By Elizabeth Wright
Stephen Blackmore (1833-1920) was described by historian Arthur Broke as, “The last of the old race of Southdown shepherds, a man apart from his fellows; one who has his own customs, followed traditions and was full of wise saws and a homely wisdom that came largely of a life of contemplation amongst his lonely hills. In addition he had a fame that spread throughout the hinterland of East Sussex and even beyond the confines of the county. A knowledgeable man, his knowledge included an understanding of prehistoric flint implements of which he had a fine collection.”
Stephen was born at Falmer, near Brighton, and while still a boy, “I became messenger in the household of Lord Chichester, but the call of the Downs was always in my ears.” For many years, with just his working bearded collie dogs for company, he tended his five hundred strong flock of Southdown sheep in the East Dean area. This was a laborious job, dutifully carried out 365 days a year, with long hours being spent out in all weathers watching the sheep. The animals grazed freely out on the hills during the daytime but were brought in and ‘close folded’ at night, fenced within temporary wattle hurdles that were moved around so their trodden-in dung fertilised the thin, light, chalky soil, eventually making it excellent for crop growing.
Stephen Blackmore’s working clothes consisted of an ancient greatcoat over a short blue or grey unbleached linen smock that was almost weatherproof, with a battered, broad-brimmed, soft felt hat, known as ‘a chumney’ and gaiters around his legs. On special occasions, such as a wedding or Sunday church, the working smock would be changed for one of white with honeycomb patterns of stitching across the shoulders. In his later years Stephen’s face had become wrinkled and tanned from age and weather, his beard just short, bristly stubble. He was one of the last shepherds to use a Pyecombe Hook, a crook which was made from an old gun barrel and did not bend when securing sheep, its curled metal end perfectly made to capture the hind leg of a reluctant ewe or the neck of a skittish lamb. He called the modern crooks ‘numb things’ because they were produced using softer iron.
In conversations at the age of seventy with author Arthur Beckett he said, in his strong Sussex dialect, that “Eight and farty year I have minded ship (sheep) on these hills and I never once remember having a day off sickness ‘cept when I lost my hand.” As a lad when operating a chaff – cutter, he had lost his right arm. “It was taken clean off, not hanging by as much as a bit of skin.” When the doctor tended to the terrible wound “My feather (father) wouldn’t allow ‘em to give me no chloroform, not believin’ in such stuff.”
[Chaff Cutter – A mechanical device for cutting hay or straw into small pieces before being mixed together with other forage and fed to horses and cattle.]
He said his mother back home was still alive at the age of ninety. “It is a good thing to have a mother, sir, good or bad, I say. Mine is a good one, thank God.” He talked about retiring from what was a tough life, saying, “I thinks of giving up ship (sheep) mindin’ and going into something else as wages now is so very bad. My sons want me to. They are good lads. I’ve brought up two on ‘em, and buried one darter (daughter). I think sometime she’s better under the ground than alive these days. She might be married to some scamp who’d treat her bad. They doant (don’t) marry so much for love nowadays as they did when I was young.”
His downland cottage, tucked in a hollow at Hodcombe, was built of brick and flint with a small garden filled with rows of potatoes and cabbages. The home was tended by his wife, Maria, (formerly Herriot Ede, whom he married on the 25 May 1861) a tough Sussex bred lady who was frugal and hard working and kept their home spotlessly clean. Her first gift to her husband after marriage was a hand-made, embroidered smock. Traditionally, prospective farmer’s or shepherd’s wives were expected to be able to make ‘a round-frock’ and ‘a beef staak puddun’.
Inside his cottage Stephen Blackmore had built up an impressive selection of prehistoric flint implements, arrow-heads, heavy axe heads and sling-stones, mostly of Neolithic types, which he had found over the many years of shepherding on the Downs. “There are hundreds out there if you know where to look.” He was told by “a gen’leman who knew all about it,” that this was one of the finest collections of flint implements in England.
An article about his finds was published in a London newspaper and as a result, “I was worrited to death by a gen’leman from one of they Lunnon (London) Museums.” An official from the South Kensington Museum offered to buy his prehistoric flints, but Stephen Blackmore indignantly declined the offer. As a result of the publicity, a number of inquisitive visitors came knocking at his cottage door asking to see his collection. To some of the callers that he realised were unknowledgeable, and had come just out of sheer curiosity, he sometimes would play a practical joke by picking up a common flint from the ground and examine it closely. When asked what he had found he would say, “Only one o’ they old flints, sir, you may’s well keep it.” And the unsuspecting visitor would proudly carry off the worthless present.
English novelist George Gissing, a teacher and tutor, who wrote 23 books, noted in 1887, “I came across a wonderful man yesterday, one Stephen Blackmore, a shepherd away on the Downs. He had been all his life collecting relics of the Stone Age, arrowheads etc. and has a great collection in his house. I went home with him and saw it…….I found him studying ‘Man Before Metals’, one of the International Scientific Series.”
In 1892 the Sussex Archaeological Society reported: “The society’s museum has received a large and interesting addition to the collection of historic exhibits in the shape of some 700 Neolithic flint implements (Sussex) from the district Eastdean, comprising celts, hammer-stones, scrapers, flakes, chisels, and presented by Mr. Stephen Blackmore, a shepherd of Eastdean, who, with a quick eye, much patience, and great discrimination had by degrees accumulated a large and varied collection.” The shepherd did decide to keep a number of the best examples for himself.
Stephen Blackmore’s wife died in 1905 and he never really recovered from his loss, telling a close friend, “I married my wife for love, sir, and we lived on ten shillin’ a week”.
With deteriorating health, he was finally forced to give up the job he loved and moved to the Almshouse in Seaford. From there he went on to the Eastbourne Workhouse Infirmary and finally to the Workhouse at Steyning, where he died in 1920 at the age of 87. For a while, his final resting place was a mystery because workhouse inmates were placed in unmarked paupers’ graves, but, intriguingly the entry in the ‘when and where buried’ records for Stephen Blackmore stated, ‘removed by Newman.’
Lloyd Brunt wrote a piece for the Eastbourne Herald on August 1, 2016, saying that one of Stephen Blackmore’s relatives had discovered his final resting place, “Which was right under our noses all the time and we missed it.” He is buried in plot 2369 at Seaford Cemetery, East Sussex, beside his wife, Maria, his name being added to the headstone along with those of their three children who died in infancy..
‘The distant down is dappled by a thousand grey-white sheep,
The tuneful tinkle of their bells steals from the far off steep;
And as you watch the shepherd calls, ‘Goo, fetch um home, good Tray’
The faithful collie folds the flock at the purple close of day.’
Arthur Beckett.
Fascinating reading about my great great grandfather, thank you for writing this up. My dad, Geoffrey Blackmore, did a painting from the photo you have used. My grandfather was very proud of that painting!
I do want to visit Stephen Blackmore’s grave. I have visited the site of his cottage on Beachy Head, which was a wonderful experience.
I would love to hear more about my family if you have anything else to share.