Worthing, Cissbury Ring and Brighton

The detailed route follows this descriptive narrative.

Worthing, Cissbury Ring and Brighton – 16-18 Dec 2000

I had a day’s leave to use up before the New Year, so we thought a few days by the sea would be the perfect antidote to Christmas shopping.

We met up on Friday night at Louise’s sister’s home in Surrey and drove down the next day on the A283, stopping in Chiddingfold at the Crown Inn. This old early Tudor Inn has a huge fireplace and lovely timbered rooms. The menu is good and some excellent beers are kept, including Badgers Best bitter. An assortment of newspapers is left for customers’ use.

The nearby Swan used to be owned by a married couple and did very good food, including a great dish of lamb shank. I can’t say the place is the same now.

The Winterton Arms is OK too, but not as civilised as the Crown.

The rest of the drive was delightful, passing through Petworth, Pulborough and close to Parham Place. There is still quite a bit of flooding evident in low lying areas, but none encroaching on the road.

We got to Worthing by mid afternoon only to find "No Vacancies" outside all the B&B guesthouses and Hotels. Talk about "No room at the Inn." We checked, it was definitely not Bethlehem. The B&B we have stayed with before did not seem to be there any more either. Presently a man walking two dogs came by and he asked if we were looking for accommodation. He had a B&B himself and apparently the owners of the other one have ceased to trade.

The B&B was fine and comfortable, much better than a stable, but oddly enough, also had "No Vacancies" outside, despite being completely empty. I guess most landlords want to clear their rooms before Christmas.

It was a clear, almost frosty evening and we mixed with the shoppers in the town centre. Worthing has quite a number of shops for it’s size.

We polished off the night at Nooris, a very good Indian restaurant with a traditional and innovative menu, including duck with oranges and Cointreau and some fairly hot dishes. We had a bottle of Jacobs Creek Grenache Shiraz, which went well with the curries. At £10.99, it was reasonable value.

We had a good quiet night and after a hearty breakfast, drove to nearby Findon village. From Findon, we walked to Cissbury Ring, a prehistoric hill fort of some 65 acres and an the inner defensive ring of over 1 mile in circumference. The builders used animal antlers, wooden spades and animal shoulder blades for shovels.

Building on the fort started before 300BC and has been refortified during later periods, including the Roman. Within and around the fort are a large number of flint mines dating back some 3000 years. This was one of the most important and oldest flint mining areas in Britain. The quality is high and examples of Cissbury flint have been found as far away as the Eastern Mediterranean. Some 250 pits are within the fort.

The fort commands views over Beachy Head, the Isle of Wight and the Sussex Weald.

Walking here is not as glutinous as elsewhere in the south this year. The chalk downs drain very quickly and even in winter are no problem to walk on. Below the fort, we skirted it’s boundary along a woodland path, taking us just over one of the numerous Sussex dew-ponds.

A little further on, dozens of pheasants fed in the field below and we saw a pure albino cock pheasant . It ran to the fence and flew over it, followed by his harem of naturally coloured hens.

Although it was cold and dry, the sky was somewhat opaque, giving a pale, watery light, reminiscent of J.M.W Turner’s watercolours. Everywhere, the countryside was bathed in layers of soft pastels.

Once on the South Downs Way, we had a grand vista of downs, valleys, the Ring and the sea beyond. It is a very different outlook to a summer’s day and has subtler charms, but these things have to be experienced to be understood.

The homeward stretch is a long way downhill and we spotted three roe deer on a neighbouring hillside, feeding in the half-light of the waning afternoon.

There is a wine bar/café in Findon, which is open all day throughout the year, even on Sunday evenings. It does some reasonable meals and teas or coffee. It was full and doing a good trade. Otherwise, the Village House pub is open all day too. The Gun Inn nearby is open for standard pub hours.

As I may have mentioned before, once we find a good restaurant, Louise is reluctant to try anywhere else, so we went back to Nooris for the evening meal. The food was very good again and we chose a Californian red wine this time. It was good, but not quite in the same league as the Jacob’s Creek from the night before.

The next day we intended to walk close to the Devil’s Dyke, but thick mist and persistent rain changed our minds. A wander around "The Lanes" in Brighton seemed a more sensible prospect. The Lanes has a character of it’s own, with small shops, galleries, restaurants, pubs and wine bars in narrow streets and tiny open squares.

There is a real avant-garde atmosphere, contrasting with Brighton’s more staid and formal persona.

Not by design, we discovered that Brighton had been granted city status that afternoon.

There was no noticeable change in the air or any obvious signs of celebration, but it is an odd feeling visiting a town and leaving it a city.

