Skiving at Poverty Bottom, Newhaven

Open Country

Ian Marchant travels back to Newhaven in East Sussex, to learn to see a familiar landscape through fresh eyes. He grew up round here, bunking off school with his mates on the South Downs and the derelict Newhaven Fort (now beautifully restored).

There's a weird mix of things to look at in panorama here: a glimpse of the iconic Seven Sisters (white cliffs, anyone?), stereotypically English rolling green hills, the industrial business of the ferry port to Dieppe and a new and massive biomass incinerator that upset local residents when it was built. But it's all potentially beautiful, depending on how you look at it.

While his friends the Bugman, the Starman and the Painter were all busy looking at bugs, stars and landscape, what was Ian doing? Since he left the town, the South Downs has become a National Park and the air above it is now an International Dark Skies Reserve.

It's time for Ian to return to the birthplace of Wreckless Eric to find out.