A R Cane

As Carl says, there’s not a great deal to see here as the interior of the fort has been used for farming for centuries and any trace of earthworks at the Northern end near the pub have all but disappeared. No other earthworks were necessary as when this fort first came into being it would have been surrounded on three sides by either the sea or the flood plains of the River Arun. Indeed the Arun and one of it’s tributaries still surround it. Later on it was a Saxon Burh and now just adjoined to a quaint little Sussex village, though worthy of being bombed by the Luftwaffe in WW2 apparently.

Two days prior to the visit of Scorhill in the North East of the Dartmoor National Park we had tried to take friends to see Yellowmead concentric stone circles over on the Western side. We’d spent about an hour sloshing around an area of no more than a quarter of a square mile in driving rain and high winds and failed to locate it, even though we’d been there a couple of years before. So it was a relief to locate this circle so easily in profoundly better conditions. That’s what Dartmoor is like!

Having visited numerous stone circles and ancient sites on the moor over the years I have to say this is one of my favourites and also very easy to get to. You don’t really see it until the last moment as it’s in a slight valley and the stones themselves are not really very tall, the biggest being about two metres, but with the strong sunlight and brooding skyline they appeared to shine invitingly.

Apparently it’s never been tampered with in the sense of re-erecting some of the fallen stones, though it’s obvious that stone cutters have tried to split some of them in more recent times as they bare small drill holes, so it has an air or pure authenticity.

Well worth a visit!

Camping at East Dean a few weeks back I noticed on our OS map a small collection of barrows nearby just off a trackway. One of them was evidently bigger than the others as the symbol for it was a star with a surrounding dotted line. Intrigued we set off into the woods, the setting sun behind us.

Waltham Down barrow cemetery sits on the edge of the South Downs near East Dean, consisting of an arc of four reasonably large barrows and one particularly large mound. They’re quite well hidden in the deciduous forest there and it’s quite magical as you wander through and one by one they’re presented to you, but the trees were only planted just after World War Two, so it may have been quite open originally and easily seen, not too dissimilar to the relatively close ‘Devil’s Jumps’ site further West just off the South Downs Way. The largest barrow in the group is slightly isolated from the other four and has been dug into at some time and almost hollowed out, giving it the appearance of a sleeping volcano. Still standing over 2m in height it appears to be unusually constructed of flint nodules, more like a cairn than a barrow, as most barrows in this area are chalk rubble and earth constructions. We wandered around for a while and followed a sort of fossilised cart track through the woods until we came out into the opening overlooking Heath Hill, then retraced our steps through the woods into the dying rays of the setting sun.

I called here on my way to my parents near Swindon and hadn’t been here for more than 20 years prior to this. It’s very easy to locate owing to the Lansdowne Monument, a 38m stone obelisk on Cherhill Down visible from both the A4 and the A361. Because of its proximity to Avebury, Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow, et al., the area is littered with sites from the Neolithic to the Iron Age and also includes more recent works like the white horse cut in 1780. I parked at the run off East of the hill fort in what must have been the Old Bath Road before it was metalled and straightened somewhat and made my way past the gallops and up towards the top of the Down. The path isn’t very obvious from this direction, but you do get to see a lot of earthworks which may, or may not, be connected with the hill fort. Some may be hut circles or animal pens, others might be dew ponds or slightly unambitious chalk quarries. Reaching the South East corner (it’s not round!) of the hill fort you get great views of the surrounding hills to the South and West including the linear Bronze Age barrow groups on Morgans Hill and also an impression of the scale of the mighty banks and ditches of the fort itself. Early evening is almost always the best time to visit these kind of sites, particularly if you have low raking sunlight. It brings out the best definition and colour in the landscape and makes it almost heartbreakingly beautiful and, for me, tinged with nostalgia. Moving around the earthworks in a clockwise direction you come past the Lansdowne Monument and get a good view of the long barrow, the oldest element in the vicinity, standing on a slight promontory just below it. By this time it’s becoming clear that the Western horizon is filling with rain clouds and so I head North East again taking in the white horse and then exit via the hill fort’s Eastern opening descending back towards the A4. As you get to the bottom of this track you’ll notice a fine barrow in the corner of a field (Cherhill 4 – not very romantic is it?) and if you turn right you’re back on the Old Bath Road track which is where the parking place is. By now the weather was going into overdrive and though the torrential downpour I’d been anticipating hadn’t yet materialised, the sky was now leaden and a fantastic rainbow appeared at the end of the track urging me onwards. Before you get to the parking spot there’s another large barrow right beside the track which, although I didn’t notice at the time, has a World War Two bunker built into the North side of it. This makes strategic sense in terms of the now disused Yatesbury airfield just the other side of the A4. I reach my car just in the nick of time as the raindrops descend. What luck! What weather! What poetry!

Like nearby Court Hill there’s not a great deal to see here in terms of the Causewayed Enclosure which once dominated this hill top, but there has been a great deal of activity since then and you certainly get your money’s worth. The most noticeable thing is the windmill (visible from the A27 between Arundel and Chichester) which has been here since 1740, though the original mill was built in 1540 for the nearby Goodwood Estate. The 1740 mill was destroyed by fire in 1913 and then vandals came back in the summer of 2015 to try and torch it again which is why it currently has no sails and you can no longer go inside. The enclosure is largely defined by a bank surrounding about 2 hectares, with the main entrance in the Southern part, where the modern gate stands today. The outer ditch has largely disappeared through centuries of ploughing. There are also three WWII structures, one inside, one in the bank and another just outside to the west of the entrance. These were either searchlight emplacements or Radio Directional Finding towers (nobody seems to agree which!) that would have served Goodwood and Tangmere airfields. It’s clearly always been a strategic and prominent point as Bronze Age and Roman artefacts have been found here as well and the Roman Stane Street runs about 200m to the South past the bottom of the hill. The views from here are also quite stunning with the rolling South Downs to the North and Chichester and the Channel to the South.

Maybe there should have been a notice placed near the top of Court Hill saying ‘Move along now, nothing to see here’, but that wouldn’t be strictly true. Having conveniently parked at the little church at East Dean village we made our way up the track, past the ancient droving tracks descending from the Downs, and onwards to a copse which covers most of the hill top. The only evidence of the enclosure is a slight bank which comes around the South Eastern edge of the hill before disappearing through the fence into the copse. You can’t get into the copse because of a barbed wire fence and there seems to be a lot of stuff connected with the pheasant slaughtering industry in there, but you can definitely see evidence of the bank running through the trees (this is more evident if you look at a satellite image). Also from the top you get wonderful views along the valley towards Charlton, Goodwood Race Course and The Trundle (which has a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure inside it’s Iron Age fortifications) and you’re also only about 3 miles from Halnaker Hill, another NCE.

I was going to post about Whitehawk more than a year ago after I volunteered for the dig which took place there in August 2014. I refrained from doing so at the time as I was supposed to be photographing (for Brighton Museum) the ‘more interesting artefacts’ which they hoped to uncover in the process of the dig. Sadly, despite intensive digging in 3 separate areas on Whitehawk Hill nothing particularly interesting was found. Geo-physics had shown up some anomalies on the Southern side of the hill which the archaeologists hoped might be a fifth outer ring, but this proved to be unfounded. Most of the very small things found were pieces of worked flints (possibly Neolithic), masses of broken glass, the inevitable willow-pattern ceramics shards and miscellaneous bits of ironware which were probably bits of broken gardening tools (most of the hill has been given over to allotments in the past and still is today). I personally found a 1945 farthing which back then would have bought you a whole house in Brighton. The other thing that was found in abundance were pieces of relatively modern cars and scooters which is quite interesting in itself. The practice of sacrificing expensive offerings to the gods on this site was still happening in the here and now, a clearly continuing tradition, except now they like to torch them first rather than burying them or flinging them into a watery place.

