Waldron

SUSSEX HARMONY: The delightful group of West Gallery singers Sussex Harmony made a return visit to All Saints' last weekend to bring us a programme of music from rural Sussex and its environs (including a hymn called Waldron). It's a pity there weren't more in the audience because they were brilliant and we learnt a lot about the history and tradition of the music we would have enjoyed up till the mid-19th century in our own little church. Why West Gallery? Way back then the exclusively male musicians (who brought their own instruments along) sat in a gallery as far away from the priest as possible that is, at the west end and the congregation turned to face the singers when they joined in the music. By all accounts (read Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree for more) churchgoing was a jolly affair at least as far as the music was concerned, though hour-long sermons filled with fire and brimstone must have been a counter to too much jollification. Then the Victorians rebuilt and extended village churches and sneakily pulled down the choir gallery, moving the choir stalls to the other end of the church, putting the choristers under the eye of the priest. The amateur musicians with their ancient viols and recorders (and even the occasional serpent) were discouraged and drowned out by the arrival of the organ and that particular tradition of church music gradually died out. But not entirely, because the Reverend RH MacDermott took it upon himself to write (in his own handwriting!) to no less than 200 parishes asking for information about the old village music and the people who performed it. One of those who responded was George Collins of Rafters in Waldron Street (builder, contractor, undertaker, house decorator, signwriter and glazier and sometime wheelwright) who was able to list some of the musicians and singers who had performed at All Saints through the nineteenth century, some of them born in the late 18th century. His letter to Rev Mac Dermott is amongst the papers of the Sussex Archaeological