On Tumuli

Any look at a map of the South Downs Way National Trail will draw your attention to curious humps known as 'tumulli'. These are the burial bounds of the late Neolithic period. Common across the south and in the Celtic lands they are not seen frequently in other parts of England. The ones in Downland frequently have dips in the centre where enthusiastic but less than diligent 18th and 19th century proto-archaeologists dug hard into them in search of riches and treasures rather than evidence and understanding.

At Chanctonbury and above Firle, as elsewhere, these mounds are either side of the ancient trackway, much in the same way as the Romans buried their dead outside the city astride the main roads into the urban environment many centuries later.

No-one knows why these sites were chosen, but one evening, when the summer sun is setting over the black shadowy hulk of the Isle of Wight, far in the distance, lay down and rest your head against a mound near Chanctonbury Ring, watch the buzzards soar into the twilight and listen to light summer breeze rustling the grass around your head. Look out across the Low Weald. Where else would you chose to rest for eternity?

In Praise of Picnics

One of the best things about Downland is that despite being accessible it is often possible to walk just a short distance to find a sense of remoteness among beautiful surroundings.

Recently I've read a couple of books about the South Downs written in the 1920s, and much mention is made of the picnic. It occurred to me while reading that, despite it being a feature of every period drama, the picnic seems to have been left behind in a tide of gastropubs and fast food.

It seems that the picnic as we know it began in the early 19th century, and involved often quite large groups, with outdoor games considered an essential part of the day. Picnics became, in that century, quite a feature of life, art and literature from Dickens's 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' to Manet's painting 'Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe' (1865-66).

Of course, the most famous picnics is the Teddy Bear's picnic which entered it's most well-known version in the early 1930s and has been a staple of children's recordings ever since.

Summer will soon be here, despite what the recent weather would have you believe, and I think 2012 should be the year we revive the picnic as the purpose of the walk, not just as an incidental part of a day out.

In these times of economic uncertainty it's a cheap day out for all the family, and with a good walk can be a brilliant way to wear out those energetic little ones during the long summer holidays.

As for the weather - well, I'm not expecting anyone to repeat my effort of a few years ago where I climbed up the Long Man of Wilmington in crampons and ate cheese and pickle butties in a snow scrape sheltered by a gorse bush and surrounded by a pristine, virgin-white landscape - but seize the good days, pack the basket and step out into the countryside.

I have included five routes suitable for picnicking, mostly accessible by public transport, short and long, and all with somewhere nice to sit down, play frisbee and enjoy the best of Downland.

Each link is clickable.

The Henfield Rail and River Picnic Walk (6 miles)

The Cuckmere Haven Picnic Walk (3 miles)

The Kingley Vale Picnic Walk (3 miles)

The Chanctonbury Ring Picnic Walk (8 miles)

The Long Man of Wilmington Picnic Walk (2.3 miles)

The Run of The Downs

Rudyard Kipling was just one of many literary giants to make Sussex his home, and as the last of the poetry theme for now. I've included one of his many Sussex poems. "The Run of the Downs" is one of my favourites. I'm sure we'll meet Kipling again in this discourse. 

 

The Run of the Downs

Rudyard Kipling

The Weald is good, the Downs are best-
I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.
Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
They were once and they are still.
Firle Mount Caburn and Mount Harry
Go back as far as sums 'll carry.
Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring
They have looked on many a thing,
And what those two have missed between 'em
I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.
Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down
Knew Old England before the Crown.
Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood
Knew Old England before the Flood;
And when you end on the Hampshire side-
Butser's old as Time and Tide.
The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,
You be glad you are Sussex born!

Chanctonbury Ring - a few lines.

