Looking Bleak
Friday was a Thursday because of weekend commitments. The outlook was drizzly at best and we'd had quite a bit of rain already. I sought a compromise of new paths and enough hill to pull me out of the puddles. By the end, both my shoes and my waterproof trousers had let me down and I'd arrived at my destination a bit late for lunch but that wasn't a big deal.
The bleakness wasn't obvious. The majority of the walking being in the base of clouds, with such potential for the rolling landscape on a day of sun in a blue sky day wasn't a problem. Rather, the miles of Winter's slippery chalk tracks and lonesome roads through ostensibly pheasant-rearing land took a mental toll. In hindsight and also during, I can reframe my experience through an historical lens of ancient watery settlements and promontory hillforts. While up to Findon, the landscape appeared to undulate in an overly mesmerising way, there were great views to be had. Cissbury Ring is a high and a highlight. Steep Down is a final flourish. But maybe, after all, I was in touch with some of the darker histories in this place because a little digging reveals ghosts, defence against viking attack, highwayman, disease, dead bodies and fairies.
To enjoy the grind and all the distance covered with little interest, you can create diversion by embracing the thinking time. On pheasants, I was able to turn a judgement of these silly birds on its head. You might consider pheasants to be to the bird world what pandas are to that of bears. Their bright colours, feeding needs and shortlived helpless vulnerability make them feel unsuited to their environments. Desperate and comical effort is made to run in front of you to get away and once in the air, they prove themselves not the most efficient or elegant flyers.
Excuse me then for this digression into the topic: This site is comprehensive on the introduction of pheasants for game purposes. While the Romans are likely to have introduced them and the Normans certainly ate them, marsh and woodland clearance saw a lull in their numbers in inbetween times. Tudor aristocracy began shooting in earnest as a popular pastime. The enclosure acts and better guns helped the landed gentry organise and by the 19th century, birds were bred, reared and, 'driven' and shot in great numbers.
Today, around 40 million game birds are bred and released every season and shooting is worth around 3 billion to the rural economy. The value hunting brings is, naturally, very much supported and emphasised by all those involved but is only with recent legislation that recognition of the wider impact and risk to other wildlife is made. Game birds, with their considerable contribution to total bird biomass can be considered as other invasives with regulation happening for the first time, which seems extraordinary. The loss of the local white-tailed eagle was no accident. Facts I find utterly depressing. A symbol of bloodsports, the divide between rich and poor and an unsustainable intensity in the countryside. Nevertheless, knowing that on drives, only 'sporting' or flying pheasants should be shot, with no ground game succumbing, gives me a new found perspective and respect for the self-preservation of those scurrying on foot on the trail in front of me.
Amberley can be made by train in around an hour and a half from Burgess Hill. Change at Three Bridges or Gatwick Airport. You can get a Victoria-bound train back from Lancing in half an hour and one of the reasons I went in this direction.
From the eastern side of the station, head to the junction and immediately join the road and the signposted South Downs Way. You will be walking alongside the Amberley Museum on the site of a the former chalk quarry. Leaving New Barn Road, you join High Titten on the right and you can glimpse the interior as you climb the hill. Chalky rainwater was flowing down the hill in gentle white pulses. Round the corner and take a moment to look at the views back towards the valley. You will pass a footpath on the right that leads to the quarry face. Continue on the SDW with Downs Farm on your right. Amberley Mount is in front of you and you will see the river Arun and the Amberley Wild Brooks below on the left.
Abandon the SDW and leave Rackham Banks for another day. Turn now with the track and follow the sign on the ground for the bridleway, going south between the vines. Monoculture, I thought glumly to myself, as I watched some workers pruning. You will descend to a point between the hills of Rackham, Amberley and Burgh. With the dew pond behind you, continue up the side of the sheepy hill. I removed the jumper but the hat stayed to tame my hair. As the track peaks, begin to descend directly on the footpath to a triangle of trees.
Turn left on the bridleway then right to go east, ultimately to Wepham Down. Before that though, you will cross a couple of fingers extending south from Rackham Hill towards Burpham, passing a scattering of tumuli and manmade features on the on the slopes. A circular feature behind the hedge is marked on the map but unexplained. Another circular feature is occupied by trees on the horizon. This is Norfolk Clump and planted on Perry Hill in 1973 to celebrate 50 years of the Duke of Norfolk. Also behind the hedge are more tumuli.
