Sherlock Stalker found in Brewery?

The day started in bright sunshine as the intrepid explorers met in Birling Gap car park. The breeze was slight whilst we took a brief view out to the sea in the knowledge that on the other side of the channel the war veterans were celebrating the 70th year when the D Day landings on the Normandy coast line. We looked down to see a group of 30 or more German students examining the shoreline.
The warmth of the sun on our backs was felt as we walked steadily west along the South Downs Way and entered the main footpath which led along the top of the Seven Sisters cliff formation.

We entered through a gate marked "Malcolm's Gate" with some musical notations, the origins of which we perhaps needed to explore further.
The 5 of us were accompanied by Oscar and Floyd, the infamous dogs from last week's walk. They were keen to explore at their own more speedier pace, whilst the remainder of the groupd felt the need to pace ourselves in the increasing heat.
We reached the seat after achieving 3 sisters and had a brief rest before heading inland toward Crowlink. We entered a field of sheep with their growing young lambs. The dogs went off to negotiate access to drink from the galvanized watering trough. The surrounding sheep obliging moved aside as Oscar felt compelled to jump in for a dip.
He surfaced, looking liberated and refreshed, as we moved quickly to avoid his shaking excess water onto us.

We continued through the remainder of the field and looked down on the small group of houses at Crowlink. A small hamlet with a single track road that leads down from the car park through which we were about to enter across the cattle grid. A couple of late starting walkers were just about to leave their car and set off in the car park and we navigated our way down the lane toward the church.

The dogs needed to be on a lead at this point and we respectfully walked through the graves and then onto the adjacent meadow which had been left uncut with a carpet of buttercups leading down the hill.

The pace was unforgivingly slowing, even though gravity was having an effect at this point. We were setting our timing to rendezvous at around 11.30 at the local Beachy Head Brewery, so a chance opportunity to sit on the East Dean Village green to have a short snack was timely to say the least.
We observed a group of some 20 or so hikers standing menacingly between the 'Hikers Rest' and the Tiger Inn. Had they been banned from entering because of some dispute over the change received after purchasing a cup of earl grey tea and a flapjack or were they just protesting about the potential threat of fracking under the sub-structure of this ancient village? We weren't to find out.

 However what we did find out about was that another smaller group with an expensive looking camera on a tripod were filming on the bench we had hoped to sit on. They were engrossed in the process of taking several random shots and interviewing several people whilst we set up on the green nearby and continued to munch away at our snacks. We later discovered a short piece had been shown on both the local BBC lunchtime and teatime news and referred to a writer who had written a novel featuring Sherlock Holmes who had, according to a blue plaque on a nearby house, retired to the village and was a beekeeper. It was interesting to see that we featured in some of the shots, lazing on the grass in the piece, added a little more interest to the day.

But our day wasn't over yet. The visit to the brewery was awaiting, and we took to the path towards the sheep centre behind which stood a less than impressive barn which contained a small micro-brewery business set up a few years ago and now producing some award winning real ale brews for the local pubs.

The hospitality was warm and welcoming and a few sample glasses of the Lighthouse brew was offered as we unstrapped our back-packs, whilst a brief explanation of the brewing process was provided by the Master Brewer. The day was warming up nicely and the quenching qualities of the beer enabled the remaining half hour walk back to the car park all the more bearable as we encountered the wrath of cars, buses and motorcycles on our roadside amble. The cattle in the field were looking protectively at us and were not going to engage in negotiating the the dogs to have access to their water trough as much as the sheep were earlier. We felt compelled to continue walking.
It was all but a 4.5 miles walk this week, but perhaps it was as much as was needed on a warm summer blue sky day.