Writers in Sussex: Hilaire Belloc’s South Country

In this series exploring writers in Sussex, I've been tracing the moments when the county’s landscapes, villages and coastlines inspired some of our greatest literary voices. For Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), Sussex was not merely a place of inspiration but the very centre of his imagination, his refuge and ultimately his home.

Born in France to a French father and an English mother, Belloc was brought to England as a child after his father’s death and grew up in Sussex, a county that left its mark on him for life. His career was astonishingly wide-ranging: historian, essayist, novelist, satirist, traveller, poet, and even Liberal MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910. Yet despite this restless activity, Belloc always returned, both literally and spiritually, to Sussex. He lived for many years at Shipley, near Horsham, where he bought and restored the old windmill, King's Mill, that became his most cherished home, living there until he died in 1953.

In his poem The South Country, Belloc expresses with lyrical directness the pull of Sussex on his memory and affections. Written in contrast to other parts of England - the Midlands, the North, and the West - it is Sussex that emerges as the place of deepest belonging. The Downs, the Weald, the salt of the surf and the laughter of its people all become part of his personal belonging.

Treyford Hill, South Downs

The poem also carries a poignant undertone: Belloc imagines his old age and loneliness, but finds comfort in the companionship of Sussex men and in the God he associates with the South Country. Towards the peom's end, he dreams of building a house within a walk of the sea, where he might sit with his old friends, sharing laughter and song.

For Belloc, as for many writers before and after, Sussex offered not just scenery but a spiritual belonging: a place where memory, community and faith could be bound together in words.

The South Country

Hilaire Belloc

When I am living in the Midlands

That are sodden and unkind,

I light my lamp in the evening:

My work is left behind;

And the great hills of the South Country

Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country

They stand along the sea;

And it's there walking in the high woods

That I could wish to be,

And the men that were boys when I was a boy

Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England

I saw them for a day:

Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,

Their skies are fast and grey;

From their castle-walls a man may see

The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England

They see the Severn strong,

A-rolling on rough water brown

Light aspen leaves along.

They have the secret of the Rocks,

And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country

Are the kindest and most wise,

They get their laughter from the loud surf,

And the faith in their happy eyes

Comes surely from our Sister the Spring

When over the sea she flies;

The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,

She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines

But I smell the Sussex air;

Nor I never come on a belt of sand

But my home is there.

And along the sky the line of the Downs

So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find,

Nor a broken thing mend:

And I fear I shall be all alone

When I get towards the end.

Who will there be to comfort me

Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends

Of the men of the Sussex Weald;

They watch the stars from silent folds,

They stiffly plough the field.

By them and the God of the South Country

My poor soul shall be healed.

If I ever become a rich man,

Or if ever I grow to be old,

I will build a house with deep thatch

To shelter me from the cold,

And there shall the Sussex songs be sung

And the story of Sussex told.

I will hold my house in the high wood

Within a walk of the sea,

And the men that were boys when I was a boy

Shall sit and drink with me.

The date of poem is unknown, but it did appear in his collection Sonnets and Verse, which was released in 1945.