As stated in older posts there’s not much to suggest that you’re standing in a Causewayed Enclosure when you’re up there as most of it has been encroached upon by modern progress, allotments and the enlargement of Brighton Race Course, but here and there you’ll notice a slight undulation, a small squeak to remind you of the sheer scale of the site. The positioning of it too, is wonderful and a true focal point, commanding expansive views over the sea and South Downs of which it forms part. The panoramic images posted here were commissioned recently by Brighton Museum for educational purposes to highlight the importance of this truly ancient and wonderful place.

This will probably end up on the ‘disputed antiquity’ list as it doesn’t appear on any maps or on MAGIC, but it is a very big sarsen standing stone, almost 6 foot high, in a quite interesting position in relation to the Marlborough Downs, Avebury and Winterbourne Bassett. Very easy to locate as it’s just off the A3461 (between Swindon and Avebury) if you turn off at Broad Hinton towards the Hackpen Hill White Horse, it’s less than half a mile on your left. You can pull up for a quick shufty, but you wouldn’t want to block the gateways to the fields there.

Gallows Hill, as the name suggests, was once a place of execution, but long before that it was a Bronze Age barrow cemetery (if you can count four large mounds as a cemetery). It’s part of the larger Graffham Common area which contains quite a large number of tumuli, with barrows at Little and Great Bury nearby. These heathland barrows are typical of the surrounding area, occurring in patches along the northern side of the South Downs at places like Lord’s Piece, Sullington Warren, Lavington Common and Iping Common. In fact it’s fair to say that there are probably more monuments in these areas than directly on the ridge of the South Downs where they are more noticeable, though any signs of habitation, defence, etc. have long since disappeared from the heathland areas, buried by cultivation, villages and towns.

The barrows at Gallows Hill are once again openly visible having spent the last hundred years covered in pine forest with trees actually growing on some of them. Recent cutting and clearance reveals four quite large and handsome mounds in a fairly lofty position on the edge of an escarpment overlooking swathes of woodland and the valley of the River Rother.

It’s difficult to wander around here and not think that it must have been an ancient site. There are give-away signs almost everywhere you cast your eyes. Firstly there’s the church built on an almost circular mound with its stout flint retaining wall and then you notice its proximity to the Cuckmere River built in a bend which could almost have formed an oxbow lake. Possibly more than 2000 years ago it was an island, this being a low lying and marshy area, giving more weight to the idea of it being a sacred place. Within the retaining wall on the Eastern side is a large stone, though I’m not sure if it’s a sarsen, as it looks more like a piece of sandstone. A few metres from that is another large stone, definitely a sarsen, laying next to the entrance of the Old Clergy House (the first ever NT property). Unfortunately I couldn’t get a clear photo of this as it was almost hidden by Valerian on this occasion. Just a few more metres South is a group of three sarsens nestling under some trees looking slightly neglected and unloved. I looked around the foundations of the church to see if any stones had been built into that and was surprised to discover none, although this is often the case with christianised sites. There are, however, more stones built into walls and buildings around the village.

Stumbled on this small charming enclosure while ambling around the New Forest. It’s not very big, popular with local bovine herds, probably no more than about 20-25m in diameter and the banks no more than 1.5m high (mostly on the southern side). I imagine in the winter months it’s probably very boggy around here and the northern and eastern sides are bounded by the beginnings of the Beaulieu River which acts as a natural defence. Pastscape describes the earthwork as a Bronze Age enclosure or early Iron Age univalate Fort. I’d go for the former as the earthworks don’t seem like they were ever defensive and more about preserving a bit of dry ground in a very flat area. There are also a number of (presumably) Bronze Age barrows nearby which might support that.

Another interesting feature about a mile to the west is Row Hill which has 3, or possibly 4, long mounds on top of it. These are quite substantial, the biggest being about 2m high and about 15m long all running parallel. I’ve no idea how old they might be and would hesitate to call them long barrows. WW1 activity in the forest might be one explanation for their presence as there are currently notice boards all over the place warning you against straying from the path due to unrecovered ordnance. After a hundred years – I ask you?!

My memory takes me back to 1972 and I have just queued up with my family for what seems a lifetime on a drab day outside the British Museum. We have just managed to get into the room where the treasures of Tutankhamun are on show and I am finally in front of the famous death mask taking in the awesomeness of it all, when an over zealous mother elbows me out of the way and thrusts her own children forward, the brief vision now fading away in a milieu of struggling families. Goodness, it was like a rugby scrum in there!

Forty two years later I’m walking around the top of Beacon Hill towards the grave of Lord Carnarvon, sponsor of Howard Carter’s 1922 excavation in the Valley of the Kings. It’s a beautiful day and being a Monday there’s hardly a soul about, just the ever present hum of the A34 a long way below me. The last time I came up here must have been before 1972 when my parents would bring us here for a Sunday afternoon runabout and tell us about the Tutankhamun stories. It’s all pretty much as I remember it, the grave surrounded by railings, the view to Highclere Castle, the stout earthworks of the hill fort, the wild flowers and butterflies and the singing of skylarks above. In fact the only thing that has changed is the A34 which must have been a very quiet affair pre-1972. It’s the A34 that got me back here as well, having travelled up and down it on numerous occasions, always strongly aware of the hill’s presence, but it was always a case of ‘in too much of a hurry, not the right weather or nobody else in the car wanting to do the mammoth climb to the top’. Well today is my day and all the conditions are spot on.

I was actually trying to get to the Giant’s Grave further down the road and turned off far too early. Another car pulled up shortly after me and a guy got out and put on walking boots which further confused me. After twenty minutes walking along the valley bottom I realised my mistake, but as it turned out there was something to see after all. Shipley Bottom (or Shapely Bottom as I like to refer to it) doesn’t have a huge amount to offer archaeologically, but it does do ‘serene’, which is not surprising considering its proximity to the Ridgeway path less than half a mile to the west and Liddington Castle a mile to the north. There are two or possibly three barrows along the valley bottom, the western one being the more impressive and better preserved. The eastern one(s) are almost flattened or ploughed out, difficult to say as they just looked like a patch of weeds, but at least that shows that somebody made the decision to stop degrading them.

It’s strange where you end up sometimes. We just happened to be up near here collecting a moped from nearby Thetford and decided to pop over to take a look. It was of particular interest to me as living near Cissbury, another flint mining site, it would give an opportunity to actually go down inside a mine, which you can’t do at Cissbury as they’re all filled in. The visitor centre is quite interesting, but you can’t help feeling it’s primary function is to enthuse parties of young school children, not a bad thing, but the real draw is the mine itself.

Living in a safety-conscious and litigious age you have to wear a hard hat, descend the ladder one at a time and listen to the man carefully, though he is very friendly and informative. Unfortunately once you’ve descended the ladder and grown accustomed to the dark you realise that that’s as far as you can go! All the galleries are barred after a few feet, but lit just so you get a tantalising idea of what might lie beyond. Having seen Neil Oliver on TV scrambling around on all fours down here, I imagined that we’d all be allowed to do that. Damn.

The overriding feeling is one of slight claustrophobia and it must have been quite an arduous task bashing pieces of prime flint out of chalk with nothing more than a deer antler and a weak light to guide you, but the lure of those massive layers of shiny black stone was very strong. The other thing that strikes you is how did these prehistoric miners know that this stuff was down here? I can sort of understand it at Cissbury as nearby chalk cliffs east of Brighton have seams of flint running through them, so it would stand to reason that if you dug down through chalk hills you might find unspoilt layers of flint. At Grime’s Graves it seems to be a completely different proposition. It’s mainly flat, forested and the only clue might be the chalk just beneath the turf. Because Cissbury, Harrow Hill, etc. predate Grime’s Graves I wonder if that mining knowledge was passed on to people living in East Anglia. Maybe there were nomadic miners roaming the country searching for tell-tale signs of the treasures beneath their feet?

