In love with the South Downs, finally

Jammed onto a south coast train full of shoppers heading for Brighton last Saturday, the appeal of our days plan was not immediately apparent. Subsequently running the gauntlet of the pedestrian death-trap that is suburban Worthing (so many mini-roundabouts!) as we headed north from the station, things weren’t much better, until a rounded green hilly horizon hove into view. An hour from the station and it’s all change; we’re at the ancient hill top fort of Cissbury Ring, a peaceful elevated haven half a mile across, and the panorama is spectacular. The south coast from Beachy Head in the east to the Isle of Wight in the west is spread before us, with the sea all asparkle. To the north are the sensual rounded undulations of the gentle dip slope of the South Downs proper, whose inherent chalkiness means that that all farming impressions register clear and bright, the effect being extraordinarily, if unintentionally, creative and arresting to the eye. Tracks are etched in pure white, ploughing with the lie of the land results in bright brushstrokes in sweeps and patches, while crops are interspersed in abstract shapes. It’s almost as if the farmers are intent on some large scale piece of modern art. On the skyline some miles off is the distinctive tufted clump of trees of the sister hill fort of Chanctonbury Ring, our ultimate (i.e. lunch) and equally atmospheric destination on this walk.

Looking to Chanctonbury Ring (left skyline) from Cissbury Ring. (3May14)

Unreservedly savouring the views and atmosphere of this day, I had to acknowledge that I have finally fallen unequivocally for the South Downs. I may have lived near them most of my adult life but as an evangelical devotee of wild and high mountain country, my walking visits to the Downs have too often been beset with the mindset of modest expectations and enthusiasm, i.e. it was the best I could do to mark time until my next fix of “real” hills.


South to the sea from Chanctonbury Ring. (Oct12)



My appreciation of the Downs has slowly built through frequent walks with my better half, who as always has a much less prejudiced take, and as a result of frequent cycling forays in the lanes around and through them; always a delight, even if climbing the steep northern scarp slopes is an often tough proposition! And I really must get into the whole mountain biking thing for which I have finally registered the Downs are tailor-made (hence all those happy mountain bikers I keep seeing enjoying themselves, doh!)

On the chalk and flint, approaching Glatting Beacon from the west, on a cold early spring day (1Apr13)

Another substantial influence has been the discovery and delight in various cultural connections. The beguiling shapes and patterns of the hills have excited many artists, and perhaps no one has done better justice to this than painter Eric Ravilious. His is work I can’t get enough of, in its sparing sweeping elegance that beautifully matches the nature of the Downs. Once familiar with his approach it’s hard to walk anywhere on the chalk without seeing echoes of his work everywhere you look, a case of nature imitating art, or is nature the true art and his paintings simply a  beautiful acknowledgement of that? Whatever, familiarity with Ravilious’s work simply adds substantially to my appreciation and enjoyment of the Downs.

Walking the chalk lanes near the Trundle, north of Chichester, in high summer (Jul10)

I also find the beautiful evocations of Edward Thomas’s The South Country rattling around in my head whenever I’m out on foot or awheel in the rural south east generally, but on the Downs particularly. Thomas used to walk long and often, and almost obsessively, to stave of the depressions that dogged him throughout his adult life, and although probably his most upbeat work, The South Country does still have a touch of melancholy about it. Indeed that melancholic tinge extends to both Thomas and Ravilious insofar as both were to die far too young, in the First and Second World Wars respectively, just a handful of years after producing the fine works that sustain myself and many others now and into the future. Perhaps paradoxically however, there can still be no more uplifting company than these two men when striding out on the Downs and taking in the sweeping forms and vistas.

Legacies of the perfect walking companions