Contents

• History
  • Bronze Age graves
  • Iron Age hillfort
  • Roman invasion
  • Spanish Armada
  • Ring of trees
  • Washington
• How to get there
• Links

The trees at Chanctonbury Ring dominate the skyline from all directions. A prehistoric trail runs from the hill to the gap at North End, Findon Village. The Ring is the site of one of the lesser Iron Age hill forts in the area and the track was used for many centuries linking Chanctonbury with the Findon area.

The view from West Hill, Findon Village, across to Chanctonbury in the distance, as it was pre-1913.

The hill was called Chankbury until the late 18th century and remained treeless until the year 1760. The name Ring refers to the circular earthwork on the eminence, not the beeches. The trees at Chanctonbury were the inspiration of an enterprising 20 year old young man named Charles Goring, the heir to the Wiston Estate. There was a public outcry by local people when he started to plant them. They feared he was foolhardy and the line of the beautiful Downs would be spoilt for future generations. After planting the saplings, Charles Goring arranged for water to be transported up the 779 foot high hill until the young trees had taken root and were well established. Charles Goring died in 1829, having lived to be 85 years old and, fortunately, witnessed some of his trees in their maturity. In his old age he wrote a simple and moving poem about the venture he had seen come to fruition...

Oh! Could I live to see thy top
In all its beauty dress'd
That time's arrived; I've had my wish,
and lived to eighty-five.
I'll thank my God who gave such grace,
as long as e'er I live.

As the beeches grew they disturbed the ruins of a Romano-British temple buried on the site. This was excavated in the early years of this century and showed it to be a sunken temple with a court.

The many Roman coins discovered on and around the location prove that the temple was functional for some three hundred years. A labourer by the name of John Butcher, who died in his eighties in 1967, spent his working life on the Goring Estate. He had many stories to relate on the subject of Roman coins dug up in the area of Chanctonbury. He was the grandson of "Mas" Butcher of Locks Farm below the Ring. His grandfather had often recounted the story of how during a hard day's work for Mr Goring, he had discovered coins when planting the outside ring of trees on the summit. John Butcher also remembered another workman, around the year 1910, who had discovered by chance a hoard of coins. He had been toiling on the breezy heights and carting flints from a location just below one of the dew ponds, when to his amazement he unearthed the coins. Being an astute character, he pocketed the treasure-trove. He later bragged to his incredulous fellow workers how he had received the princely sum of fourteen pounds for just one of the coins. Roman coinage recovered over the years dated from Nero (54-68 AD) to Gratian (375-383 AD). Anglo-Saxon coins have been also found. It is indeed surprising how many coins came to be lost on the hillside over the years. What else lies buried on the lofty summit awaiting discovery?

The Chanctonbury landmark was ideal as a beacon station in 1805, as it had been during the time of the threatened Spanish Armada in 1588 when King Philip II sent a fleet against England. By 1814, all was quiet at the Ring and it had become a venue for picnickers who could sit on sunny days on the southern slopes looking towards Findon in the south-west.

Richard Tritton Ade was born in 1836. He worked as a master bricklayer and mason on the Wiston Estate and in 1872 constructed the dew pond on the south-east of Chanctonbury Ring. In his later years he lodged with Mrs Farrell at the Mill Cottages and died there in 1914.

Two ancient dew ponds are situated on the Chanctonbury hillside. The one to the west of the Ring was restored by the Society of Sussex Downsmen in 1970, and is now managed and maintained by them. The other lies to the south-east of the Ring. Richard Tritton Ade, (who at one time lived in a cottage on the site of The Well House at Nepcote), was a master bricklayer and mason on the Wiston Park Estate. He was instrumental in constructing the original dew pond in 1872. Gone are the times when heavy horses pulled their wide-wheeled carts, trudging round and round on the base "to puddle the dew pond". The clay was carted from the Ashurst area and the flints were supplied by Short's Farm in Findon. In later life, Richard Tritton Ade resided at one of the old Mill Cottages, (now demolished), within view of Chanctonbury, and he died there in 1914 at the age of 78.

Early photographs of Chanctonbury depict the trees in all their 'beauty dress'd', before the most devastating meteorological occurrence of the century - a storm driven by hurricane-force winds in excess of 100 mph which came ashore on an October night in 1987. The Ring above Findon was devastated and would be quite unrecognisable to Charles Goring. It now stands as a shadow of its former self having lost its crowning glory, in spite of much replanting to replace those trees lost in the gale on that wild night.

Whenever you visit the countryside, please just take photographs and only leave footprints, so other people who follow later may enjoy the wild flowers and litter free surroundings. Also, please leave all gates as you found them, ensure that any dogs are kept under control and keep footpaths clear. Thank you.