Later when we arrive at the home of the guy selling the moped, covered in chalk, we explain how we’ve just been down Grimes Graves. He tells us that as a kid he and his friends used to descend the shafts down rope ladders with torches and you could crawl around large areas of the subterranean galleries and ascend from different mine shafts! We should have come here 40 years earlier, or maybe 4000.

This is another (once) local site that I haven’t visited for probably decades, but today I’m here with my sister making our way from Avebury Trusloe the day after we’d been down to Devon for an uncle’s funeral. The weather looks like it’s on the point of raining all afternoon, but today we are lucky and it holds off and the air is suffused with the fresh smell of Spring. Walking through the hamlet the first thing that strikes us is the number of large sarcens in peoples garden walls (particularly Swan house in Bray Street) and, given the proximity of Adam and Eve across the adjacent field, we can’t help wondering if some of these stones came from the Beckhampton Avenue? Maybe not as whole stones, but perhaps pieces from destroyed stones.

Making the gradual climb up to the top of Windmill Hill it seems odd that a hill as low and unremarkable as this seems to have been so important, acting as it were, as a springboard for the whole Avebury ritual landscape. So much activity in quite a small space though, as you begin to take in the faint rings of the inner circles, the lower tumuli beyond the outer circle and, most obviously, the large bell barrows nearer the centre of the monument. The position of the hill is also quite interesting as it affords views down on to Avebury (though you can’t see any stones due to the surrounding trees and vegetation, but maybe you could when it was being built), Silbury Hill to the South, the Ridgeway to the East and Cherhill Down and Oldbury to the South West.

Having walked around the outer ring we discover some recent mole activity and begin to kick over the little spoil heaps. Almost immediately I’m rewarded with a small piece of ceramic about 2.5 x 1.5cm in size and shaped roughly like the Isle of Wight. There are two very faint parallel grooves incised on its outside curve. In addition to this we find two small globules of iron that look like failed castings of musket balls (any ideas?). We sit for a while and contemplate our surroundings before making our way back down across the fields to Avebury and the circle. Just in time for tea.

The day was bright and having found a place to park up we set off over the wild heathland behind Studland and meandered our way through muddy lanes and low trees. We’d just stumbled on some of the best cep mushrooms we’d ever found when Mrs. C looked up and suddenly exclaimed “Is that it?” pointing through the undergrowth to a monstrous boulder on the horizon. And there it was, looking completely out of place and out of scale with its surroundings, more like Dartmoor than Dorset.

Having lived 3 years of my life in relatively close proximity to this amazing natural feature I was surprised that I’d never heard of it, let alone seen it and I’d been anticipating something much smaller like a gnarled old standing stone. As we got closer we noticed that we weren’t alone. There was a climber there, which slightly annoyed me, and for the first half an hour we had to endure this annoying twat doing the same clumsy climb over and over again. Well I guess that’s what sandwiches were invented for and eventually he got bored and fell off (or did I push him?) and we had the place to ourselves.

It really is awe-inspiring in its size and sheer strangeness and really looks otherworldly, like an organic UFO that’s crashed into a small hill. If you’d lived in this area thousands of years ago how could you not venerate it, there’s nothing like it for miles around and it’s set off with that glorious view over Poole Harbour and Brownsea Island. Even the hillock on which it stands doesn’t seem entirely natural, though to be fair there are other smaller hillocks thereabouts, some of them perhaps man-made.

After the surprisingly wonderful ruined circle at Rempstone I have to say that I was slightly under-whelmed by Kingston Russell, not a feeling that I’m used to when encountering prehistoric sites. Did Burl have the same feeling too? Maybe that’s why it doesn’t appear in his book. It just didn’t seem to have the oomph factor and the views from this setting are kind of so-so rather than wow! (as at Hampton). I think possibly the flatness of it all as well, the anticipation built up by the spotting of two very large stones in the hedgerow (one next to the farm entrance where you can just about park and the other about half way between there and the circle) and the lack of a dramatic sky to set it off probably didn’t help either. The only thing that I thought might redeem it would be to go there at night with a clear sky, some time in the near future, and try some very long exposures. That should do it.

Everyone seems to be in agreement on this one, in that this is quite an enigmatic and peaceful place and I have to agree that we found it be so too. Maybe it’s that romance we have with ruins that does it, as obviously there’s only about half of the original circle remaining, the rest scattered about, moss-covered and (almost) forgotten.

We found it quite easily after parking up almost opposite the site on the road between Corfe and Studland and I was hoping to catch the last rays of sunlight to illuminate the stones. However the fir trees surrounding them were so dense that almost all the light was shut out so I had to resort to long exposures and flash. Having set up we were suddenly surprised by another person marching purposefully through the woods and half expected to be asked to leave (it is apparently private property), but it turned out to be a friendly local pagan who regularly visited the stones and who told us about where and how the circle was originally, before bidding goodbye and disappearing into the now increasingly murky depths of the woods. Having reeled off a few shots we explored the half circle (festooned with coins, well about £3 worth anyway) and decided that it was now too dark to carry on taking photos and that we’d return in the morning.

The following morning, clumping around in the undergrowth and magically finding one stone after another, the better light revealed just how large this circle once was and the relatively large size of the comprising stones. I think if there was a strong candidate for the repositioning and raising of it’s stones then this circle would be right up there. It seems a terrible shame that it should have been so disarranged and neglected and now almost pushed aside by the serried ranks of pines, but in so doing would it not lose it’s enigmatic nature?

This is one of those sites which is a ‘must see’ if you’re in Northern Ireland and, although having seen pictures and read fieldnotes prior to our visit, I was quite taken aback by the size, variation, complexity and general weirdness of it all. It really is like no other place I’d visited before. I mean, sure, there are places on Dartmoor that encompass stone avenues, circles and cairns, but not on this scale, or of this complexity, that I’m familiar with. Seven circles, numerous cairns and possibly twelve stone rows – what was going on here? And, more intriguingly, what else was out there so far undiscovered, because apparently the site was uncovered by peat cutting in the 1940s and there may well be other artefacts still hidden beneath the peat nearby. I’d certainly put my money on it anyway.

When we arrived the weather was on the cusp of a mighty downpour, with massive threatening storm clouds above, and although we were lucky enough to avoid it, the sunny weather was slow to recover so we decided that we’d have to make a return visit in the hope of better light. Of course this also meant there was a dearth of other visitors so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Over the course of the two visits (day 2 turned out to be perfect with bright sunlight and atmospheric clouds – my favourite!) I must have spent nearly three hours wandering around sucking up the exquisite beauty of the place with its sombre Sperrin Mountain backdrop. Circle E, the largest circle, with its interior scattering of smaller stones known as ‘the dragon’s teeth’ (and on this occasion charmingly interspersed with daisies). Circle G with its larger ‘entrance stones’, almost mirroring each other in appearance, though if you look carefully the right hand stone isn’t actually part of the circle at all. It’s the second stone of a tangential double row aligned roughly East North East, possibly towards the Summer Solstice sunrise, and, like many of the other avenues, the stones on the other side are all small, giving an odd lopsided appearance. The cairn adjacent to circles F and G is also interesting as it seems to be the only one here with a ring ditch with the alignment of smaller stones, just mentioned, pointing straight at it.

By chance on the first day I thought I’d discovered a small cist in a pile of stones near the end of the row coming from Circle B, but as it turned out it was just a small hidey hole in which was secreted a geocache, so if you’re there anytime in the near future you too can add your name in the notes. So, a justifiably ‘must see’ destination and one that’s certainly in my top ten sites visited.

