On a spring morning early I know no way more
joyful.
Ditchling Beacon itself stands some eight hundred and fifty feet above
the sea and is the highest point in all the range of the South Downs,
though it lacks the nobility of Chanctonbury. The earthworks here are
irregular and not very well defined, but there is a fine dewpound to
the east of the camp though perhaps this has not much antiquity, a
seemingly older depression now dry in the north-west corner is rather
an old rainwater ditch than a dewpound. Altogether it might seem that
Ditchling Camp was rather a refuge for cattle than a military
fortress.
Ditchling village is charming, with more than one old half-timber
house, and the church of St Margaret's is not only interesting in
itself, but, standing as it does upon rising ground and yet clear of
the great hills, it offers you one of the finest views of the Downs
anywhere to be had from the Weald. It consists of a cruciform building
of which the north transept and the north wall of the nave were
rebuilt in the thirteenth century. The chancel, however, has some
beautiful Early English work to show and the nave is rather plain
Transitional.
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