As a parting shot, we visited the fish market, by the Fishermens’ Museum below the promenade and bought two freshly caught plaice. They were full of eggs, but that didn’t spoil them too much.

The drive back home was a bit hairy. The rain was bad enough, but the back-roads through heath and woodland were covered in thick swirling mist, the kind you see in horror movies. Visibility was down to a couple of dozen metres and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Frankenstein trying to thumb a lift. He would have had to carry on trying, because we didn’t have any room in the car.

Despite the conditions. we reached home in good time and with no mishaps.

The Route:

Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 121

Distance: 6 miles

Start: The Post Office or the Village House pub, Findon village, West Sussex.

Ref: TQ122088

From the Post Office in Findon village, walk towards the Village House pub and the Gun Inn. Take the road to the left, opposite the pubs. Follow the direction of a sign pointing you to Nepcote Lane. Ignore the first left turning you come to, but soon after, bear left on Nepcote Lane.
After 200 metres or so, Nepcote Lane bends round to the right. Just after it bends, take a smaller lane on the left, signposted to Cissbury Ring.
The lane goes gently uphill passing a house called "Thistledown" on the right and "Bramblings" on the left. Just after the last of the properties on the left, take a broad track, which slants off the lane, also on the left. Do not enter the field, but carry on uphill.
Near the crest of the rise and just after passing a copse on your left you come to another path which takes you off to the right, towards the car park at the Cissbury Ring.
Go past the car park and cross a chalk path to an information board giving the history of the hill fort. After reading up on the site, go through a gate to the left of the board.
Take the public footpath, marked by a yellow arrow straight up the hill. About 20 metres on, cross a broad chalk track and then go through a kissing gate and continue upwards via a series of steps.
After the steps, continue to head towards and aim for a trig point. Once at the trig point, take a broad grassy path on it’s left going east. This leads you through a break in the mound’s defensive wall.
Go through another kissing gate just past the break and continue ahead for 15 metres in the direction of a metal gate, before joining a crossing track heading diagonally right to another gate.
To the right of the big wooden gate facing you, go through another wooden gate on to an enclosed path. Continue straight ahead, ignoring the path going downhill.
When you reach a junction of paths, bear left, going uphill on a chalk track. Where this flattens out, it can get quite muddy.
At a triangular junction of paths, take the left path, which goes down into a dip and then briefly back uphill again.
This is a pretty section going steadily downhill with woodland on your left and a big drop on your right with scrub and lots of "Old man’s beard." You can also see a Sussex dewpond below on the right.
At the bottom of the slope, ignore the gate, but follow the main path to the left.
Shortly, you come to another wooden gate. Got through it and at a fork of paths with a Cissbury Ring National Trust sign, take the right hand path.
At the next junction of paths, just past a green metal barn, turn sharply right and follow a main track passing to the left of the barn.
After several hundred metres at another division of paths, turn left into a field and pass to the right of another dewpond towards the corner of the wire fence ahead. Follow the footpath ahead, keeping the fence on your right. This area is known as Stump Bottom.
When the fence runs out, continue along the path, where a few hawthorn bushes mark out the threadbare hedge. The path soon swings in to join another path on the other side of the hedge, continuing ahead on what is now a public bridleway.
At the end of this valley bottom, you come to the Monarch’s Way, which crosses your path.

Turn right along the Monarch’s Way and proceed uphill until you meet the South Downs Way.

Turn left along the South Downs Way with it’s fine ridge walk. After nearly 2km, you come to a junction. To your left is an enclosed field with two water-troughs and a "Private, No Right of Way" sign. Just past the field, take a bridleway to the left, leaving the South Downs Way.
At the next junction of paths, continue ahead downhill, ignoring the right hand path.
When you come to another junction of paths, ignore the right hand path again and keep ahead a few metres to a real convergence of paths.
Take a broad track on the right and a few metres into this track go through a gate on your left into a field and follow a footpath, which goes diagonally downhill.
After around 200 metres, cross a cinder track, but continue downhill on the footpath, which gets a bit fainter now. At the bottom of the path, go through a gate into an enclosed track with wooden railings either side of it.
Go through a gate at the end of the track and then head half right across this long narrow field. You should see a radio mast on the distant hill, slightly left of your heading.
When you reach the opposite fence, turn right, keeping the fence to your left.
A few metres on go through a gate on your left into another enclosed path and keep ahead.
Go through the gate at the end and some 15 metres on, turn right onto a lane. This is the same lane, which passed "Thistledown" earlier and now takes you down to Nepcote Lane.
Follow Nepcote Lane through the bend on the right and continue downhill to Findon village, retracing your earlier steps.