It seems few people visit this site without getting a soaking or having difficulty finding it. Well the former was true for us, but I think the signage must have improved considerably as we found it fairly easily. It’s a bit of a trudge from where we parked next to a waterworks(?) on the main road (why does it always seem to take longer to walk ‘to’ somewhere rather than ‘from’?), but well worth a visit. The tomb stands majestically on a slightly elevated position overlooking the Lough with the Sperrin Mountains as a backdrop. I’m sure it would look even more enigmatic in low Autumnal sunlight on a dry day, but that’s for another day.

This looks like a relatively easy place to get to if you know what you’re doing. We didn’t. We figured that it must be close to the river, according to the OS map, but, having parked up and set off down the track towards the water it soon became evident that there was no real pathway to follow and the conifers here were very dense and fallen trunks were covered in thick, luxurious moss giving the whole place a look like a children’s illustration of primeval forest. A fleeting glimpse of a stegosaurus wouldn’t have surprised me.

Fighting our way out, chased by a velociraptor, we headed back to the van only to discover a discreet footpath just behind it. Duhhh! At the end of it was a sunny woodland clearing with a lovely standing stone, almost 2m in height, surrounded by a rough circle of about 8 or 9 smaller stones. There may have been more but the grass was quite thick and dense. Having looked at my copy of Burl I now know there were and that this is quite a complex little site comprising more than one oval ring, stone alignments and a possible cairn, a bit like a poor relative to the nearby mind-blowing Beaghmore site. I also realise now that it’s referred to as ‘Davagh Lower’ (Eds – you may want to revise my naming?), which means presumably that there’s a Davagh Upper (or what I’ve named Davagh Forest).

Slightly to the north of the standing stone is what I took to be a ruined cairn, but again this seems to be in dispute as it could just be a ruined stone hut. Whatever it might be, it’s still a very peaceful tranquil spot and well worth a visit.

Despite some promising low spring sunshine when we set off, by the time we’d walked along Vize Lane from Broad Hinton, thick cloud had largely set in. The only thing that gives a hint of the site when viewed from a distance is the re-erected stone at the crossroad.

Only when you’re almost on top of them are you aware of the six recumbent stones in the field to your left. However, with the vegetation being still mostly leafless in this prolonged winter weather, if you look in the hedgerow to your right you’ll notice a pile of substantial sarsens that have been cleared from the surrounding fields. Now this begs the question of whether they’re (a) from the ruined circle to your south, (b) from a nearby barrow to the north-east (ploughed out, but visible on Google Maps) or (c) simply cleared natural stones from surrounding fields? As they’re easily as big as the stones within the incomplete circle, it makes you wonder why the circle wasn’t completely cleared at some point, as cultivation has been going on there for a very long time judging by the evidence of faint strip lynchets. Of course if this isn’t the ruined stone circle, as has been suggested, and that it was originally the other side of the Clyffe Pypard road, then it hardly matters at all about the provenance of the hedgerow stones!

Also worth having a good look at is the whopper of an outlier to the south-east of the circle. This stone is about the same size as the re-erected crossroads stone, but infinitely more interesting in shape. Shame they couldn’t have re-erected this one also or maybe they were worried about accidentally crushing the Alpacas that currently occupy the field.

Much like Lord’s Piece a few miles further west this is one of those strange little heathlands that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the Sussex landscape, more New Forest with gorse, heather and pines, than rolling open downland. There were once probably large tracts of land similar to this dotted all along the bottom of the escarpment north of the South Downs, but gradually with the expansion of villages and agricultural clearance these spaces are now surrounded by the houses of the well-to-do, oblivious of what’s really on their doorstep.

Sullington Warren is not big by any means, probably less than a ¼ of a square mile, but the minute you enter it you have the feeling that it’s an ancient landscape. There are nine, possibly ten barrows in the vicinity, but it’s really quite difficult to make any of them out as they’re all hopelessly overgrown. There is one linear group of three, which is reasonably easy to see, and the rest are scattered randomly. Also you can’t quite work out whether they’re small barrows on top of ‘small hills’ or if the ‘small hills’ are in fact huge barrows! Intriguing. The other thing of note is a small cross dyke/boundary marker which runs roughly east-west and stands out quite well, but having looked at the site on Magic this isn’t shown so could actually be relatively modern.

A word of warning! There is a car parking space in Water Lane to the east of the site, but I made the mistake of parking in Heather Lane, which apparently is private and there was a snidey little note on my windscreen when I got back saying that my number plate had been noted by the local Neighbourhood Watch. Goodness, I’m quaking! Otherwise a nice place to wander.

East Hill dominates the Eastern side of Old Town Hastings and you are struck immediately by it’s impregnability as you walk beneath the sandstone cliffs to the south or climb the steep steps on it’s western flank. Though we were here for a day trip and hadn’t come prepared with maps or ideas of a long stroll along the cliff tops it was evident once we were up there that this hill had history. There are perceptible undulations here and there across the turf indicating possible cross dykes or cultivation strips, but these are over-run with flattened areas suggesting more recent use as a putting green. Towards the crest of the hill is a broadly rectangular enclosure that I wasn’t entirely sure about as it’s now devoted to barbecuing, but it’s in the right place and has an air of ancientness about it. Walking on Eastwards across the hill you get magnificent views of golden limestone cliffs towering defiantly over a churning English Channel and just as you begin to dip downwards you come across the biggest piece of evidence so far in the form of a huge dyke running North to the other side of the hill. It’s largely overgrown and quite difficult to make out but it seems to be a whopper and suggests that this is indeed an Iron Age promontory fort.

Further research at home also revealed that the modern beacon you pass near the top of the steps stands on what was probably a large Bronze Age barrow. This was reused for burials in Saxon times possibly by the towns earliest Saxon arrivals who gave the town its name. West Hill, which stands across the valley from Old Town Hastings, also has prehistory and was also used to build one of the original Norman Castles following the conquest.

I’m going to make a plea here for The South Downs Way to become a site in it’s own right on TMA much like The Ridgeway is. On New Years day Mrs Cane and I walked from the car park near Combe Hill enclosure along the final stretch of the SDW down to Beachy Head. Now I’ve walked this section before, but on that occasion it was dusk and though I realised there were barrows and cross dykes dotted along the escarpment overlooking Eastbourne, I didn’t quite appreciate just how many there were. In a low bright January sun you can pick out far more easily the sheer profusion of Bronze Age handiwork in the landscape as the walk progresses. I’ve divided the barrows up according to their most local names, as there is no overall place name for this area, unless you name it the ‘Eastbourne Escarpment’, or indeed, ‘The South Downs Way’. So starting in the north just south of The Combe Hill Neolithic enclosure we have Babylon Down, Bourne Hill, Foxholes Brow, Foxholes, Beachy Brow, Eastbourne Downs Golf Club (rubbish name I admit!) and Pashley. Indeed this is a regular barrow cemetery stretching about 4 miles with quite a variation in barrow type from quite large bowl barrows, disc barrows and even conjoined examples down to the barely visible ‘trampled into the track’ type. Three to four thousand years ago they must have presented quite a spectacle if you were looking up from the flood plain below at this great range of hills as it wound its way down to the sea to come to an abrupt end at Beachy Head. It’s interesting too, to speculate as to why there are so many here anyway. Perhaps because it’s a terminus to the South Downs and possibly a trading point for goods coming in and out of the country and therefore of quite high importance and with a large population? Maybe because water was sacred to our ancestors and the area beneath the escarpment was flooded for a great deal of the time? Or perhaps they were just setting a precedent, as Eastbourne in relatively modern times has been a place to retire to and die!

