It was Cliff Dean, the chairman of the Friends of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve (RHNR) who enquired how some oak trees came to be planted about 300 metres south-east of Camber Castle. The trees had apparently been planted in memory of a World War Two pilot.
His investigation led him first to consult the war records which recounted that the pilot of a Hurricane was killed when his plane was shot down in the area on August 29 1940 during the Battle of Britain.
Learning that the young pilot’s name was Harry Raymond Hamilton, a Canadian serving with 85 Squadron, he formed the idea of marking the site so that visitors could learn about the strategic landscape of Rye Harbour and better appreciate this sad wartime history.
He discovered from Shoreham Aircraft Museum that there was a scheme for commemorating such wartime deaths with a glacial boulder inscribed with the pilot’s name.
More appropriate, he thought, to the area of an SSSI (site of special scientific interest) would be a block of Portland stone, such as those that marked the former Smeaton’s Harbour at Winchelsea Beach and are now used as bollards, in the care of the Environment Agency.
A local stone-mason is willing to undertake the work of inscription and the Environment Agency has been sounded out with a view to releasing one of these massive stones. Cliff promised to keep us informed of developments.
library photos
My grandpa witnessed that hurricane come down