The Downs

“ The question as to which is the finest section of the Downs must be left to the individual explorer. To some natures the free bare wind-swept expanse at the back of Brighton will appeal the most. By others the secret woods which climb from hidden combe and dry gully, mostly terminating in a bare top, and which are all west of the Arun, will be considered incomparably the best. To every man of Lewes the isolated mass of hills which rise on the east of the town are the Downs. But all must be seen to be truly appreciated and loved as they will be loved. ”

“ But to possess the Downs at least as a symbol, to dream of them as a refuge, it is not necessary to know them in all their secret places, to have seen all their little forgotten homesteads, or to be able to recognise all their thousand steep tracks one from another. ”

“ As their shadows pass.
Men are burning the gorse on the down's shoulder,
A drift of smoke
Glitters with fire and hangs, and the skies smoulder,
And the lungs choke.
Once the tribe did thus on the downs, on these downs, burning
Men in the frame,
Crying to the gods of the downs till their brains were turning
And the gods came.
And to-day on the downs, in the wind, the hawks, the grasses,
In blood and air,
Something passes me and cries as it passes,
On the chalk downland bare.
XXI
No man takes the farm,
Nothing grows there,
The ivy's arm
Strangles the rose there. ”

“ Outside the ropes, at the foot of the huge green wave of the Downs, were the merry-go-rounds, the cocoanut-shies and wagons of the gypsies; while under a group of elms the carts and carriages of the local farmers and gentry were drawn up. ”

“ I never saw the South Downs look so glorious or so mountainous as they looked with their crowning of mists and their dark shadowed bases. To realise the full beauty of the downs you must see them in all weathers and not in sunshine alone. Sunshine is cheerful, but sunshine is a tamer ”

“ The Downs have a human and historic as well as scenic interest. On many of their highest points are the barrows or graves of our British ancestors, who, could they revisit the glimpses of the moon, would find little change, for these hills have been less interfered with than any district within twice the distance from London. The English dislike of climbing has saved them. ”

“ When they were outside, and had gone on to the Parade, he besought his two companions, instead of taking their accustomed stroll into the town, to come away out into the country. The Downs, he said, would be looking very cheerful on so pleasant a morning. And of course it mattered little to them whither they went. They acceded at once; and by-and-bye they had left the wide thoroughfare and the houses behind them, and were walking along the soft turf, alone with the cliffs, and the sea, and the smooth, faintly-coloured uplands. ”

“ Those who best know the Downs and have lived among them all their lives can testify how, for a whole day’s march, one may never meet a man’s face; or if one meets it, it will be the face of some shepherd who may be standing lonely with his dog beside him upon the flank of the green hill and with his flock scattered all around. The isolation of these summits is the more remarkable from the pressure of population which is growing so rapidly to the south of them, and which is beginning to threaten the Weald to their north. ”

“ The afforesting of the range of the Downs is worthy of remark. The woods are of two kinds—those that crown the foot-hills towards the sea and here and there the high slopes of the Downs themselves, and those that have caught on to the slight alluvial drift of the hollows. ”

“ On the Downs indeed things change slowly, and in parts of Sussex the strong slow oxen still draw the waggons laden with warm hay or golden wheat sheaves, or drag the wooden plough along the slopes of the Downs, just as they did a thousand years ago. ”

“ The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing, park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline. ”

“ The mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood, as they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes studded with great stones just about this part, stretching away on all sides. It was a wise Lord Craven, I think, who pitched his tent there.
Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cultivated land. The downs, strictly so called, are no more; Lincolnshire farmers have been imported, and the long, fresh slopes are sheep-walks no more, but grow famous turnips and barley. ”

“ Emmanuel Ibbetson had built the bungalow and stables in a moment of enthusiasm about racing. It was certainly an ideal spot for training. Just here the Downs are level as heart of man could wish. A great sweep of turf, a tableland where nothing moves but the grazing sheep and the shadow of the bird and cloud, extends from the stables due south, ending in an outcrop of chalk and a rise leading to the higher Downs and the sea. The higher Downs shelter it in winter from the wind. ”

“ The reader may perhaps grasp in one glance the Wealden heights running along the northern horizon, the wide rolling belt of the clay weald between those heights and the Downs broken here and there by rocks and sandstone, patched with pines, the Downs themselves running in one vast wall for their fifty or sixty miles of stretch from the Hampshire border to Beachy Head, and the coastal plain to the south of them. ”

“ Out of the West, along the back of the Downs, dipping and dancing to the curve of the land like the wake of a ship over a billowy sea, a rough road swept up to the head, passing a dew-pond, the old race-course still fenced in, and a farm amid stacks at the head of a long valley that curled away towards a lighthouse pricking up white against the blue on the summit of the cliff in the eye of the misty morning sun. ”

“ Yes, the downs are there, full in sight of your window, in their flowing forms resembling vast, pale green waves, wave beyond wave, "in fluctuation fixed"; a fine country to walk on in fine weather for all those who regard the mere exercise of walking as sufficient pleasure. But to those who wish for something more, these downs may be neglected, since, if downs are wanted, there is the higher, nobler Sussex range within an hour of London. There are others on whom the naked aspect of the downs has a repelling effect. Like Gilpin they love not an undecorated earth ”

“ Of course, it may be urged that for glorious open country, it is hard to rival Salisbury Plain and the Wiltshire Downs. That is true. It is fine country for a short tramping expedition. It widens the mind. A great thing to have a mind as wide and tolerant as the Great Plain, as healthy as the Downs. ”

