England

Downs South East of Lewes, near Newhaven, East Sussex

Character: A walk over the undulating high chalk ground that is the South Downs between Lewes and Newhaven.

Ascent: ~550 feet

Time: 4 hours

Map: Ordnance Survey Landranger Sheet 198 (1:50:000) or Explorer Sheet 122 (Brighton and Hove, 1:25:000). Try this link to the map on the Ordnance Survey web site for Denton near Newhaven

Transport: Car to Denton. Only 5 minutes from Newhaven, or ten minutes from Lewes. There is a train station at Itford that easily could be used if the walk were adapted

Accommodation: we stayed at the White Hart in Lewes.

Firle Beacon, 712 feet

The walk starts from the Newhaven suburb of Denton. The map linked to above shows the track heading NE out of Denton up Gardners Hill to Heighton Hill. But much before the latter is reached, take the path that goes straight across the field, almost directly north over Fore Hill. This path is not that easy to spot. The vehicular track you leave is buried deep and you have to climb out of its bottom to see the path heading north.

Across the cabbage(?) field!

The path starts to head more to the NW before the path from South Heighton joins, and the direction becomes more northerly again. It was just before these paths joined that the photo below was taken. The first object for the day, Beddington Hill, is clearly visible with its TV masts on top of it.

Beddington Hill in the distance

The gradual ascent to the top of Beddington Hill is very pleasant. There is not a road to be seen, and rolling downs surround you on every side. The walking is easy, and it feels as though the well drained chalk would never turn into the mud bath that walks in Wales or Ireland or other boggy places can so often.

At Beddington Hill you can look due East towards the high point of the walk, Firle Beacon. The downs drop off quite sharply, on this their northern escarpment, and on this fine March day it was great to see the walk stretching out in front of us.

Near Beddington Hill, looking East towards Firle Beacon on the skyline

At the low point between Beddington Hill and Firle Beacon a road comes up and provides the lazy with an easy route up the beacon! However, its not that easy: there is still some ascent and perhaps a mile of walking from the car park to the summit.

South Downs Way crosses the road

Looking back to Beddington Hill

Looking North over the escarpment

Another view back, this time closer to Firle Beacon summit

Firle Beacon summit

The tumulus on Firle Beacon's summit

All this time on the top of the escarpment, the walk has continued essentially east. The point we are at now is roughly here on the OS web site

From this map, you will see the ridge starts to deviate more to the SE. From the tumulus on the summit, we headed around 1 km SE, then took the sneaky short cut path marked on the map heading almost due south, bypassing Bostal Hill. The initial part of this track was quite indistinct, as a kindly farmer had decided to plough up the field and its path.

From here the walk continues gently and fairly steadily down hill in a SW direction. You have nice views of the ground you have covered earlier in the day, and towards Blackcap farm, which has really been the hub around which the entire walk circles.

Blackcap Farm and Beddington Hill

Descent. The final stage of the walk is the chalk track in the centre far middle distance

There is a low point, marked at 114 metres on the map, before you head up over Heighton Hill and thence back down Gardners Hill to Denton.