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WW2 Polish pilot memorial
Born in 1916, Bolesław Andrzej Własnowolski was a Polish fighter ace in WW2. He fought in the Polish 1939 September 1939 Campaign and the 1940 Battle of Britain. Własnowolski joined the Polish Air Force in October 1936, training to be a fighter pilot during 1937. In June 1939 he was posted to 122 Squadron, which flew Polish PZL P.11c fighter aircraft.
After the USSR invaded Poland on 17 September 1939 his aircraft division was evacuated to Romania. After a dangerous journey, by ship to Lebanon and then Marseille, in late 1939 Własnowolski left France for England to transfer to the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
In August 1940 Własnowolski joined No. 32 Squadron at RAF Biggin Hill airfield in Kent. In September he was then transferred to 607 Squadron, which flew Hurricanes like the one above, from RAF Tangmere West Sussex.
Did you know?
Hurricanes were one of the first aircraft to have metal covered wings. They also had the advantage that repair work required was relatively simple and could be done by ground crew at the airfield, with a damaged wing able to be changed in just three hours!
During the Battle of Britain in August and September 1940 Własnowolski claimed two Messerschmitt Bf 109s and two Dornier Do 17s. On 17 September he was transferred to 213 Squadron in Tangmere, Chichester, which also flew Hurricanes.
Did you know?
It was Hurricanes rather than Spitfires that were the heroes of the Battle of Britain, as their pilots shot down 60% of the German Luftwaffe aircraft.
On 1 November 1940 a Bf 109 shot him down over Stoughton and he crashed fatally on a farm near the village. His monument is on the path to Kingley Vale from Stoughton, beside the field where his Hurricane came to rest.
The memorial inscription reads: In this field, on 1st November 1940 Pilot Officer Bolesław Własnowolski V.M., K.W. Royal Air Force 213 Squadron R.A.F. Tangmere (formerly of the Polish Air Force) Died aged 23 when his “Hurricane” V7221 crashed following aerial combat with a German Me109. HE DIED DEFENDING BRITAIN, POLAND AND FREEDOM
Własnowolski is buried in the CWGC Roman Catholic section of the main cemetery in Chichester. The Polish government posthumously awarded him the Virtuti Militari and Cross of Valour for his heroic efforts in WW2.
Mountbatten’s polo field
A little way further up the hill from the pilot monument on the right, at the end of the wood, is Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Polo field.
Polo is a game played on horseback, invented in north-eastern India and promoted by officers of the British military in the mid-19th century. Mountbatten played his first polo game in Jodhpur India in 1921.
Lord Mountbatten with his polo team in 1927.
Did you know?
Jodhpurs are trouser worn by horse riders, named after the Rajasthani Indian city of Jodhpur. They were originally baggy around the hips and thighs, inspired by Indian trousers called churidar pyjamas. Stretchy modern fabrics have resulted in tighter-fitting jodhpurs, often reinforced inside the knee and thigh.
Now internationally popular, polo is played by two opposing teams. The aim is to score by hitting a small hard ball with a long-handled wooden mallet through the opposing team’s goal. Each team consists of four riders, and the game usually lasts for two hours, divided into periods called ‘chukkas’.
Did you know?
Despite studying the game scientifically, writing a book ‘Introduction to Polo’ and being a knowledgeable opponent and being ‘completely dippy about polo’, Mountbatten didn’t think he was very good at polo at all!
The Tansley Stone
A few hundred metres from the Devil’s Humps there is a monument to botanist and ecologist Sir Arthur George Tansley. Called the Tansley Stone, it celebrates his work in making Kingley Vale a National Nature Reserve.
Did you know?
Sir Arthur lobbied for decades to get Kingley Vale protected. He was instrumental in getting it chosen in 1952 as one of the first official ‘places for nature’ by a fledgling Nature Conservancy, which he chaired.
The inscription on the stone reads: In the midst of his nature reserve which he brought into being this stone calls to memory Sir Arthur George Tansley, FRS who during a long lifetime strove with success to widen the knowledge to deepen the love and to safeguard the heritage of nature in the British Isles.
The stone is nestled appropriately in the woodland near the top of Bow Hill looking out over one of the most breathtaking views in the whole of Sussex.
Kingley Vale
Kingley Vale is a 204-hectare (505 acre) Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), with the nature reserve car park at West Stoke five miles northwest of Chichester. It is also a Special Area of Conservation and a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I, with 148 hectares dedicated as a National Nature Reserve (NNR).
Managed by Natural England, the NNR has an information centre and nature trail, together with a large area of grass shrubland and grass downland home to 39 species of butterfly. The chalk grassland is home to many flowers and herbs, together with over 50 species of birds. Mammals live here including deer, yellow-necked mouse, water shrew and the dormouse.
Tree species in Kingley Vale include oak, ash, holly, hawthorn. It also has many mysterious and attractive old yew trees, many up to 2,000 years old, with limbs that bend down to the ground and back up again.
Their survival is remarkable, as most ancient yew trees were felled after the 14th century, to make the staves of English longbows.
Did you know?
With increasing longbow popularity, in 1472 a ‘yew tax’ was introduced of four ‘bowestaffs ’ for every cask of wine unloaded at any English harbour. This sparked a rush for ancient yew tree branches, decimating the yew forests. This is because a longbow was over 6 feet (1.8 m) long and was able to fire a 3-foot (91cm) long arrow that could travel 450 to 1,000 feet (300m) in battle!
There are several walks and bridleways around the NNR and, from the top, there are views over Sussex and the south coast. The main walk is known as the ‘Hidden Landscape Trail’ that features the Devil’s Humps, Goosehill Camp (an Iron Age fort) and auxiliary units of World War II, as well as other hidden landscape features.
The Devil’s Humps
Also known as the Kings’ Graves, the Devil’s Humps are four Bronze Age barrows situated on Bow Hill on the South Downs near Stoughton. Situated on a downland ridgeway crossed by the ancient trackway above Kingley Vale, they are counted among the most impressive round barrows surviving on the South Downs.
The four barrows are all aligned and stand 3 to 4 metres (10 to 13 ft) high, in spite of damage to the tops caused by early explorations. They consist of two bell barrows together with two pond barrows and a cross dyke. They are all listed as Scheduled Ancient Monuments.
Did You Know?
The Devil’s Humps are linked to folklore when the men of Chichester defeated a Viking war party in the Vale in 894. The Viking leaders are supposedly buried in the Devil’s Humps, giving them their alternative name of the Kings’ Graves. The story goes that, as many of the Viking dead still lie where they fell, under the yew trees on the slopes of the hill, their ghosts are said to haunt the yew groves and the trees said to come alive and move at night!
The precise date for the construction of the barrows is unknown but they are believed to date from the Late Neolithic (8000BC) or the Early Bronze Age. It is possible they were also reused in the Roman (43 to 410AD) and Anglo-Saxon periods.