South Downs: Cissbury Ring and Harrow Hill

The plan today revolved around going on a search for fairies.

You may be forgiven for wondering why a grown man would engage in such a pursuit. Well, there are two sides to it.

First of all, since my first foray down to the South Downs it had immediately come to represent a destination for escapism. On that first walk I was just amazed at how remote parts of the South Downs could feel, considering most of the stations in and around the Downs are within an hour or so's train journey of London. On top of the hills, there would at times appear to be a near unblemished landscape laid out before me, because the towns and villages would have the good grace to remain down in the valleys, hidden from view. It felt a million miles from the constant tide of people that are everywhere you look in London - and being rather hemmed in, in a flat in a Victorian terrace, even when at home I'm often painfully aware of the proximity of other people. For this reason the South Downs had already started to seem like quite a magical place - a kind of Narnia I could escape to, albeit that it took an hour or so to get through the wardrobe.


This status as a sort of mythic landscape was further cemented by reading Hilaire Belloc's The Four Men, who translates his obvious love of Sussex, the county where he grew up, into a rather grandiose narrative of a hallowed, magical kingdom. Although the exact route was different, there seemed to be obvious parallels between the walk "Myself" and his three apparitional companions do in the book, from Robertsbridge in the East to Harting in the West, avoiding "towns of the London sort", and my walk along the South Downs Way. Inspired by this, I'd bought a book of Sussex dialect, which had some references to Sussex folklore, and then acquired more books on the subject.

The second side to it, somewhat relatedly, is that my daughter Erika has a healthy interest in fairies. Amongst other things I had recently read Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series of books to her, which she seemed quite enthralled by. So it occurred to me that given the rich folklore of Sussex this might be a good way to get her a bit more interested in what is currently my favourite place to be.

Thus, having consulted this website I planned a route today to scout out two sites associated with fairies in Sussex - Cissbury Ring and Harrow Hill. Both are purportedly places where fairies would congregate to dance at midnight on midsummer's day, and Harrow Hill was reported as being the last home of fairies in England. Also mentioned on that page was Chanctonbury Ring, which I had walked past on a previous walk, and did think it had quite a special atmosphere.

My walk started at Worthing, which certainly did not have an otherworldy quality to it, and so the first bit was a bit of a trudge.

Eventually though I was heading out of the urban sprawl of Worthing, to greenery beneath brilliant blue skies - the weather was unseasonably warm for Easter. Admittedly much of the initial greenery was in a pair of golf courses on the edge of town which I also had to get past, but, eventually, I could see I was approaching some proper open countryside, and Cissbury Ring.

I passed a small area of woodland near the top of the hill, with some interestingly shaped trees, beyond which I could see the rather impressive earthworks of the old hill fort.

I had a wander round inside Cissbury Ring and started to get a sense for where the fairy legends might have come from. It's a large hill fort (apparently the second largest in England) and given the raised edges, once in the middle you're in a sort of bowl, and can't see the view beyond the outer edges. I found it slightly disorienting. Moreover, slightly spookily, I noticed that the GPS on my phone stopped working just as I had entered the ring, and didn't resume again until some time after I left. It's not as though there's dense tree cover here preventing a line of sight to the satellites - just sparse trees dotted around, and the skies couldn't have been clearer.

Lovely views to be had from the edges of the ring, and I'm not sure whether I've really done it justice in these photos. On a day like today I could see as far as the sea, and it's easy to see why this was chosen as the site for a hill fort.

Being a vantage point, there's a trig point on the hill, but it's in the middle of the ring, so it wasn't clear to me how visible that would be.

Some more attempts here to capture some of the views to be had from the edges - hopefully gives you some sense of it.

Eventually I managed to find my way out of Cissbury Ring, and started to head down the other side. I thought this was a spectacular spot, especially on a glorious day like today, and even if Erika isn't entirely convinced by the fairy side of things, there were also wild ponies grazing around here, so I would definitely like to come back with her.

After leaving Cissbury Ring, slowed slightly by my dodgy GPS, I headed in the direction of Findon where I stopped for lunch at the Gun Inn. Nothing wildly exciting about it but a nice enough pub with decent food and it was a much needed pit stop on several fronts - to fill up my water bottle and recharge my phone.

After leaving Findon I followed The Monarch's Way, another long distance footpath like the South Downs Way, which I'd been considering for my next walking project. Based on this small sample of it, it seems it isn't as well sign posted, and given my GPS was still playing up a bit I ended up having to retrace my steps at least once during this bit.

This part of the walk was mostly farmland, and I saw a long line of cattle being rounded up by a farmer on a quad bike, which somehow being seen from a distance in this particular landcape had a kind of Wild West feeling to it.

This section of the Monarch's Way turned into a little bit of a trudge, if I'm honest, but eventually I got to the point where it was time to leave the Monarch's Way as it continued to the west, whereas I was bound North, for Harrow Hill.

I could perhaps be accused of not having adequately studied the map when it came to Harrow Hill. Whereas Cissbury ring reassuringly has a footpath passing right through the middle at the top, and is National Trust land, Harrow Hill only has footpaths which skirt around the edge, and based on the signs on gates in the area it seemed this was mostly private land. So as it ended up I didn't actually get to the top of the hill, and just saw it from the base. Perhaps nobody would have noticed - or even minded - if I'd just wandered up one of the tractor tracks to the top, but I tend to be a bit of a stickler for rights of way, and when it comes to farmland I stay on the green dotted lines.

So that was a little bit of an anti-climax then. Although I suppose having just stared at the looming hill from underneath gave it a certain ambience.

Possibly a slightly better view of Harrow Hill here as I was leaving it and heading north. From here I followed a footpath which actually connected to the South Downs Way, albeit on today's route all I would be doing is crossing it, rather than following it.

It had been a nice gentle climb coming to the ridge from this side, but when I got there I was treated to some lovely far reaching views. After the slight disappointment of Harrow Hill this descent into Storrington actually made for a very nice end to the walk - it was late afternoon and there was almost a sort of summer evening feel to the air - and several times now I've enjoyed that feeling of coming down from the Downs and back into civilisation.

I'd decided to end my walk at Storrington, a bit further north from where I had met the South Downs Way and just figure out when I got there how to get from there to the nearest station (Pulborough). This worked out surprisingly well, and I was pleased to find there was a conveniently timed bus even on a public holiday (it was Good Friday). This gave me just enough time to pop into the Waitrose in Storrington first to buy victuals for the train journey home. It's very satisfying when it all just falls into place like that.

So, of course, I didn't actually see any fairies on this walk. I do think it was a very worthwhile exercise though - young children have a much lower tolerance for wasted journeys than I do! So I would like to go back to Cissbury Ring with Erika, it's a really special spot with or without the fairies, but Harrow Hill can probably be given a miss.