdean-smugglers-and-stor/166888425979545/

10/06/2023

Originally from Belfast, Gary Moore made Brighton and Hove his home. Gary was perhaps best known as a guitarist in Thin Lizzy.

Other guitar players have referred to his influence, and he's been voted as one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

We hear more during our guided walking tour of Rottingdean - Smugglers and Storytellers
https://facebook.com/events/s/rottingdean-smugglers-and-stor/166888425979545/

04/06/2023

Charles 'Darby' Sabini came from Clerkenwell, London.

As leader of the Sabini Gang he dominated the London underworld and racecourses throughout the south of England for much of the early 20th century.

His gang obtained the core of its income from racecourse protection rackets operated against bookmakers. It was also involved in a range of criminal activities including extortion, theft, as well as operating several nightclubs.

At its peak, Sabini had extensive police and political connections including judges, politicians, and police officials.

In 1926 he moved from London to Brighton. He died in 1950 and was buried in Hove Cemetery.

He was immortalised as the gangster Colleoni in Graham Greene's novel 'Brighton Rock'.

He was also portrayed in the BBC series 'Peaky Blinders', were he was played by British-born Australian actor Noah Taylor.

We hear more about Sabini and his activities in Brighton & Hove during our guided tour of Hove's Old Cemetery - https://facebook.com/events/s/mobster-mutiny-and-military-me/613609947353874/

07/08/2022

Constantine Alexander Ionides was a stockbroker, collector and patron of the arts during the Victorian era.

When he died in 1900, he left his collection of paintings, prints, and drawings to the Victoria and Albert Museum, specifying that they were to be made available to the public. Today, the Ionides collection is one of very few surviving undispersed Victorian collections of progressive art.

Ionides himself left little documentary evidence about his collecting activity. Some surviving letters addressed to him are from Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and concern the commission and progress of one of his finest pictures, ‘The Day Dream’, a portrait of Jane Morris. In various letters, among other matters, Rossetti assures Ionides of a fair price, tactfully accepts his patron’s advice on matters such as ‘a darker background’, and gives detailed recommendations for how the painting should be displayed.

From these photos of the interior of his home in Hove circa 1890, we can see how Ionides decided to display the painting. It is still on display but now for the public to see at the V&A.

We hear more about C. A. Ionides during our guided walking tour of Hove’s Old Cemetery, ‘Mobster, Mutiny and Military Mettle’.
https://facebook.com/events/s/mobster-mutiny-and-military-me/681412862968946/

02/07/2022

St Mary's House and Gardens is a splendid Grade I house surrounded by formal and topiary gardens. The origins of St. Mary's date from the days of the Knights Templar, when the widow of Philip de Braose, the Lord of Bramber, gave the religious order the five acres of land. The present building was constructed in about 1450 to serve as an inn for pilgrims on their way to Canterbury.

We hear more about St. Mary’s during our guided walking tour of Bramber - Kings and the Castle.
https://facebook.com/events/s/bramber-kings-and-the-castle/1424772901311012/

On the same day as our tour, St. Mary’s is opening its gardens in support of the National Garden Scheme West Sussex. Why not round off your afternoon in Bramber with a visit to its garden and tea room!
https://ngs.org.uk/view-garden/11007?utm_source=NGS-app&utm_medium=referral

26/06/2022

Taxidermy was popular with the Victorians, including with Walter Potter, the son of the pub landlord in Bramber, Sussex, who began experimenting with taxidermy aged 15.

Walter developed his own twist on taxidermy by creating tableaux which told stories using numerous different animals. Aged 19, Walter had produced his first tableau for which he would become well known; ‘The Original Death and Burial of C**k Robin’ inspired by a book of stories belonging to his younger sister.

Walter produced 98 stuffed birds which made up the sorrowful funeral procession of C**k Robin together with the Sparrow who killed him with his bow and arrow, Parson Rook and the Owl who dug the grave, accompanied by the mourners, all of whom made their way through the graveyard.

Popular with customers when it was displayed in the summer house of his father’s pub, this tableau launched Walter’s career. He developed his collection and displayed it in a purpose built museum nearby, and which was for many years a draw for visitors to Bramber.

We hear more about Walter Potter and his extraordinary museum during our guided walking tour through Bramber - Kings and the Castle.
https://facebook.com/events/s/bramber-kings-and-the-castle/1424772901311012/

05/06/2022

Flora Robson was born in South Shields in 1902, she later made Brighton her home. A star of stage and screen, she made her theatrical debut in 1921 and featured in films in both Hollywood and Britain by the 1930s.