I’m always amazed when I find something of considerable size near my own neck of the woods that hasn’t been visited before. Given that it’s horribly overgrown and at least half of it is inaccessible (unless you’re a paying visitor to Arundel Castle) maybe it’s not so surprising. The part you can access on the western side of the A284 can be reached by parking at the cafe carpark where all the local bikers meet at the weekend just off the roundabout and then walking south west along the A29 till you come to a footpath which brings you up into Rewell Wood. There are actually two quite substantial parallel dykes here with a ditch between them and they run for about 1/4 of a mile on this side and about 1/2 mile on the Arundel Estate side. Whether this was simply a boundary marker or some sort of defensive earthwork is hard to ascertain, but I think the latter due to it’s size and the fact that the high ground of Rewell Wood is littered with former settlements. A recent dig by Worthing Archaeological Society at Goblestubbs Copse 1 1/2 miles south west discovered remains of late Iron Age settlements in the relatively untouched woodlands. Anyway, worth visiting if you like thrashing about in the undergrowth like a mad person.

On my way to Twigworth in Gloucestershire to pick up an exhibition I decided that I probably just had time to make a flying visit to Belas Knap, a place that had stuck in my mind since a childhood visit many, many years ago. This really seemed to be quite a remote and difficult site to find, but eventually it found me and I scrambled the fifteen minute walk to the top of the hill. I had the place all to myself for some time and it all came back to me in the serenity, tidiness and beauty of this enigmatic barrow.

After wondering about for around twenty minutes I realised that someone else had arrived there and we exchanged nods. A few minutes later he stopped and asked me if I could take his picture next to the barrow using his iPhone and we fell into conversation. It transpired that he was from Tasmania visiting family and had lived nearby as a boy and had emigrated at the age of 12. He said that he’d forgotten just how much this place had meant to him and how these ancient places got under your skin. “We don’t have these same layers of history as you guys do back here and I really miss it”. That was about the age that I’d been on my last visit there also and though I’ve never lived outside the UK I think I understood what he meant.

You only have to glance at an OS map to know that the triangle of Dorset between Dorchester, Bridport and Portland is one of the richest and most interesting prehistoric areas of England. Better still is driving along the A35 on a bright day after leaving the colossus of Maiden Castle and heading towards Winterbourne Abbas and that amazing view of the rolling hills and cliffs and the sea to your south. It’s so uplifting it makes you want to sell up and move down there – now!

Today, however, it’s not bright and we’re heading east after a few days of walking and fossil hunting in Lyme Regis and we seem to be keeping just ahead of a huge rainstorm heading in from the south west. So it seemed a good time to stop off at the Grey Mare just before the impending deluge. It’s not a terribly easy one to find and seemed to be further from where we parked than we’d imagined, infact so much so that Mrs Cane gave up and headed back to the car before she could hear my triumphant exclamations as I climbed over a gate into the field where it stood.

Despite it’s relative remoteness it’s a charming piece of work and has the feel of a diminutive WKLB or Wayland’s Smithy with it’s big stone façade and has a very different look to The Hellstone which is a not too distant neighbour. The back of it appears to have been a largely stone construction as there are very large flanking stones visible in various places which you don’t often see at long barrows unless they’ve been seriously denuded of their earth covering. It’s also very well sited as there are tremendous views over the Dorset countryside and, if I’m remembering rightly, a view of Chesil Beach and Portland Bill to the south east. Having stretched my “just 10 minutes” into half an hour I made my way back across the fields vowing that I must return for a long weekend to this regional treasure trove.

This one was a bit of a happy accident as I had no idea it was here. We’d set off for a Sunday afternoon walk with my brother-in-law’s family to the Tyndale Monument (the Nibley Knob as it’s known locally) which was erected in 1866 to the memory of William Tyndale, a local man from North Nibley, who’d had the bare faced cheek to translate the bible from Latin to English and was strangled and burned for his trouble in France!

Making our way along the escarpment from Wooton-under-Edge through dense woodland I was suddenly aware that we were walking along the edge of some massive banks and ditches and I asked if it was what I thought it was and was given an affirmative. As we traversed the edge it became clear that it was quite a good size and a typical Iron Age bivallate promontory fort, not quite as impressive as it’s nearby neighbour at Uley Bury and certainly a lot more overgrown with vegetation, but there had been obvious attempts to clear some of this from the outer ditches. On the South Western edge there was an entrance way, but it was difficult to know whether this was original as it looked a bit too new and there were bits of limestone building material visible under tree roots. Possibly it had recently been enlarged to enable the gradual clearance of the interior. However, at the moment the interior is still quite choked and almost impenetrable. It would definitely be worth a revisit during the late autumn when the foliage has thinned as the views over the surrounding area to the South and as far as Bristol are just stunning.

Lord’s Piece is a strange little triangle of heathland just south of the River Rother near Fittleworth. As somebody else aptly put it, “it’s like a little bit of the New Forest placed in the heart of West Sussex”. Where the name derives from I’ve no idea, but within the few acres of this conservation area are at least five barrows made up of a linear group of three and a pair (one large, one small) on a small ridge to the south. Also visible are a number of boundary markers criss-crossing the land which I at first thought were contemporary with the barrows until I came to the middle barrow of the linear group and discovered a ‘boundary marker’ passing right through the centre of the barrow, which seems unlikely to have been the barrow builder’s original intention. The linear group are all roughly the same size, about 10-12m across but not very high at about 2m max and they’ve all recently been cleared of vegetation and are now adorned with giant wire ‘hair nets’ (or at least that’s what it looked like from a distance) which I guess keeps the local rabbits and badgers at bay. The two barrows on the ridge are interesting because of the disparity in size, the larger being about 10m across and 2.5m high whereas the smaller barrow about 30m distant is only about 4m across and barely rises more than 0.5m. The larger barrow also has a curious hole at its northern edge almost suggesting that this was the source of its material, though it’s so messy no Bronze Age barrow builder worth his salt would ever admit to this below par workmanship! It’s probably more modern than that, possibly a dried up drinking hole for cattle. Parking is very easy as there are two small carparking areas on the western side of the heath.

We probably picked the wrong day to visit here as it was damned cold and quite overcast but the thought of possibly finding a cemetery of up to twenty barrows tucked away in the wilderness of mid-Sussex proved too much of a temptation. Parking is relatively easy as there’s a conveniently placed carpark just off the A272 between Midhurst and Petersfield and was very popular with the local dogowners the day we were there, just a shame they couldn’t be bothered to pick up after them. I always tend to think of Sussex as being quite highly populated, and I guess the bit I live in on the coast is, but inland you’ll find large tracts of land with barely any sign of habitation much like this. Here there seem to be endless glorious vistas of open heather with the occasional birch tree, small patches of conifer and the blue-hued hills of the South Downs on the distant horizon. It’s probably looked like this for centuries, possibly millennia. The first barrows you come to after leaving the carpark are a very small pair, possibly conjoined and only just discernible as they’re covered in heather, so it’s almost impossible to gauge just how big they are, or were. Travelling further South you come around a small pond and follow a track to a linear arrangement of five larger barrows which are part of Fitzhall Heath. The tallest of these is about 30-40 feet across and around 10 feet high, again heather covered and at some time in the past severely mauled, and from here you can see two other large barrows, one of which has been cleared of heather. On top of this we found the tattered remains of a sign politely asking the public to refrain from walking on the barrows and to use the cleared pathways around them. Whoops, sorry. Passing through the middle of all this apparently is a Roman road as well, though I couldn’t really work out where it was supposed to be, only surmising that it started in Chichester to the South. We only managed to seek out seven barrows on this visit, but given the size of the common it would take a good day to tramp around the whole area where I know there are at least another eight marked on the OS map. We’ll return when it’s warmed up a tad.