At the next junction, turn left to Lee Farm. This track was supposedly used by a leper colony based here and ultimately leads down the hill to Burpham's St Mary's Church with its 'leper window' on Coombe, otherwise Leper Lane. This reminded me that only a few miles east, I'd passed the 19th Century Findon Pest House for isolating victims of contagious diseases, likely built on the site of an earlier isolation house. Burpham is the site of a Burgh, probably constructed much earlier, listed by King Alfred to defend against the Vikings and prevent them accessing earlier Roman roadways. With this vast amount of not very much, it is sometimes difficult to picture activity from the paleolithic through to medieval times.
After passing through some farm buildings and with a disused chalk pit in front of you, enter the field and take the bridleway south up the side of Harrow Hill, at first roughly parallel with the road.As you emerge from some trees, continue on the same line through the field. As you cross the slope, you can see the lumps and bumps of an enclosure and flint mines. The hill was said to be a stronghold of the fairies. An old woman who lived at Lee Farm related to Reverend Evans. They finally left the site when the unbelieving archaeologists came and started digging, so now they no longer dance there in the summer twilight. Just the other side you see the sea and the rampion windfarm in the distance.
Rejoin the road, pass the drive to the Michelgrove Farm. I've just read about summoning the fairy-folk with catkins and there in the laid hedge were 'lambs-tails'. Descend to where a bridleway takes you left through some paddocks. This is the Monarch's Way. A series of gates takes you diagonally through more paddocks to Myrtle Grove Farm. Take care to continue on the drive eastward and cross the old Long Furlong Lane. The next field was quite muddy and frequented by a young herd. Neither I nor the cattle could run very far if we'd wanted to. Continue on this line and cross the A280. Stick with the Monarch's Way on the footpath to the church, pass Findon Place and cross the Findon Bypass. Many changes have taken place with the expansion of Angmering Park. Findon itself appears to have moved entirely and the roads have altered significantly. The Black Death of the 14th century had a huge effect on this part of the Downs. This has not stopped the those that tramped the highways from haunting places in person and through the memory of place names where they once committed their crimes.
Go south on the High Street and then go left on Steep Lane. The path then crosses to Nepcote Green where an annual sheep-fair was held. The Wattle House was built around 1803 to store the wattles used for this purpose. I crossed the grass to take a look at the pond before joining the lane. The Monarch's Way continues over the other side as a bridleway. Leave it at the next junction and go straight towards the hulk of Cissbury Ring. This 5000 year old univallate hillfort is the largest in the Sussex but it's not just a hillfort. Like Harrow Hill, there are the oldest neolithic flint mines in the UK, bronze age burial mounds but also a Roman mint and the remains of agriculture from within the 65 acres. Just north of here was found the enigmatic Stump Bottom Hoard. The exmoor ponies also help to make the gorsey summit look picturesque. What is more, Harrow Hill may have lost its fairies but they still dance here.
Take the footpath directly up the mound and the steps to cross the ditch and bank. When you near the centre of the fort, bear left and you'll come to the trig. Now descend eastward. From the edge, take care to follow the bridleway that descends through the trees and not other paths which head further to the south. At the edge of the trees, bear southward. The large farm on your left is Lychpole. Now lych I recognised as meaning dead body and pole, surely not, another hanging and highwayman? This seems to be the way of things round here.
Turn left on the bridlway that meets Titch Hill and use the path on the verge all the way north to the car park. Cross the road and go east on the bridleway at the back of Steep Down. I'd even seen some gaps in the cloud briefly but my ascent to the trig was accompanied with the heaviest rainy onslaught and I didn't linger. Go south to the edge of the cross dyke. Do not join the road but continue on the footpath to Lancing Ring Nature Reserve. There are many paths through the wooded area but follow the line of the footpath south to the edge of the cemetery and Upper Boundstone Lane.
You can take any route you wish to Lancing railway station but I continued south over the A27, pass the school and then east on Crabtree Lane. Right on Wembley Avenue and left on Wembley Gardens will bring you out eventually on North Road where you go south. With time to spare, I got chips and the sun came out.
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