A R Cane

Afton Down is a strange site as it’s often difficult to tell what’s old and what’s been added. What looks like a Bronze-age barrow from one angle turns out to be a sand trap from another. It’s obviously a barrow cemetery consisting of two groups of 3 and 8 barrows and a dyke or two, but has been severely messed about by the morons that are the Freshwater Bay Golf club. How do these people manage to get away with it? You would think that this historically interesting area which is wonderfully beautiful and relatively unspoilt for the Isle of Wight would have had some sort of preservation order placed on it, but they’ve simply carved it up for the benefit of a few garishly-clad plonkers who tut at you when you stop to take a few photos because it’s interrupting their ‘game’. It might be quite interesting to have a closer look at some of the barrows in the evening after the golfers have gone home as you can’t get near some of them because you’re restricted to the footpath. On a nicer note, you can visit Dimbola Lodge, the home of Julia Margaret Cameron, pioneer Victorian photographer in Freshwater Bay which is a real treat.

Long barrows in Sussex are few and far between but I thought it worth mentioning them as they form part of the abundant collection of earthworks within the Kingley Vale Nature Reserve north of Chichester. The other notable relics being the enormous round barrows on top of Bow Hill and Goose Hill Camp Iron Age Hill Fort. You can find them quite easily by following the trail next to the dyke that runs alongside the round barrows north-east for about half a mile. You’ll come to an opening in the woods to your left and the first long barrow sits in a field beneath you. The other lies in an adjacent field and the pair of them are bisected by a footpath leading down to the village of Stoughton itself.

I find it a little surprising that nobody has written any fieldnotes for Kingley Vale before. These are probably the largest barrows in the whole of Sussex, the highest being about four metres high, bigger even than the probably more famous ‘Devil’s Jumps’ directly due north from here. Not the easiest place to get to and few signs to aid your navigation it’s well worth a visit whether you’re into lumps and bumps, walking or just being plain spaced-out. The views are also something else as you look south towards the cities of Chichester, with it’s landmark cathedral spire, and Portsmouth further west. You can also quite clearly see the Isle of Wight in the distance. To the north are superb views of the spine of the South Downs. There’s an absolute wealth of material to look at here within an area of about two square miles including the various ditches and banks around the four main barrows, two very moderate long barrows on Stoughton Down, an un-named rectangular enclosure slightly further north-east and about a mile further from there is the almost hidden and slightly inaccessible small Iron age hill fort of Goose Hill Camp. Nearest parking if you’re coming from the south is near the village of West Stoke.

I recall trying to find this fort a few years ago on a previous visit to the Kingley Vale Nature reserve but it had been difficult to make out due to the excessive undergrowth. This time around it proved much easier as there has been a lot of clearance throughout the reserve recently and after stumbling over a few dead vikings we found it once again. It’s an interesting site as the outer and inner banks and ditches are unusually far apart and the whole thing is filled with a profusion of ancient yews. The day we were here was splendidly sunny and warm and peaceful but having been here at other times when the weather was less clement the whole reserve has a rather sullen and slightly oppressive feel to it which I think is largely due to the dense yews. The fort sits on a hillside, not quite at the top, looking east over the downlands and is roughly oval in shape. Interestingly there’s another earthwork about half a mile from here as you walk back to the huge barrows on Bow Hill, but it’s not named and is distinctly rectangular in shape. Can’t seem to find any information about this.

Castle Hill is situated in a stretch of downland between Brighton and Lewes in an area of outstanding beauty owned by the National Trust. The easiest way to get to it is to leave your vehicle near the houses on the northern edge of Woodingdean (off the Falmer Road, B2123) and then make your way round the hideous radio mast towards the valley at Standean Bottom. You can either follow the valley all the way round until you come round to the northern edge and then up the hill towards the enclosure or you can take a short cut down to the bottom of the valley and straight up the hill. The enclosure is at the top of the hill, roughly rectangular in shape and has splendid views back across the majestic valley and south towards the cliffs and sea between Brighton and Newhaven. The banks are only a couple of feet high now but still quite distinct with a few depressions visible inside them, possibly from huts. There’s a bank and ditch which extends from the western side of the enclosure for a short distance down towards the valley. It feels like an outpost from the slightly more busy South Downs Way but you’re really not that far from other major earthworks at Whitehawk and Hollingbury on the outskirts of Brighton and indeed it’s not difficult to come across something on almost any hilltop in this area. Obviously a very populace place even thousands of years ago.

Quite by chance we stumbled upon this barrow cemetery while walking a section of the South Downs Way last weekend. Its not as large and impressive as ‘The Devil’s Jumps’ which is a few miles further west from here and the largest barrows are only a couple of metres high at the most, but there are actually two more barrows and a couple of cross dykes intersecting the group. They’re aligned roughly East/West unlike The Devils Jumps which are apparently aligned to the setting sun at the summer solstice. The best access point is probably from Cocking and a brief walk east along the SDW footpath. It’s not signposted but appears on the OS explorer map 121 (Arundel and Pulborough) and you have to look hard through the hedgerows to spot it. It’s also interesting to note that along this section of the SDW there are few solitary barrows and that they always seem to be in linear groups. There is another example near Westburton Hill near Bignor of a group of four barrows which lie in a valley(!), but sadly are no longer visible having been ploughed out over time.

The barrow, although not so interesting in itself, stands on a promontory of the South Downs which leads down to Southwick and Shoreham. However, from this elevated position you get breath-taking views of the whole coastline from the east of Brighton to the west of Worthing, the River Adur as it snakes past Lancing College and the stretch of the South Downs to the North with Trueleigh Hill directly behind you. There was a settlement here also, but I don’t know if this dated from the neolithic or from more recent medieval times. It was getting too dark to actually get a look at this aspect of the site so another visit will ensue. It’s worth visiting just for it’s isolation, peacefulness (apart from the roar of the A27 which passes just beneath it) and the abundance of natural flora all around it.