Sussex

The county rolls in lush green ridges and dense woodland, a medieval landscape of working farmland and fortified manors sewn between the Weald’s iron-rich hills and the marshes bordering the English Channel. In spring its hedgerows bristle with hawthorn blossom and wild roses, the air thick with the scent of cut hay and wet earth after rain. Bodiam Castle broods at the heart of this land, its squat towers and wide moat reflecting in the slow-moving waters of the Rother, while the tournament field stretches beyond the ramparts as a broad expanse of trampled grass marked by temporary banners and flags. The assembled nobility come on horseback through the county’s narrow lanes, their warhorses kicking up dust on the chalk roads, their retinues of serfs and squires trailing behind in a shifting cloud of flies and torch smoke.