BRAMBER CASTLE
THE PASSES
It has already been said that the main river valleys were not much used for such communications; that there is no case of both sides of one of the river gaps being so used throughout the whole length of the county; and that there is but one case of a road following a river before modern times (the case of the old road from Bramber to Shoreham); while to this day (it will be remembered) the Arun valley is utilised by nothing but the railway.
Crossings from north to south in Sussex, from the Weald to the sea-plain, are therefore invariably carried over the crest of the hills, and it is a matter for some astonishment that in a county so near London, and to reach a district so thickly populated and so wealthy as is the South Coast, the passages should be so few. With the exception of the Falmer Road from Lewes to Brighton (which can hardly be said to cross the main range), there are but five roads leading from the Weald to the sea-plain. The main Brighton Road which goes over Clayton Hill, the Worthing Road over Washington, the Arundel Road over Bury, the Chichester Road over Duncton, and the second Chichester Road over Cocking.
The uniformity of type which distinguishes the Downs causes all these roads to take much the same section: they choose a low saddle in the range (the Arundel Road is something of an exception here, for the saddle of Bury Hill is a high one); they rise up very sharply to the summit and then fall easily away towards the sea-plain; and though Cocking Hill is perhaps the shortest, Bury Hill the longest, of the five, it is an error to attempt, as do many who are insufficiently acquainted with the county, to avoid the steepness of the ascent by taking a detour. All or any one of these roads will try the traveller or the machine which he uses, and it must be remembered that these five are the only roads of any sort which cross the Downs. Many a track marked as crossing them is, when one comes to pursue it, nothing but a “ride” of grass in no way different from the rest of the grass of the Downs. All these roads have, however, one advantage attached to them, which is the astonishing view of the coastal plain which greets one from their summits, especially the view from Whiteways and the sudden and unexpected panorama at Benges, which is the second and highest summit of the Duncton Hill Road.
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This topographical division of our subject cannot
