20 SUSSEX WALKS ASUSSEXGUIDE ASUSSEXGUIDE PATBOWEN For Pat Bowen, walking is an adventure; 20 SUSSEX WALKS sometimes its focus is on health; sometimes 20 SUSSEX it's about imagination and creativity; always Pat Bowen – grandmother,storyteller,allotment it's an enactment of freedom and a celebration A good walk can do more than exercise your gardener – has been exploring Sussex on foot, muscles, heart and lungs – it can enhance your of our physical connection with the living bike and public transport since she came to the WALKS mood, refresh your spirits and leave you landscape. Why not join her to explore the county in 1969. She has reconnoitred and led knowing a little more about the world. There's delights of walking in Sussex. hundreds of walks, each one involving trying no better way of becoming acquainted with the out different routes and researching landscape, land than walking till you feel it in your bones – trees, history, creatures, local stories and even if these do ache pleasantly after one of the folklore. She has written articles for various 20 SUSSEX WALKS more challenging outings. These 20 original organizations and projects in the fields of walk routes have been designed by veteran World Studies, Storytelling, Environmental Sussex walker Pat Bowen to let you experience Education,Archaeology and Folklore, has edited every aspect of the rich Sussex countryside from two collections of stories, and had her own coast to high heathland. The text will also enter- stories published in anthologies.This is her first tain you on the way with historical anecdotes, book of walks. nature notes, folk stories – the kind of titbits that give each place its local distinctiveness. ‘To rove about,musing,that is to say loitering, BOWEN is,for a philosopher,a good way of spending time.’ PATBOWEN VICTOR HUGO SNAKERIVERBOOKS BOOKSABOUTSUSSEXFORTHEENTHUSIAST Snake River Press publishes books about the art, culture, personalities and landscape of Sussex. Snake River books are available by mail order or from bookshops. You can order safely online through our website: www.snakeriverpress.co.uk. If you prefer buying offline you can contact us by telephone: 01273 403988 or by email: [email protected] SNAKERIVERPRESS SNAKERIVERPRESS www.snakeriverpress.co.uk £8.99 SNAKE RIVER PRESS Book No 7 Books about Sussex for the enthusiast Published in 2007 by SNAKE RIVER PRESS South Downs Way,Alfriston, Sussex BN26 5XW www.snakeriverpress.co.uk ISBN 978-1-906022-06-8 This book was conceived, designed and produced by SNAKE RIVER PRESS Copyright © Snake River Press Limited 2007 Text © Pat Bowen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. The publishers and authors have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of all information at the date of preparation. Readers who intend to rely on the information to undertake any activity should check the current accuracy.The publishers and authors accept no responsibility for any loss, injury or inconvenience sustained by the reader as a result of information or advice contained in this book. Art Director & Publisher Peter Bridgewater Editorial Director Viv Croot Editor RobertYarham Page makeup Richard Constable & Chris Morris Cover illustration Ivan Hissey Cartography John Woodcock Consultant Lorraine Harrison This book is typeset in Perpetua & Gill Sans, two fonts designed by Eric Gill Printed and bound in China DEDICATION For my daughters & grandchildren CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . 6 ASHDOWN FOREST . 56 BALCOMBE TO DEVIL’S DYKE . 12 HAYWARDS HEATH . 60 HENFIELD . 16 BECKLEY & RYE . 64 EASY CHALLENGING ROEDEAN TO ROTTINGDEAN 20 HASTINGS & FAIRLIGHT GLEN . 68 BOXGROVE . 24 KINGLEY VALE . 72 HERSTMONCEUX . 28 LEWES TO NEWHAVEN . 76 LULLINGTON HEATH . 32 MIDHURST & IPING COMMONS . 80 MAYFIELD . 36 PULBOROUGH TO AMBERLEY 84 ST LEONARD’S FOREST . 40 MEDIUM ROBERTSBRIDGE & BODIAM 88 SIDLESHAM & PAGHAM HARBOUR . 44 TIPS FOR SAFE WALKING . 92 STEYNING . 48 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 94 UCKFIELD . 52 INDEX . 