Yesterday was a Bank Holiday here in the UK, so we decided to go a bit further for our walk with Barney, our Springer Spaniel. We have a goal to walk along the South Down's Way, little by little! The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that run some 100 miles from east to west in the South-East of England. They are not very high, up to about 270m, and are flanked by the sea on the South side and the Weald on the north side. The South Downs Way is a long distance path that runs the length from Eastbourne, East Sussex in the east to Winchester, Hampshire in the west. We have walked a small part of it, north of Worthing towards the west and the east, so we decided to drive over towards Brighton to the next bit of the path from Devil's Dyke.
Devil's Dyke is a deep V shaped dry valley to the north of Brighton and Hove, surrounded by hills of just over 200m high. It has many legends surrounding it, my favourite is that the devil was digging a trench to let the sea in and flood the many churches of Weald inland of the downs. He stubbed his toe on a large rock, which made him very angry and kicked the rock over the hills towards the sea. It is said that the rock can still be seen in a park in Hove!
Starting out at the car park, we were immediately on the South Downs Way. The path is well signposted and very well maintained. It is busy with ramblers, dog walkers, families and cyclists. We headed west to meet up with the point at which we had turned around last time we walked from that direction.
Here's the view to the east, with the next hill and a peek at the flat expanse of the Weald - the land between the North and South Downs.
I was a little nervous about walking through a field of cows! These were young bullocks, quite small still but very healthy and shiny looking. They were curious of us, and Barney was curious of them! Needless to say, we kept him on a short lead through this field. We came across some much larger bulls in the next field, but I think they were used to us humans and took no notice of us as they lay there chewing the cud in the sunshine.
Here's Barney posing while we stopped to drink our flask of coffee. We sat on the scarp side of the hill and admired the lovely clear view to the north over the Weald to the North Downs in the distance. It is a patchwork of farmers fields, with hedges and trees in between. You can make out small towns in the distance.
Here's a view along the back of the Downs, showing the steep scarp slopes. We love to drive along the little road below the hills that winds its way along through pretty little villages.
Nearly back at the Dyke, I was taken with the patterns of paths on this hillside made by sheep.
I love to look down on the towns and villages below. It is great to see where towns and villages are in relation to each other. This view is looking down onto one of the pretty villages, Poynings.
Of course the camera doesn't do this justice, but this is a view down into Devil's Dyke itself. You will have to take my word for it that the sides are very steep, and it is a long way down! There is a pub to the left of this picture and there were lots of families walking around this part. There are people in this picture right down at the bottom, but they are so small I am not sure you will be able to see them.
I looked up Devil's Dyke on Wikipedia before writing this, and found out that Devil's Dyke was even more popular in Victorian times! There was a train station here with a branch line from Hove, which was closed in 1938. There was a cable car across the valley and a funicular railway up the steep north side from near Poynings. Apparently in 1893, 30,000 people visited during the same bank holiday! You would never know this now, although there are small clues to where the buildings were. It just seems like very pleasant countryside, and rather glorious with the blue sky and fluffy cloud backdrop.
Next time, we will park at the same car park and walk East. Hopefully we will do that quite soon
