... The figure is not always visible; he is most often to be seen in bright summer mornings and evenings, or during the winter, when there is a hard frost, or a slight fall of snow. Sometimes you may see the giant distinctly half a mile off, but on approaching the spot the turf appears as smooth as on the adjacent hills.
[...] We may add that this remarkable figure is about to be restored, and that the vicar of Glynde, near Lewes, Sussex, is treasurer to the Restoration Fund, which has been headed by the Duke of Devonshire. Small subscriptions of half-a-crown are solicited in preference to larger sums, so as to excite a widely-extended interest. The first sod for the restoration has already been turned by Mr Phene, but the work has been suspended for a time to allow persons interested to see it in its original condition.
The Graphic, 7th February 1874. The campaign seem to have progressed at some pace, as the newspapers in April report that the outline had been completely restored (with white bricks).
A few weeks since, a labourer employed in digging flints, near Hollingbury Castle (the ancient earthwork or camp on the summit of the hill between Brighton and Stanmer), discovered an interesting group of antiquities, placed very superficially in a slight excavation on the chalk rock. It consisted of a brass instrument, called a celt; a nearly circular ornament, spirally fluted, and having two rings placed loosely on the extremities, and four armillae or bracelets for the wrist, of a very peculiar shape. All these ornaments are composed of a metallic substance, which, from the appearance of those parts where the green patina, with which they are encrusted, has been removed, must have originally posessed a lustre but little inferior to burnished gold. They are clearly either of Roman or Anglo-Roman origin, and probably were buried on or near the site of interment of the individual to whom they belonged.
From the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 7th February 1825. It seems they're in the British Museum now: I found their photo here. Not quite so flash as a gold torc but I like them. They've got a very modern minimal look about them.
Could archaeologists be about to uncover an early Bronze Age settlement.
A huge outer earthwork, stretching across 1.2 kilometres of the beautiful hilltop of Belle Tout on top of the Seven Sisters cliff, was probably part of an early Bronze Age settlement. Archaeologists are about to get to work on a coastal site they describe as a mystery in their field, with their plans including laser scans, environmental scanning and analysis of microscopic snails which can only exist in certain habitats.
They don’t know when the hilltop enclosure was built, and their previous discoveries in the area have ranged from prehistoric flintwork to early Bronze Age Beaker pottery. “We don’t know for sure how much we’ve lost over the last 6,000 years due to coastal erosion,” says Tom Dommett, the National Trust Archaeologist and key man on the Seven Sisters Archaeology Project, underlining the urgency of the latest work....