95 20 SUSSEX WALKS DEVIL’S DYKE SCRAMBLE & CLAMBER SUSSEXSUSSEX N top A281 To Henfield us S EASY B 1 Steep Wooded Newtimber Slopes Spring Hill main route Po y nings alternative route 8 Pub 0 1 km 39 0 1 ml Steps h at P ry Saddlescombe Farm Sca e To Fulking k S y a Pub d D l’s Down d i er l ev e m s D m c Sou u o th D S m ow b ns Way De e vil ’s D R y d ke R Path to d Mile Oak Summary his is a Downs and woodland f Start point: TQ266128 route mostly on open access land f Map: OS Explorer 122 T f Distance: Circular, 5 miles (8 km), but with clear landmarks that make it can be shortened, lengthened or extended almost impossible to get lost, so chil- to become a linear walk dren may safely choose their own f Description: Some steep climbs. Orchids paths, scramble in woods and enjoy and downland flowers make it ideal for late spring and summer dramatic slopes and exciting vistas. f Refreshments: Pubs at the beginning You can start from the car park at and middle Devil’s Dyke (buses at weekends only) f Transport: Bus from Brighton at or from Poynings. The bus stop weekends only to Devil’s Dyke; bus (Brighton to Henfield and Horsham) stops nearest to Poynings is by the round- at Poynings roundabout (hourly service on about where the road turns sharply weekdays, two hourly on weekends) north towards Henfield. [ 12 ] DEVIL’S DYKE 1 Looking towards the Downs from the unbroken views to the north and west roundabout you can see the footpath going with violets and cowslips at your feet diagonally across two fields towards the in spring, and orchids and round- square tower of Poynings’ church nestling headed rampion as the year beneath the wooded hillside. progresses.The steepness of the slope above and below and the narrowness of An old oak tree to the west of the path the path create a delightful sense EASY stands beside a spring. It’s not an excit- of adventure and achievement.A little ing fountain of a spring like the one way along you cross a straight, wide in Fulking, more of a muddy ooze trackway in the grass which is all that with a trickle of water that has worn remains of the steep-grade railway that a groove in the smooth green of carried passengers down to Poynings the field. However the trickle soon for 2d between 1897 and 1908. becomes a stream that eventually flows into the River Adur. 3 The path comes to a gate which brings you to the ditch and bank of the Neolithic 2 When you reach the farm,the footpath hillfort enclosure near the Dyke car park, appears to lead into an agricultural toilets and refreshments. machinery cemetery.Walk between the barns and farm buildings until you come to Alternative route 1 the drive.Turn right towards the church Take the left fork by the ‘39 steps’ and follow and then left through the village. Pass the less precipitous route through sycamore the pub and take the second footpath to woods to a bridle path where you turn right the left, heading up towards the Downs and arrive at the western boundary of the hill- through a twitten (a narrow path between fort and then the Dyke car park. hedges or buildings), then between fields and into the woods where the path forks. 4 From the car park walk west across the The right-hand fork takes you up the ‘39 road,heading towards a rectangular brick steps’ (ironically named by the valiant building near the ditch and bank that mark volunteers who maintain all 200 of them) the south-western perimeter of the hillfort. through a hazel coppice and onto one of the finest revetted hillside paths on the This building may have once housed Downs.See below for an alternative route. a camera obscura, one of Mr Hubbard’s attractions. He was land- This is not a path for vertigo sufferers lord of the Dyke Hotel in the 1890s or nervous parents with very young and laid on various inducements children, or when the ground is to visitors who came at first in slippery in wet weather.It follows the wagonettes, and later by train (the line curve of the hillside, giving wide closed in 1938). From this viewpoint [ 13 ] 20 SUSSEX WALKS you can see Firle Beacon in the east, Near the deepest part of the valley Shoreham power station due south, you walk over two mounds; these and Lancing, Cissbury and Chancton- are the ‘graves’ of the Devil and bury Rings to the west. his wife – though how and when they died are not well known. Satan Alternative route 2 may have succumbed from dis- There are old drove-way paths from the South appointment at being thwarted in his Downs Way (SDW), a little further up on top plan to drown the good folk of the EASY of the ridge that take you to Hove, Portslade Sussex Weald. and Southwick. It is also possible to walk further The story is that he stood high on along the SDW to where a bostal (steep-sided) the Downs one evening and was track comes up from Fulking.This winds down dismayed to see how many fine the north side of the hill to a lively spring where churches there were scattered across hundreds of sheep were once washed in spring the Weald. He looked to the south, before shearing. From Fulking (where there is saw the sea, and decided that a huge a pub) you can follow footpath signs across ditch would allow the tide to break meadows, through oak and bluebell woods through the hills and flood the land and past lonely willow-fringed pools, to the beyond.That same night he began to sandy common at Oreham and on to Henfield.