Highways and Byways in Sussex

by E. V. Lucas

CHAPTER XVI

CHANCTONBURY, WASHINGTON, AND WORTHING

Chanctonbury Ring—The planter of the beeches—The Gorings—Thomas Fuller on the Three Shirleys—Ashington's chief—Warminghurst and the phantasm—Washington—An expensive mug of beer—Findon—A champion pluralist—Cissbury—John Selden's wit and wisdom—Thomas à Becket's figs—Worthing's precious climate—Sompting church.

For nothing within its confines is Steyning so famous as for the hill which rises to the south-west of it—Chanctonbury Ring. Other of the South Downs are higher, other are more commanding: Wolstonbury, for example, standing forward from the line, makes a bolder show, and Firle Beacon daunts the sky with a braver point; but when one thinks of the South Downs as a whole it is Chanctonbury that leaps first to the inward eye. Chanctonbury, when all is said, is the monarch of the range.

The words of the Sussex enthusiast, refusing an invitation to spend a summer abroad, express the feeling of many of his countrymen:—

For howsoever fair the land,

The time would surely be

That brought our Wealden blackbird's note

Across the waves to me.

And howsoever strong the door,