"I can't forget the lane that goes from Steyning to the Ring
In summer time, and on the Down how larks and linnets sing
High in the sun. The wind comes off the sea, and Oh the air!
I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair.
But now I know it in this filthy rat infested ditch
When every shell may spare or kill - and God alone knows which.
And I am made a beast of prey, and this trench is my lair.
My God! I never knew till now that those days were so fair.
So we assault in half an hour, and, - it's a silly thing -
I can't forget the narrow lane to Chanctonbury Ring."

John Stanley Purvis, 1916

How oft around thy Ring, sweet Hill,
  A Boy, I used to play,
And form my plans to plant thy top
  On some auspicious day.
How oft among thy broken turf
  With what delight I trod,

With what delight I placed those twigs
  Beneath thy maiden sod.
And then an almost hopeless wish
  Would creep within my breast,
Oh! could I live to see thy top
  In all its beauty dress'd.
That time's arrived; I've had my wish,
  And lived to eighty-five;
I'll thank my God who gave such grace
  As long as e'er I live.
Still when the morning Sun in Spring,
  Whilst I enjoy my sight,
Shall gild thy new-clothed Beech and sides,
  I'll view thee with delight.

Charles Goring, 1828


East and west in drifting cloud
Fades the line of the South Downs
Here are no 'buses braying loud,
No crowds or smoke or din of towns
But only sunlit greens and browns
And the far flick of a hawk's wing;
A vast content his climbing crowns
Who stands by Chanctonbury Ring'

Unknown, earlier than 1928

Cissbury Ring

Near the car park conspiratorial ravens chatter in electronic voices, mattock beaks silhouetted against the skyline . A magpie argues angrily with them before alighting in a conifer which flexes as he scolds me for too close an approach, I salute him theatrically and he turns his back in disgust.

As I toil up the steep slope night falls like a shroud slowly covering the sleeping land. Cobalt slides into slate into black.

Sulphur, magnesium and neon sparkle in the valley below, while to the north all is black, all is silent. Man is emasculated, stripped of a sense. The vulnerability of the apex hunter is absolute here. Darkness is everything.

Senses become muddled, the air tastes of spring; but smells of autumn. Smoke rises from backyard fires as christmas smoulders and drifts away on the breeze. A cloud of blue tits trills a lullaby from shrubs hard by the path, where sad posters beg for news of lost friends.

An woodland trackway lives with the sound of the night as feet slide in a muddy gravy, feeling for friction,  the incline increasing before giving way to springy downland turf. Here and there under skeletal trees a smattering of freshly dug chalk sparkles like fresh snow in the moonlight. A barn owl screeches as it wakes, ravenous, the sound is everywhere, without sight the ears are sharpened.

The only other sound is the breathless labour of ascent. 

Ancient ramparts rear up into the black, the prows of chalky ships against a black sea. In the northwest corner the remnants of flint mines sink into the earth, their shrubby hollows tempt unwary ankles to twist.

Once there was no turf on these ramparts, stripped bare the chalk would have shone like a beacon for miles around on nights like these; this capital of an ancient downland kingdom.

Far below downland sheep pick over a brown field, white felt on a children's playmat. On the horizon Chanctonbury's regal crown of beech crests the horizon. In a coombe below a solitary green woodpecker laughs manically at some hidden joke, before flying drunkenly into the nearby copse. A tawny owl welcomes the night with it's horror-movie call.

Suddeny, just below the rampart, Chalkpit Wood erupts as the owl wheels and stalls, hovers and plunges, bringing terror in a thrashing of feathers and fur, a slicing of dagger-talons, and then: silence.

A horse's head of cloud canters across a full moon, and trees become human, stalking in the night, with fingery roots grasping up intent on harm.

This is an old landscape, a place of ancestors, long since swept away on a tide of revolution, a place of life and industry, of loves and losses; now reclaimed by nature.

Protected now, preserved forever, no-one will punch a high-speed rail line through here, destroying all that matters for the benefit of the few who chose to live far away from their employment, to the detriment of those that chose the simplicity of a slower life.

Far away someone ignores a car alarm.  In this moment I live forever.