First World War huts will host an exhibition this weekend with never-before-seen archival material and artefacts. The application to demolish the old green huts in Garden Street, Lewes, known as Gorringes huts, was made a year ago as part of plans to redevelop the site for housing. This piqued the interest of town councillor Edwina Livesey.
She said: “I knew these were portable buildings dating from WWI and I’d always imagined there would be plans for them to be moved and preserved. I love history and one of the first things I did I did when I saw the planning application as part of my role as a town councillor was read the Heritage Statement. “I was surprised to see they were considered of ‘low value’ from a heritage perspective and recommended for demolition.
” Cllr Livesey contacted a former colleague from Sussex Archaeological Society, archaeologist Luke Barber, to see if he knew anything about them. She was “astonished and very excited” when Luke confirmed he had done his research and that they had once been the camp church for the WWI training camp based at Seaford. They had been used by the men training there who had come from Ireland, Canada and the British West Indies.
They were not just the only surviving building in the area constructed for troops in First World War but the only surviving building, anywhere, which had an association with men from the Caribbean who came to Sussex to train and fight for Britain during the First World War. Cllr Livesey .
