Synopsis:

Five documentaries set in and around the ancient East Sussex village of Ditchling, home to the Series Director Luke Holland. Ditchling, the archetypal Downland village, just a few miles from the Sussex coast sees its traditional architecture of brick, flint and hanging tile, matched by more contemporary materials, as new buildings re-define Ditchling's ancient boundaries and large gardens are given over to new housing. The tensions provoked by the pressures of development are palpable. With a population of just 1600, the village boasts no fewer than 44 societies - including the world's oldest village horticultural society and a very active film society. These five films for BBC's Storyville strand take us beyond the postcard gloss of England's rural idyll.

Going for the Kill, 90mins
Filmed over two years, this is a dramatic, first-person account of how one family struggles to cope with economic forces they barely comprehend and over which they have no control. Remarkable access to the invariably closed and wary hunting fraternity, offers an unusually frank account of the very traditional English sport of fox hunting. It tells the inside story of Gary Lee's final season, offering a graphic account of the hunt and asking whether the law is not too blunt an instrument with which to curtail a minority activity that features no more cruelty than is routinely encountered in modern farming. The idea of the English landscape as 'natural' is also explored, as is the fate of the fox who is at risk of being wiped out by farmers and gamekeepers who now have no reason to maintain the population.

Closing Time, 50mins
Ditchling campaigns to save the village pub from a commercial assault that makes a mockery of democracy - and of community. This is not a unique story. Across the UK, on average, one pub is lost every day - frequently to commercial development.

Salad Days, 50mins
A village production of Salad Days, the hit musical of 1950's Britain offers insights of backstage Ditchling. From auditions, through autumn rehearsals, we observe a series of minor on and off stage dramas as the Ditchling Players prepare for a week of performances. This is a film about memory, hope, loss and love. But is it also an exercise in an updated escapism for a new dark age?

Looking for Mr Gill, 50mins
This film explores the legacy that Eric Gill, maverick genius of the Arts and Crafts Movement, has left to Ditchling, the early twentieth-century setting for his controversial experiment in art and community. Gill was a hugely talented artist, calligrapher, sculptor, etcher, letter-cutter, font designer and polemicist and Ditchling owes much of its international reputation as a centre for the arts, to Gill and his fellow artist craftsmen.

Ladies of Ditchling, 50mins
A year in the life of Ditchling - told through entertaining and wide-ranging interviews with a group of remarkable women in their eighties and nineties - intercut with scenes from village life. We are offered entertaining and improbably lively insights on life, loss and love.