“ Down by Dunton Green, looking backwards, the hills, those noble North Downs, are seen to go terracing away beautifully east and west, their great, green, rounded shoulders dimpled with folds and gullies, shaggy here and there with belts of trees, or scarred outrageously with great gashes of chalk-pits, where the lime-burners every day demolish yet another fragment of picturesque scenery and roast it in limekilns, to the end that it may go towards the making of mortar and mean streets. ”

“ Its chief attraction lies in the number of interesting places which can easily be reached in a short time and with little trouble. The Downs here are farther off than those at Brighton, but are of much greater interest, and public motors take one easily and cheaply into their heart as we have already shown. ”

“ As a centre for the exploration of East Sussex Lewes has no equal; days may be spent before the interest of the immediate neighbourhood is exhausted; for those who are vigorous enough for hill rambling the paths over the Downs are dry and passable in all weathers, and the Downs themselves, even apart from the added interest of ancient church or picturesque farm and manor, are ample recompense for the small toil involved in their exploration. ”

“ One or two houses have been built high up on the Downs by wealthy people who were resolved to carry out a fancy. In winter the water-supply is furnished by the rain which falls on the roofs; in summer it is carted from the valley at great expense.
In some parts of the Downs water is obtained by dew-pans or dew-ponds. A space is hollowed out, as a rule, near the summit of a hill. ”

“ I cannot however help adding that the poet drew as much upon imagination as upon nature, for the valley though very pretty is nothing extraordinarily so, and hardly deserves the encomiums lavished on it by Moore. The next day we saw the lovely "Glen of the Downs." On both sides are high mountains covered with the most luxuriant foliage, while a lovely path winds through the avenue at the base. The place only wants a purling brook to complete its beauty. ”

“ A Downland road can be taken from here to Friston, Eastdean and Eastbourne, saving some miles of up and down walking, but the most enjoyable though more strenuous route is by the cliff path from Cuckmere Haven over the "Seven Sisters" cliffs to Beachy Head; a glorious six miles with the sea on one side and the Downs on the other, culminating in the finest headland on the south coast, 575 feet high, the magnificent end of the Downs in the sea. All these cliffs provide nesting-places for wild birds. ”

“ The western termination of the North Downs is the Hog’s Back, a narrow ridge, little more than a quarter of a mile broad at the summit, sloping sharply north and south, and reaching 489 ft. in height. At the west end a depression occurs where the rivers Wey and Blackwater closely approach each other ”

“ The complete isolation of these heights, their loneliness, and their wild charm, is enhanced by a line of towns and of villages especially dependent upon them and standing at their feet towards the south. The northern line of villages which lies just under their escarpment on the edge of the Weald, which we have described as being probably prehistoric sites, and which are connected by what has certainly been a prehistoric road, are not directly made by or dependent upon the Downs themselves. Their farmers are not usually large sheep farmers ”

“ The line of lofty hills on the south are seldom visited, most tourists being content with Chanctonbury. Near the Downs, about a mile south-east, lies the little church of Sullington under its two great yews, very primitive and at present unrestored; most of the work seems to be Early English. Here is an effigy of an unknown knight, also an old stone coffin. A footpath leads direct to Washington where we turn towards the sea, climbing by the Worthing road the narrow pass which cuts between the Downs and drops to Findon. ”

“ As to walking on the downs, one remembers that the fine days are not so many, even in the season when they are looked for—they have certainly been few during this wet and discomfortable one of 1909. It is indeed only on the chalk hills that I ever feel disposed to quarrel with this English climate, for all weathers are good to those who love the open air, and have their special attractions. ”

“ The ladies reserved themselves for later in the day. My guide cautioned me not to attempt to enter the encampment, as the men are dangerous, and their position on the Downs a privileged one. It was only when the tramps were trespassing, or evidently bent on mischief, that they were disturbed. On the Downs they were monarchs of all they surveyed.
When the sun was fairly up, and the morning mists rolled away from those glorious Downs, I felt my mission accomplished. I had seen the sun rise on [148] Epsom course. ”

“ The Downs about Cuckmere, which lies half-way between Lewes and Beachy Head, are lonely. Apart from shepherds, you seldom meet on them anyone save a horseman or a watcher. But more than once the three came on Joses on the hillside. ”

“ The Downs make no impression upon the view to landwards, save at one place where, for ten miles or so from Eastbourne to Newhaven, one runs along their seaward end and the high cliffs of Beachy Head, Birling Gap, and Seaford. ”

“ I remember once being told of a record in a manor, which held of the Church and which lay upon the southern slope of the Downs, that so much was entered for “straw from the Lowlands”: then, years afterwards, when I had to thatch a Bethlehem in an orchard underneath tall elms—a pleasant place to write in, with the noise of bees in the air—the man who came to thatch said to me: “We must have straw from the Lowlands; this upland straw is no good for thatching.” ”

“ The country people around the Land’s-End say that in old times no one could live in the low grounds, which were then covered with thickets, and these swarming with adders. Even at a much later period, in the summer-time, it was not safe to venture amongst the furze on the Downs without a milpreve. ”

“ A great trade was once done by the Downland peasantry in these "Sussex Ortolans," as they were called, but of late years the demand has dwindled to vanishing point.
The lover of the picturesque will feel grateful to the powers who refuse to destroy the deserted windmills which stud the Downs and of which there is one good example near here. One cannot suppose however that the object of letting them stand is other than utilitarian ”