DAY SEVEN: COCKING to BURITON

Buriton

What's this I see? Shadow! And shadow means sun! And not just sun but a clear sky as far as the eye can see. The world is awake and ready for a new day. Let's go......

A display of self importance throughout the area is a blatant advertisement of ownership, in this case the Viscount Cowdray and his vast Estate which his family has owned since 1908. Not too long in England's timeline. Every building owned by the Estate has yellow painted windows. The Cowdray Estate consists of farmland and woodland which make up  16,500 acres in the heart of the South Downs National Park. They have their hand in farming, woodland and deer management, film and wedding venues, a magnificent Tudor ruin in Midhurst built in 1273 and destroyed by fire in 1793, golf and polo clubs. The Estate also includes Cowdray House built in 1542. Mine, Mine, Mine. 

Coudreye, the Norman word for Hazel Woods

Today is the Autumn Equinox. Welcome Fall! My favorite time of year. What better way to celebrate and honor it than walking with Nature. And finally there's color! 

We Love the Sun Too!

Some place names today are The Bosom, Linch Ball, Stubbs Copse, Didling,

Does walking get much better than this ? I know the draw for this walk is supposed to be the Seven Sisters and the rolling downs by the coast, but I just love the woods and farms, a village, people's gardens.This was truly a magnificent day! 

The Devils Jumps

The Devil's Jumps are a group of five large bell barrows and the best example of a preserved Bronze Age barrow formation in Sussex. They are believed to be between three and four thousand years old. Only two of the barrows had human remains in them.

They are aligned with the position of the setting of the sun on midsummer's day.

I Can't Not Keep Turning Around

Beacon Hill Iron Age Fort. The path to the left is the Way, the one up the right is the "short cut". If I'd taken the short cut I wouldn't have met the wonderful woman out walking her dogs who stopped to chat with us. I wanted to turn around and go with her, she was so happy, friendly and interesting. Take me home for tea, please! 

A Good Example of Cross Dykes

I have to mention here that I find it unbelievable that these land structures are still visible and surviving after thousands of years. Primitive tribal people built these places and cultivated this land. Not only them but all the people who came after, all put their mark on the landscape. And it's still here! Every time I stepped in clay and mud today I thought of my shoe print adding to the earth. 
Along with the dog prints, other boot prints and mountain bike tires. 

Above South Harting

Good News and Bad News?

Above the village of south Harting is Tower Hill with its ruined folly. 

The Tower was built by the Fetherstonhaughs of Uppark House in the 1700's as a kind of summer house for partying - a pastime at which the eccentric Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh excelled.There’s something so very English about a folly – an extravagant ornamental structure designed only to be seen and serving no useful purpose whatsoever. 

Huh?

er

Friend! 

 Misinformation took me to Buriton village, after all no tea room! All the same the central pond with the church overlooking it, flint and brick houses and weeping willow was too charming to have been missed. 

Buriton is known for its defunct chalk pits. You can walk through an interpretive park explaining the history and see the abandoned workings. Chalk has been quarried from the South Downs for generations for use as a building material and for the manufacture of lime. 

Today I crossed the border from West Sussex into East Hampshire. This is genuine English countryside at its postcard finest, where time has stood still. 

There's Always Tea to Be Found

Village Life and My Rental Car