SMUGGLER'S SUSSEX

This news article was posted on Mon 02/01/2012

In the latter half of the eighteenth century half the tea drunk in London is believed to have been smuggled via the Sussex coast. At its peak in 1783, excise officers estimated tea weighing over a million pounds was illegally hauled ashore in Sussex.

Although the tea came originally from India some had an “authentic” Sussex taste. For it was common for the tea leaves to be mixed with sheep’s dung and hedgerow clippings before being sent to London tea houses!

Copper sulphate and other chemicals were also sometimes used to colour the tea green. Bizarrely, it was to avoid these poisonous dyes that black tea gradually became more popular than green. Tea was the smugglers favourite because it was light and easy to transport in oilskin bags. It was also highly profitable. A pound of smuggled tea cost three pence but could be sold in London for 25 pence.

French brandy and Dutch gin were also smuggled, along with tobacco. With a four gallon tub of brandy costing £1 in France but selling for £4 in England, there were handsome profits to be made from the illegal trade.

If your ancestors lived within 20 miles of the Sussex coast there is a good chance they were involved with smuggling. For it was big business involving whole communities who were often involved in bloody battles with armed excise men who patrolled the coast. The sails of windmills would be tilted and candles lit in windows as a signal to villagers that smuggled goods were to be brought ashore. Local farmers would provide horses with padded hooves for transporting the goods while some clergymen allowed empty graves to be used for hiding contraband. Churchyards in Tarring, Sompting and Steyning are all known to have been used in this way.

Memories of these times live on. Even today if a person from the Arundel area sees someone has forgotten to close a door they are likely to ask: “Were you born in Yapton?”. This refers to the 18th century when householders left their doors open so that smugglers could hide their goods in the nearest house when being chased by excise men. It also showed they were willing to assist the smugglers who bought the contraband up the canal to the village.

There are also many other signs of smuggling that still exist. In Chichester, close to the appropriately named Brandy Hole Lane there is the ‘smugglers stone’. This marks the spot where a notorious smuggler was buried after he was arrested for the murder of an excise man. Smuggling did not stop on the coast but involved most inland villages in Sussex on the route to London.

The Black Horse Inn at Climping is where the goods were first taken ashore before being taken inland through Yapton. The Red Lion at Rake and the Sussex Pad at Lancing were also notorious haunts for smugglers. The Smugglers Roost pub in Rustington, on the road up from the beach, closed in 2004, and is now a Chinese restaurant. In the Queens Head at Barns Green you can see a large inglenook fireplace where the smugglers hid their contraband. The Spread Eagle at Midhurst has a secret passage from one of its rooms used by smugglers. Smugglers tunnels can also be seen in the cellars of the Dolphin Hotel at Littlehampton.

When Selsey Bill was a remote outcrop of Sussex in the 1700s, the smuggling trade was rife and lucrative. It was rumoured the clergy claimed a tithe on all kegs the smugglers landed there, and many substantial fortunes were made. Regular runs across the channel to France were undertaken, and in a single trip 2,000lbs of tea were brought inland at nearby West Wittering. The smuggling of brandy, wine, tobacco and rum continued along the Sussex coast almost until the start of the 20th century. But the smuggling of tea came to an end almost overnight in 1784 when the tax was reduced from 119% to 12.5%. It led to tea becoming the nation’s favourite drink but also to darker homes. For instead of raising money from tea the government imposed a window tax. Today you can still see many older homes in the county where windows have been bricked up to escape the tax.

“To find out more fascinating facts about local food visit: www.westsussex.gov.uk/tastewestsussex”