We had planned on towing our caravan to Trading Boundaries before our (almost annual) break in the New Forest, but we decided that our garden at home presently requires too much attention to be away for such a long spell.
This was then, another “Nellie” only weekend and a two night stay at Heaven Farm campsite, somewhere in rural depths of East Sussex.
The purpose of our visit was live music and the band “Arena” who were performing at Trading Boundaries for the second of two nights. Trading Boundaries was originally a pub and nightclub but is now a luxury wedding venue, trading post, art gallery and of course a renowned live-music venue. I thought it worked really well but the farmer and owner of Heaven Farm campsite was far less enthusiastic that his local pub and nightclub had turned into this!
It’s always difficult to know what to expect at these small venues. We had missed a trick having booked two “standing” tickets as this venue is predominantly seated and had we realised, a pair of “dining” tickets would have been more appropriate!
As holders of the budget “standing only” tickets, we couldn’t really find anywhere to stand until the dining portion of the evening was concluded. This gave us an opportunity to look around trading boundaries replete with it’s wooden elephants and scented candles. On the first floor was an exhibition by Roger Dean. Roger Dean is an English artist, designer, and publisher. He began painting posters and album covers for musicians in the late 1960s. The groups for whom he did the most art are the English rock bands Yes and Asia.
The band Arena is one of my firm favourites and this was their 30th Anniversary European tour.
Mick Pointer (the original drummer for Marillion) and Clive Nolan (keyboards) are the driving force behind the band.
Clive Nolan was educated at The King’s School, Gloucester and at the age of sixteen, Nolan became the youngest musician in England (at the time) to gain an ALCM diploma in composition from the London College of Music. Holding both a BMus and MMus, he played violin, cello and viola, although his main study while at university was composition, orchestration, musical arrangement and conducting.
Guitarist is John Mitchell, an incredibly accomplished guitarist and a multi-instrumentalist music producer and solo artist, Mitchell is also a member of several other popular bands, including Frost*, It Bites, Lonely Robot and the supergroup Asia.
Damian Wilson is now the vocalist, another talented performer who played the lead role in “Les Miserables”, and has fronted several other prog and rock bands. He interacted well with the audience and stayed around after the show to chat to folks.
Kylan Amos on bass completes the line-up.
The gig went smoothly, Mitchell was on-form on the guitar and the new singer, Damian Wilson put in a fantastic performance. There were even some standing ovations – including ones the band hadn’t asked for!
We awoke late on Sunday morning having not arrived back at the Campervan until 1:00am. Breakfast at the farm’s cafe was followed by a short drive to Sheffield Park Station, the start of the Bluebell heritage railway line. This is an 18km line which operates between Sheffield Park and East Grinstead on the old British Railways East Grinsted to Lewes line.
As it was May the 4th – Star Wars day – we had Darth Vader and a squad of stormtroopers on hand to check tickets.
The steam journey to East Grinstead from Sheffield Park is forty minutes across lush countryside with sweeping views. The carriages have been lovingly restored with real craftmanship (even 3rd class!). At one end of the train is a viewing carriage.
Later in the afternoon we headed to the National Trust gardens at Sheffield Park. Sheffield Park and Garden is an informal landscape garden and was originally laid out in the 18th century by Capability Brown and further developed as a woodland garden in the early 20th century by its then owner Arthur Soames. It is now part of the National Trust.
The house is not open to the public and remains privately owned.
