Linklater Project

On Friday 18th May this year there will be an auction on behalf of the proposed Linklater Pavilion, an integral part of the Railway Land Project, the groundbreaking environmental initiative which has over the last two decades created a beautiful and ecologically priceless nature reserve in the heart of Lewes. A number of important social and ecological projects gravitate around the initiative, whose organisers plan to increase its importance by building a centre to promote environmental awareness. The Trust are hoping for donations of items to go under the hammer to raise money for the pavilion.

We ring John Parry, one of the main shakers in the project, to remind us of the low-down of the Railway Land Project, and the importance of the proposed building. “In the late eighties the former rail marshalling yard of Lewes Station - a mighty affair - came onto the market,” he says, betraying in the tone of his voice the natural enthusiasm that has helped him push the project this far. “The late Peter Linklater of the Friends of Lewes led a three-week public enquiry into the future of the land, and it was decided that part of it should be turned into sheltered housing, and the rest left as it was, i.e. railway sidings, overgrown allotments and a Victorian garden.”

John’s job was to ‘give the piece of land a narrative and identity.’ He helped set up the Railway Land Wildlife Trust, and eventually - in 1995 - the land was granted local nature reserve status, by the District Council. An old rescued signal box became the mini-ecological centre and bird-hide for the site, but it soon became apparent that the area was to need a state-of-the-art centre in order to fulfil its full potential.