I’ve been meaning to visit Coldrum for what seems like an eternity. It would pop into my head as I was lurching around the M25 after a hard days slog in London, but usually I’d find myself too tired, the light would be fading or the weather not quite right. So despite the on/off rain showers Mrs. C and I decided to try a visit on the way to friends in North Kent and as it turned out it couldn’t have been much better. I was a bit surprised once we’d located it that it wasn’t perched on the edge of the North Downs, which is how I’d always pictured it, but nestling in the valley below on a small raised platform of a hill. The views from here, however, are quite wonderful as your gaze tumbles along the bottom of the downs and across the surrounding fields and I doubt whether that view will have changed very much in the past 5000 years considering its isolation. Somebody else who turned up while we were there informed us that most of the surrounding land is to become a vineyard in the near future and I wondered how that might impact on the site.

As we were there as the sun was going down everything seemed to have that warm glow about it and the light gave the stones that extra strength and definition so reminiscent of childhood evenings in Wiltshire when we’d drive out to places like West Kennet and Avebury and the stance of the site is not unlike the Wiltshire sites also. The only detraction was that some imbecile had written the word ‘DEVIL’ on one of the burial chamber stones in charcoal but it must have been a while ago and it had faded and would probably disappear with the next good rain fall. The other thing that was interesting and which has been noted here before is the strange blueness of the stones once they’re in shadow. I couldn’t work out if this was just due to the comparison between the lit and unlit stone or perhaps something to do with the lichens that cover them and how they interact with light?

So what a delight and a place that I’m itching to get back to, along with the nearby Chestnuts at Addington, which we didn’t get to see on this occasion, but would be interesting to compare.

This solitary barrow sits on the edge of a track which diverts from the South Downs Way at Springhead Hill leading South West towards Burpham and North Stoke. There are superb views across the rolling downland hills and on this particular day a spectacular sunburst above Arundel Castle (Camelot!)

I like the fact that this barrow has a name as so few round barrows do, although I suppose they all did to begin with, they just got lost in the mists of time. This one, I believe, is a Saxon name and might possibly be connected to the strange earthwork slightly South of it. This looks like a giant dew pond but apparently isn’t. Possible explanations include a siege fort or animal enclosure. The latter would seem a more obvious choice as there are nearby field systems (celtic or medieval?) and it’s deep in livestock grazing country.

The Lewes Mounds

If you lived in a small town in East Sussex and there were three large Silbury-like mounds within close proximity of the town centre would you not be curious as to why? Well this is the case for Lewes, the county town of East Sussex.

The most prominent mound is the one currently occupied by Lewes Castle and is designated as a Norman Motte dating from 1069 and built by William de Warenne, brother-in-Law of William the Conqueror. This stands broadly in the town centre overlooking all of its surroundings and the motte itself must stand at about 50 feet in height.

The second, known as Brack Mount, is also designated as a Norman Motte and was contained originally within the curtain wall of Lewes Castle and Lewes Castle is one of only Two Norman castles in the UK to have two mottes, the other being Lincoln. It is believed that Brack Mount was the original castle with a wooden barbican and that the superior stone barbican that we see today at Lewes Castle took some 300 years to complete. Brack Mount is about 40-50 feet high depending on where you’re viewing it from and is built on a slope slightly North East of the castle and is now completely surrounded by houses and a pub, the Lewes Arms, that back onto it. There have been 2 partial excavations of this site, the first being in 1838 when workmen discovered an inhumation and boars head in the north side of the mound and the second, more recently, found a chalk lined well in the top of the mound believed to be Norman in origin. Despite the fact that the garden of the Lewes Arms cuts into the mound there seems to be no evidence of any finds on that occasion or at least no report of anything of interest, though there have been recent assertions that the mound is pre-Roman in origin.

Now we come to the third mound, or the ‘Tump’ as it’s known locally, whose history is far from clear. It stands almost in isolation just South of the railway line that skirts the South of the town and is adjacent to the ruins of Lewes Priory. It too is about 45 feet high and takes the form of a ziggerat. Various explanations have been put forward to try and explain its origins. One is that it’s a Calvary built by the priory monks and was part of a punishment whereby misbehaving monks were made to carry a cross to it’s summit (there was until recently a socket still visible there for a cross erecting ceremony carried out by local Christians at Easter). Another theory is that it’s simply a large pile of earth left over from either the building of the Priory on it’s western side or from the ‘Dripping Pan’, a large salt pan (though the salt pan too is doubtful) on it’s eastern side now occupied by Lewes Football Club. As far as I know there has never been anything like a proper excavation of this site. The only nearby find was of a ground Neolithic hand axe which was discovered when railway abutments were created in 1911 just to the north.

So three large mounds and little archaeological evidence to work out just how old they are. But is it just three? Evidence suggests that there were at least another five tumuli within the vicinity. A Historic Character Assessment Report for Lewes carried out in 2005 reveals that there were another four tumuli in almost a linear arrangement running north east from Brack Mount. The report lists them as follows:

• Churchyard of St John-sub-Castro – two mounds, possibly representing Romano-British or Anglo-Saxon, or earlier, barrows. That destroyed by the building of present church in 1839 contained secondary inhumations, cremated human bone, boar and other animal bones, and an urn and spearhead. The second mound was in the south-east corner of the churchyard, and was destroyed in 1779 with no record of any finds. Several Roman coins were also found in the churchyard in the 19th century [HER reference: ES7176].

• Abinger House (Abinger Place) – mound, possibly representing Romano-British or Anglo- Saxon, or earlier, barrow. Destroyed in the early 19th century without record, though apparently contained internments and pottery.

• Elephant and Castle (Whitehill) – mound, possibly representing Romano-British or Anglo- Saxon, or earlier (e.g. Bronze Age) barrow, and possibly used as a medieval and later gallows mound. Destroyed when Elephant and Castle public house was built in 1838.

A further barrow seems to have been destroyed in 1834 during the creation of a reservoir near St. Anne’s Church where a Bronze Age inhumation and other cremation burials were discovered. This too lies within the town centre.

So are we looking at a large Bronze Age barrow cemetery, a sacred site of monumental mounds in the vein of Silbury (particularly in the light of the recent dating of the Marlborough Mound) or merely a disparate collection of barrows of different ages and usages? Because most of these barrows were destroyed in the gradual expansion of the town it’s very difficult to know which era they actually belonged to but I’m of the opinion that all these tumuli were of roughly the same period, probably Bronze Age, and the Normans merely utilized two of them in the highest positions, in the construction of their castle. Nearby Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age sites on the South Downs would also suggest that Lewes’s mounds were of a pre-Roman era.

Further, and more diligent map reading, made me realise that this is actually much longer than I thought. I’d assumed that it began/ended at The Valdoe but in reality the whole thing is much longer and extends, albeit brokenly, Westwards beyond Lavant all the way to West Stoke, just South of Kingley Vale. So this mysterious ditch/dyke is actually around six to seven miles in length and not the two miles I’d originally stated. Also the part I looked at this time is a dyke and not a ditch, as it was in The Valdoe with a height of around two metres in places. It would be interesting, but I’m not sure if it’s possible, to walk it’s entire length though some of it passes through private land and there are no footpaths available. At some points it seems to disappear altogether, most notably at Lavant, but that might be due to the build up of the village over the centuries and the section of road through East Lavant corresponds almost exactly with the ‘presumed’ course of the ditch. More visits will ensue no doubt.

