HISTORY OF SUSSEX
Antiquities in Sussex
Prehistoric
Sussex, by reason of its great stretches of untouched downland, is one of
the finest regions in Britain for the preservation of earthwork relics of
early man, and the following lists describe the more important field antiquities
which are of interest to the tourist.
The 'camps' or hill-forts, some of which crown the highest points of the
Downs, have always presented an interesting but difficult problem. Two notable
monuments, Whitehawk Camp, Brighton, and the Trundle at Goodwood, have been
proved by the painstaking excavation of Dr. E. Cecil Curven and his colleagues
to have been constructed in the Neolithic period or late Stone Age, roughly
2200-1800 B.C.
These two camps, together with others on Barkhale Down near Bignor, and Combe Hill near Eastbourne, exhibit the
concentric rings of interrupted ditches characteristic of Neolithic camps; they are not, however, first-class sights for
the tourist as the rings, except at the Trundle, are rather difficult to identify.
The question of the age and meaning of any particular camp is complicated by the fact that earthworks constructed
in one age were often adapted and utilized, or sometimes obliterated, by succeeding peoples: the great Iron Age camp at
Cissbury near Worthing, for instance, was refortified by the Romans in the 4th cent. A.D., and part of the Neolithic
camp at the Trundle was destroyed by the Iron Age rampart.
No mere visit to the site will elucidate problems such as these, but nevertheless the great Iron Age camps or hill-cities
of the Trundle at Goodwood, Cissbury near Worthing, Hollingbury, and the Devil's Dyke near Brighton, and the Caburn near Lewes,
are all well worthy of inspection.
Barrows or burial-mounds (indicated as 'tumuli' on maps) will be found on the Downs in very large numbers.
Of the dozen long barrows which belong to the Neolithic period, the most noteworthy are 'Hunter's Burgh' on Wilmington
Hill near Eastbourne, and 'Solomon's Thumb' at Fernbeds near Up Marden. Barrows of the Bronze Age (2000-500 B.C.) are very
numerous, especially on the Downs of E. Sussex, and Mr. L. V. Grinsell has recorded nearly a thousand examples in the county,
many of which have received good attention from treasure-hunters but little from serious archaeologists.
'The Devil's Humps' on Bow Hill, 5m. NW. of Chichester, consisting of two bell barrows and two bowl barrows,
and 'The Devil's Jumps', a series of six great bell barrows all in a line on the southern slope of Treyford Hill, are probably
the finest from the sightseer's point of view. Of great interest to the archaeologist is a now destroyed barrow at Hove, which
was visited each Good Friday by numbers of young people who came to play 'kiss-in-the-ring', and thus unknowingly to carry on
the spirit of an ancient pagan ceremony started perhaps by the Bronze Age folk themselves.
This barrow contained in a dug-out coffin a bronze dagger, a ceremonial
stone axehammer, a whetstone, and a priceless red amber cup, which may now
be seen, together with the other treasures, in Brighton Museum. This cup,
which is only the second of its kind known from Britain, is the most remarkable
prehistoric relic ever found in Sussex.
Interesting products of the Neolithic period and the succeeding early Bronze
Age are the primitive industrial flint mines, galleried pits which were sunk
as much as 50 ft. down into the chalk to follow seams of flint. At the present
time most of the pits are filled in, but their sites, with accompanying grass-covered
rubbish mounds, are not hard to find. In the Worthing district are the western
part of Cissbury Camp, Blackpatch Hill at Patching, and Harrow Hill near Angmering;
near Chichester is the well-known group of mines on Stoke Down and the unexcavated
pits on Bow Hill.
Among the relics secured by excavation are rakes, picks, shovels, and wedges,
all of deer-horn and bone, and many dozens of finished and partly finished
flint tools; typical examples of all of them from the Harrow Hill mines may
be seen in Worthing Museum.
During earlier years the Sussex archaeologists have made far-reaching investigations
into the nature of early agricultural systems concerned with corn-growing.
The square fields of the upland Celtic villagers are marked by banks or lynchets,
and in many areas, typically on Plumpton Plain near Brighton and at New Barn
Down near Worthing, may still be seen the faint outlines of these farms with
their roads, fields, store-pits, hut-sites, and cattle-pens.
The field-system is visible on Pore Down, Litlington, to the W. of Jevington village; and a farming village-site, on
Thundersbarrow Hill near Shoreham, which was occupied throughout the whole of the Roman period, is also worthy of regard.
The majority of the sites are indicated as 'Celtic fields' on modern editions
of the 1-in. Ordnance Survey map. (It should be noted that the term 'Celtic'
is used to denote generally the period from 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500, at the
end of which the Saxon open fields were in use.) An ancient ridgeway road,
which seems to have been in use in the Neolithic period, traverses the county
along the crest of the Downs from Beachy Head on the E. to the Hampshire border
in the W. Many other local roads, terrace-ways, and field-ways, also exist
in the downland areas.
Roman
There are three striking groups of field
antiquities, each of which in its own way emphasizes the four centuries of
Roman civilization. Chichester, with its notable buildings and chessboard
plan, was the well-to-do country town, while Pevensey, with its massive walls,
is a typical example of the forts built early in the 4th cent. A.D. to defend
the SE. coast against the growing Saxon menace. As an example of the luxurious
country house built perhaps for a Roman official or a wealthy Romanized Briton
there is the villa at Bignor with its famous tessellated pavements.
Representative of the smaller houses is the Angmering villa, while the
villa at Southwick was the headquarters of a farming community which practised
agriculture in a rather different fashion from that of the upland villagers,
traces of whose farmsteads still remain as, for instance, at Thundersbarrow.
The Bignor villa was close to Stane Street, the main artery of Roman Sussex,
which ran from Chichester in a general north~easterly direction through Pulborough
to London. Its course may even now be traced, untouched for long distances.
Another road, traced largely from air-photographs
and by the painstaking field-work of Mr. I. D. Margary, ran from Loaden through
Ashdown Forest to the neighbourhood of Lewes, and no doubt served the corn
and iron traders. There were several secondary roads of importance, and of
these the London-Croydon-Portslade road, and roads in the Pevensey area, have
been especially studied by Mr. Margary.