A talented actress, Dame Flora appeared in more than 100 stage plays and 60 films. She was famed for her portrayal of a diverse range of characters from murderer to royalty, including Queen Elizabeth I, who she played twice, first in the 1937 film Fire Over England and again in The Sea Hawk, 1940.

We hear more about Dame Flora and her remarkable life during our guided walking tour in Brighton ‘Special Agent, Suffragettes and Standard-Bearers’.
https://facebook.com/events/s/special-agent-suffragettes-and/1124338058348535/

28/05/2022

Award-winning actress, singer and songwriter Cynthia Erivo will star in and produce a film based on the remarkable life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta.

Sarah was the African princess who, after being orphaned and enslaved in West Africa, was rescued by Captain Forbes and presented to Queen Victoria; Sarah became a ward and goddaughter of the Queen.

If you can’t wait for the film to be released, we hear more about Sarah’s extraordinary life during our guided walking tour in Brighton ‘Special Agent, Suffragettes and Standard-Bearers’.
https://facebook.com/events/s/special-agent-suffragettes-and/1124338058348535

08/05/2022

The iconographic symbol of St Cuthman with his mother in a wooden cart greets visitors and locals alike to Steyning. Currently, the image of St. Cuthman is wrapped in the Ukrainian flag, his mother warmed by a crocheted shawl!

Thought to have been born in Chidham, near Chichester, around 681, Cuthman was likely to have been baptised by St Wilfrid himself. His legend states he was a shepherd who had to care for his paralysed mother after his father's death.

We hear more about St. Cuthman and his association to Steyning during our guided walking tour - Saxons and their Saint.
https://facebook.com/events/s/steyning-saxons-and-their-sain/1089792214929664/

09/04/2022

Darby Sabini was born in 1888, and grew up in Clerkenwell, London. During the 1920s he was one of the leading gangsters of the time, and there was lot of money to be made from extortion rackets at the race courses.

19 March 1924, Topical Times published an article in which they described the Sabini Gang as “Racecourse Pests”. The article claimed that Sabini was the main leader of a race course gang which threatened bookies with revolvers. He was outraged and took legal action against the DC Thomson newspaper over the article…

15 December 1925, London, the case was to be heard in front of the King’s Bench. When Sabini failed to attend, the Lord Chief Justice found for the defendant and awarded costs. He had failed to appear in court because he could not afford the £75 cost of a solicitor. When substantial costs were awarded against him, Sabini failed to pay the costs and other debts, and he was declared bankrupt in June 1926. After that, he left London and relocated to Brighton and Hove

We hear more during our guided walking tour of Hove’s Old Cemetery - Mobster, Mutiny and Military Mettle https://facebook.com/events/s/mobster-mutiny-and-military-me/1395716667513743/

13/03/2022

Tomorrow night at 9pm, BBC 2 is showing the second and concluding episode of the documentary - The Real Peaky Blinders. This episode is trailed as including the notorious gangster, Darby Sabini. Episode One is available on the iPlayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00157r3

We hear more about Sabini during our guided walking tour of Hove’s Old Cemetery - Mobster, Mutiny and Military Mettle.

If you’ve previously been on my cemetery tour this may well be of interest to you. If you’re yet to take the tour, the next one is on Saturday 30 April https://facebook.com/events/s/mobster-mutiny-and-military-me/1395716667513743/

The origins of the real Peaky Blinders, a 19th-century Birmingham street gang movement.

06/03/2022

North End House in Rottingdean was once home to author Enid Bagnold and her husband Sir Roderick Jones, chairman of Reuters.

It may no longer have a stable to store a Grand National winning horse, but the elegant home was where Enid wrote National Velvet and it’s 1.2 acre garden inspired her well known play, The Chalk Garden.

Enid is best known for her enduring 1935 classic novel National Velvet, which was turned into a film in 1944 starring Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp and a 12yo Elizabeth Taylor.

The story, which was inspired by Enid’s daughter Laurian's obsession with horses, it is about a girl called Velvet Brown who wins a horse in a raffle and disguises herself as a boy to ride it to victory in the Grand National. It is set in a small English coastal village in Sussex and caused uproar in Rottingdean, particularly with the village butchers who felt they were cruelly caricatured as Velvet's family.

We hear more during our guided walking tour of Rottingdean - Smugglers and Storytellers https://fb.me/e/2lg9FXlEF

06/11/2021

The Brighton Digital Festival is currently underway. The event ‘Pioneer’ an augmented reality artwork by Lucuana Haill has seen the return of Magnus Volk’s ‘Daddy Long Legs’ back to Brighton seafront; it is geotagged to its original location from Banjo Groyne to Rottingdean. A wonderful, innovative project for today, sharing Volk’s fantastic innovation of the past!