Brighstone Down encompasses quite a large area and also includes Gallibury Hump which sits just outside the forested area. The Tennyson Trail passes through the middle of it and it’s quite accessible by foot from Brighstone village to the South or from the road connecting Brighstone and Calbourne. This area of Downland forms the spine of the Island running east to west and is quite rich in tumuli of varying sizes and states of decay. Of the barrows in the woodland we really only encountered about three and it was quite a surprise to find quite large barrows hidden in the depths of the forest. These were situated just off a track which runs up from the reservoir (bounded by the Tennyson and Worsley Trails) on the southern edge of the forest. The map indicates three barrows near the bend and I was anticipating Bell barrows. As far as I could tell there were only two quite handsome barrows at this position about 2m high and 5-6m wide, but strangely there was a large but quite faint circle comprising a shallow ditch surrounded by a small bank about 7-9m in diameter. This either had to be a small enclosure (there are others not far away) or a reasonably large disc barrow! This was quite difficult to make out properly due to the density of the undergrowth and poor light on an overcast day, but if it does turn out to be a disc barrow then it’s possibly the only one on the island as far as I can tell. Having researched I can find no mention of this anywhere else. If anyone has any more information I’d be glad to hear it.

This small gathering of barrows can be reached from the fantastic viewpoint of Limerstone Down, just off the Worsley Trail, about 30 minutes walk North East from the village of Brighstone. There are 4 barrows visible at the top of the Down, a further 2 about 100m west (though they may have been ploughed out as they weren’t exactly obvious) and 2 large barrows at the end of the spine of the hill at Cheverton Farm. There are great views across the island in most directions but the barrows aren’t exactly what you’d call ‘awe inspiring’ and the weather was also a bit flat the day we trudged through. Perhaps more intriguing are the strange earthworks around the viewpoint at Limerstone Down a few hundred metres South West though I can’t find any information about them so I’ve no idea just how old they are.

I have to concur with Carl on this one, it really was a trial to find. This was however confounded by a really thick mist that had been hanging around the peninsular for two days (in late July!) and I think if I hadn’t had an OS map I might never have found it. Starting from the car park at Zennor I crossed the main road near the telephone box and took the footpath that runs along the bottom of the hill and I remember wondering at the time whether there were any snakes around? We’d already seen a number of very small lizards on the cliff path to Gurnards Head when just in time I stopped myself from stepping on an Adder at the side of the path! Usually when I’ve encountered them in the past they slither off as soon as they know they’ve been spotted, but this one stood its ground and even allowed me to get relatively close to take its portrait! Having jumped over it I carried on along the path when, blow me, I encountered another which, thankfully, disappeared into the undergrowth. Passing the farm buildings I then started to make my way up the hill towards the Logan Stone but having reached the top, encountering yet another adder, I found myself completely disorientated because I couldn’t work out where the sun was due to the mist and wandered around for about half an hour becoming increasingly panicky. Then, just as I was about to despair and make my way back down, there was a very brief break in the mist across the moorland and I could just about discern what must surely be Zennor Quoit about 300m away. Rechecking the map as the mist rolled relentlessly back in I made a mad dash to get there and felt a huge relief as it came into view just the other side of a low stone wall through the ferns and gorse. My first reaction on coming up close to it was its sheer size, it had looked quite insubstantial from a distance, but this really is a whopper and quite beautifully constructed. I didn’t realise the significance of the 5 pillars alongside it at the time so I was quite intrigued by them and also the tiny holes which appear all over the structure. I think the combination of it being hidden in the swirling mist and having had to really struggle to find it gave it a special kind of significance for me and it presented itself as a reward if you see what I mean. Well worth visiting but I would advise anyone attempting to find it in adverse weather conditions to have a map and a compass...... oh, and look out for snakes.

Although this is listed as a dyke (why is there no other option?) it is in fact a ditch as the name suggests and not just a small thing but a ditch which extends over 2 miles, though a little broken in places. The coordinates start in the west in ‘The Valdoe’ a small wood about a mile below The Trundle but it eventually peters out near Halnaker on Boxgrove Common as it meanders along the bottom of the South Downs. What it’s original purpose was nobody seems to be in agreement over and research has suggested that it was a defence against the Saxon invaders of the 5th Century but more commonly it is believed to have been built in the Iron Age and was either a boundary marker or again a quite sturdy piece of defence work. A lot of the middle section is difficult to get a look at as it’s mostly on private land and people are rather fond of guns in this neck of the woods. Judging by the state of the section in the Valdoe it’s also pretty silted up, but I’m hoping to have a look at the sections in the east some time soon.

Cissbury Ring is one of my favourite walking places in West Sussex. Standing on the South Downs and within walking distance of my home town of Worthing it’s an excellent place to wander and refresh yourself. Even in the depths of winter you’ll find some hardy folk along with their canine companions walking the ring or brivetting about in the undergrowth. It’s quiet seclusion also offers spectacular views in all directions covering the Downs, the sprawl of the south coast conurbation from Brighton to Bognor Regis and on a clear day you can even see the Seven Sisters to the east and the Isle of Wight to the west.

Hard to believe then that this was once one of the powerhouses of Neolithic industry in the UK. Though entered on TMA as an Iron Age hillfort it actually began it’s fantastically varied life as a source of raw flint in the Neolithic era and the south western area of the hill bears testimony to this with it’s hundreds of shallow, and sometimes enormous, pits. This ‘moon-cratered’ surface represents the backfilled shafts of flint mines dating back some 5000 years and although not visible today some of them were between 40-45 feet deep and gave onto galleries and chambers that sometimes connected to other shafts. Cissbury and the nearby Church Hill and, slightly further afield Harrow Hill and Blackpatch, were some of the primary sources of flint throughout the Neolithic period. Only the slightly later mines at Norfolk’s Grimes Graves were any significant rival. The quality of the flint mined here was obviously very high as mining continued well into the Bronze Age and tools created from the flint have been found across Britain and mainland Europe. Between the four Sussex locations there were probably in excess of 400 shafts. Some of these were the subject of a number of archaeological digs between Victorian times and as recently as the 1970s. The earliest interest for the Cissbury site comes from 1849 when the Reverend Edward Turner, addressing the Sussex Archaeological Society, stated confidently that the hollows were formed for ‘Druidical celebrations’ but didn’t specify what these might be! The first excavations were carried out in 1857 by George Irving, but he failed to get to the bottom of the pits both physically and metaphorically and interpreted them as ‘animal pens’ due to the finds he came across. In 1867 Colonel Augustus Lane Fox was the first person to suggest that the pits were associated with flint mining while investigating hillfort construction on the South Downs, but he too failed to fully excavate the mines to their actual bottoms. However, the discovery of shafts beneath the fort’s ramparts made them realise that the shafts pre-dated the Iron Age and discovery of a polished axe within the ring and to the east of the pits firmly planted the shafts in the Neolithic era. Ernest Willet, who in 1868 had been looking at similar features to Lane Fox on nearby Church Hill, began working at Cissbury in 1873 and was the first person to get to the bottom of a shaft after digging down 4.2m through the back-fill in one of the earlier excavated pits where he discovered a series of chambers and galleries. Sadly his site notes from the dig were lost. More diggers came and went for the next 60 years but one of the more interesting figures to explore Cissbury was a local working class self-taught archaeologist named John Pull. He’d already achieved notoriety in the area following his discoveries at Blackpatch in the early 1920s and suffered at the disparaging hands of the Worthing Archaeology Society for his methods and site recording procedures. Most of this was down to pure snobbery on the Society’s part and given the towns Conservative nature hardly surprising. He did however rejoin the Society in 1947, taking over as president in 1952 and started new works at Cissbury the same year which gave rise to the most comprehensive studies of the Cissbury mines ever undertaken. Sadly he was shot dead in a bank raid in 1960 while working as a security guard at the Durrington branch of Lloyds Bank. For further intriguing reading on the subject take a look at Miles Russell’s fascinating book ‘Flint mines in Neolithic Britain’ (Tempus Books, 2000).