This project, part funded by the Lottery and the Arts Council, will be available to access for the next year. For full details, please see https://brightondigitalfestival.org.uk/programme/pioneer-victorian-engineering-ambition-in-augmented-reality

We hear more about the Daddy Long Legs during our guided walking tour of Rottingdean - ‘Smugglers and Storytellers’.

01/08/2021

The Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway was part tram, part boat and part seaside pier - chugging through the waves to take passengers between the two locations. Named Pioneer, it was equipped with a lifeboat and lifebelts, and operated by a qualified sea captain.

It was built on 24ft stilts above the sea allowing it to pass through 15ft of water at high tide if necessary, and which inspired its nickname Daddy Long Legs. The twenty-minute journey was a novelty when the railway first opened in November 1896.

We hear more during our guided walking tour of Rottingdean - Smugglers and Storytellers https://fb.me/e/VrHysvC3

25/07/2021

The board game Cluedo was first patented by Anthony Pratt in 1944. He’d worked as a musician during the interwar years, playing concerts in country hotels when often the organised evening entertainment included murder mystery games.

Actors and hotel guests played characters in a plot which involved a murder for the hotel guests to solve. These, together with Pratt's love of detective fiction including Agatha Christie, provided the inspiration for Cluedo.

Originally named ‘Murder at Tudor Close' it was created to provide some entertainment for those in the shelters during lengthy air raids. After the war it was picked up by Waddingtons although production was delayed until 1949 due to material shortages in post-war Britain. They renamed it Cluedo, a combination of clue and ludo - Latin for 'I play'.

We hear more during our guided walking tour of Rottingdean - Smugglers and Storytellers https://fb.me/e/VrHysvC3

13/07/2021

The Rottingdean windmill occupies a commanding position overlooking the village, as well as Beacon Hill and the sea. It is a prominent landmark visible from a couple of miles away.

We hear more during our guided walking tour of Rottingdean - Smugglers and Storytellers https://fb.me/e/VrHysvC3

13/07/2021

Hello

I’m a qualified Blue Badge Tourist Guide for South-East England. I also operate a programme of heritage guided walking tours available as public events, which I advertise on this page.

If you’d like to be added to my mailing list for notification of future public events, please let me know at [email protected].

For more information about me and my guiding work, please click on the link: https://southeastbestguides.org/user/tania-noddings/

Best wishes
Tania

Tania Noddings is on South East England Tourist Guides Association. Join South East England Tourist Guides Association to view Tania Noddings\'s profile

07/06/2021

Hove’s Grand Avenue: as it was envisaged, as it became and as it is today.

We hear more during our guided walking tour through Hove - Brunswick to the ‘Burbs.
https://fb.me/e/2gAQcOvsi

03/05/2021

Laid out to its Victorian design, Hove’s Old Cemetery is an absorbing and fascinating place to explore. To find out more about Hove and the lives of some of the people who once lived here, join a guided walking tour of the Cemetery on Saturday 22 May

In the morning at 10:30
https://fb.me/e/1oozu5Q9m

Repeated at 2pm
https://fb.me/e/1cY6Xzoob

In this post covid world, booking is essential please, with contactless payment in advance. Thank you

17/04/2021

A guided walking tour of Hove’s Old Cemetery, on Saturday 22 May

In the morning at 10:30
https://fb.me/e/1oozu5Q9m

Repeated at 2pm
https://fb.me/e/1cY6Xzoob

In this post covid world, booking is essential please, with contactless payment in advance. Thank you

01/04/2021

Looking forward to getting back guiding, as soon as the lifting of government restrictions allow.

First heritage walking tour available as a public event is on Saturday 22 May, a tour of Hove Old Cemetery

In the morning at 10:30
https://fb.me/e/1oozu5Q9m

Repeated at 2pm
https://fb.me/e/1cY6Xzoob

In this post covid world, booking is essential please, with contactless payment in advance. Thank you

26/02/2021

I’m very much looking forward to getting out guiding again this year!

I’m now available for bookings in line with the government timetable for the lifting of Covid restrictions. Please do get in touch to arrange a private group booking for any of my heritage tours.

I’ll also be offering a programme of guided walking tours available as public events from Saturday 22 May, which I’ll advertise on this page.
Tania

21/02/2021

Happy ‘International Tourist Guides Day’ to friends and colleagues!

So looking forward to getting out again soon and meeting new and returning visitors, exploring and showing off the best the South-East has to offer to tourists from home and abroad.



South East England Tourist Guides Association
British Guild of Tourist Guides