Bit controversial this one. The stones that make up the base of the fountain on The Old Steine in Brighton allegedly once stood in a circle in close proximity to the Goldstone. Some of these same stones now surround The Goldstone in Hove Park, though it was always believed to have been a large solitary stone in its original position. They’re certainly of the same material as The Goldstone and its attendant circle, a sandstone and flint conglomerate, except one or two which are genuine sarsens. However, according to other sources, the fountain stones were part of a circle near the Wellsbourne (or Whalesborn, the now hidden river) in the valley which constitutes The Old Steine and which gives the area it’s name (Steine – Stone). Yet another source states that they were simply stones scattered along the banks of the river and that they were gradually tidied up over the centuries until they came to their present resting place and had no sacred or special significance whatsoever. Whatever the truth is, it’s testimony to the gradual destruction of ancient relics in the area over a long period, but I guess that it still acts as a central meeting place, albeit one where most of those gathered the day I was there were clutching cans of lager.

Very easy to find as the B3180 passes straight through the middle of this handsome Iron Age fort. We happened to be staying about half a mile from here while working in Honiton and were vaguely aware of it’s presence the first night of our stay as we drove through. The next morning gave us more tantalising glimpses as we made the return drive to Honiton with perfect low sunlight filtering through the copper coloured leaves of the beech trees on and within the banks of the fort. The fort itself sits just slightly atop a wild and open area of common land and the OS map shows evidence of a number of tumuli in the surrounding area but sadly, we never had time to investigate these. The banks which are quite substantial in places are made up largely of smooth rounded pebbles from an ancient river bed and a little further down the road from here is a company extracting the same material for aggregate. This area must once have been a large alluvial plain stretching between the River Exe in the West and the River Otter to the East. A great place to wonder around on a sunny autumn day with stunning views across the common in all directions

This is a lone barrow just off the South Downs Way track, but perhaps more interesting are the earthworks alongside it. On MAGIC it merely states ‘field system’. Not sure if they are contemporary with the barrow but could be medieval as a few miles further on just beyond Millbarrows, also on the track, is Lomer Medieval Village (remains of) which has a similar feel and look.

This is not just your usual wimpish ‘cross dyke’ that you find over most of the South Downs but quite a sizeable beast more in line with Rackham Banks near Amberley. The easiest approach is from the mindless racetrack of the A27 between Worthing and Lancing. Take either the Sompting Abbotts Church turn off for Steyning or the Dankton Lane turn just after, then it’s just a short walk along tracks from either of these roads. The main dyke runs for almost half a mile up the hill and consists of a ditch which is mainly overgrown, and probably served as a track in the past, and the dyke itself which in places is about 4 feet above the level of the surrounding fields. From the top are spectacular views across the South Downs to Cissbury Ring to the west and the chapel of Lancing College in the east. Oh, and if anyone finds a 77mm lens cap around there it’s mine.

We don’t really do big stones much down here in Sussex so it felt quite an honour to photograph this monster. I’d seen old photos of the Goldstone and didn’t quite appreciate just how bloody huge this stone is. This could stand proudly with anything at Avebury or a number of any other megalithic sites, it’s just the surroundings which make it all a bit surreal, the twee fencing, the rumble of traffic on the Shoreham Road only fifty metres away and the Burger King, DFS and Comet showrooms on the other side of the road! The Goldstone and the nine smaller stones surrounding it (from a different location, as is the Goldstone itself) is very similar to the stones I recently saw at Winterbourne Abbas, a conglomeration of flint and sandstone. The smaller stones also seem to have suffered more from erosion over the last hundred years or so judging by the older photos or maybe they’ve just been laid on their sides. The other thing that struck me, and I have to say I usually find this sort of thing extremely cheesey, was the face thing on the western side which looked like it was in a deep sleep. It must have looked very impressive before being buried, resurrected and re-sited here in the corner of Hove Park facing passively out to sea.

This was my first visit to Badbury Rings. Despite the fact that I’d been to college in Bournemouth some 25 years before, and was now here for the day taking my eldest son to an interview at my old college, I’d never made it out here. It was one of those bitterly cold days when you’re not sure quite what the weather is going to do – one minute snow showers, the next bright sunlight. The approach to the Rings is quite spectacular in itself as you come along the Blandford road through an amazing avenue of tall, mature beech trees bereft of their leaves at this time of year and then swing into the carpark past three of the large Bronze Age barrows to your right. It’s only a short walk from the carpark to the Rings and as you progress up this fairly low hill you’ll notice a fourth barrow on your right and beyond the ramparts away from the other three. It reminded me very much of Danebury in Hampshire which is also on a fairly low hill, multivallate and with a small wood planted within its enclosure. The entrance differs to that at Danebury, and to its enormous neighbour at Maiden Castle nearby at Dorchester, in that it goes straight in towards the centre instead of zigzagging, so you can imagine they must have had some formidable gates here to prevent an easy ingress. Having walked anti-clockwise around the inner rampart to the Northern side you can see a couple of hundred yards off what looks like a low bank running roughly SW/NE which I guessed to be either a fourth defence or boundary marker. This is infact the Ackling Dyke, a Roman Road which takes a turn to the left just North of the Rings and continues towards the Dorset Cursus. Another interesting thing on Google Maps is the cropmark of what looks like an echo of the Rings reflected in the line of the road. Does anyone else have a theory about this?

Bell barrows are ten-a-penny in this neck of the woods and even the odd long barrow isn’t too much of a surprise so I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I noticed these two disc barrows. They’re right next to the footpath of the SDW near the carpark and disused and quaintly named ‘Bo Peep’ chalk pit. There are also fantastic views over the Downs here and the tiny village of Alciston.

I must have wandered past this several times in the past and never noticed it, but because of a lot of recent clearance of thick gorse and dead yew trees it suddenly revealed itself and quite a find it is too. Possibly contemporary with the Devil’s Humps at Kingley Vale just a stones throw away, it’s described on the Pastscape section of the English Heritage site as ‘A rectangular earthwork of about an acre possibly as early as Late Bronze Age. Scheduled.’ It also says that it’s similar to enclosures in Germany from the last century BC. Most of the banks and ditches are in a reasonable state and the southerly bank extends beyond the enclosure further west as a cross dyke. There seems to be only one discernible entrance on the Eastern side next to the track.

This is an intriguing little strip of land which extends some 3 miles from Freshwater Bay in the East to The Needles in the West. At the Freshwater Bay end you’ll encounter a cross dyke and then, interestingly, a ‘Neolithic Mortuary Enclosure’. This is quite faint but just about discernible although there’s nothing at this end to tell you what it is, you get the information if you walk to the end of the ‘Tennyson Trail’. The trail is named for Alfred Lord Tennyson, the poet, who lived in the bay and stolled daily on the Down. About a mile from the bay stands a monument to him which replaced a landmark for channel shipping called ‘The Nodes’, a replica of which now stands forlornly in some bushes a few hundred yards further West. Near this are also a couple of barrows largely worn down with age and the feet of countless hordes of tourists.
As you get closer to the Needles there are more and more barrows and a lot of unidentified earthworks, some of which may be attributable to the defences built over the centuries up to the time of the Cold War in the aftermath of WW2. Here, unbelievably, was a ‘rocket testing station’, where ‘Blue Streak’ and ‘Black Knight’ rockets built for the British government in East Cowes were tested, but not launched, before being sent to Woomera in Australia for launching. There’s also an interesting and free museum there to tell you all about it.

This site is of note simply because most of the barrows here seemed to consist of shards of flint rather than the more common chalk and turf barrows which proliferate throughout the rest of the island. I did wonder if there had perhaps been flint mining around here also but can’t find any evidence for it other than what’s visible. The other thing which strikes you is the lack of enclosures and hill forts on the island when, judging by the number of barrows, there must have been a considerable population. Possibly because it is a relatively small island and had good lookout positions scattered across it, it felt less vulnerable than other areas on the mainland and people could live in safety almost anywhere, though sadly today there’s not much trace of habitations.