The Worthing Downland Estate, ''Worthing Downs'' or ''Worthing Downland'', is an area of land in the

South Downs National Park The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hamp ...

in West Sussex, England, close to the town of

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Hov ...

. It was bought by the public, following threats to the beauty spot of

Cissbury Ring Cissbury Ring is an biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Worthing in West Sussex. It is owned by the National Trust and is designated a Scheduled monument for its Neolithic flint mine and Iron Age hillfort. Cissbury Ring is ...

and the surrounding farmland, which led to a public campaign purchases in the 1930s. It is currently owned and managed, on behalf of the public, by

Worthing Borough Council Worthing Borough Council is a district council in the county of West Sussex, based in the borough of Worthing. The borough council was created in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 out of the existing Worthing Municipal Council, which also ...

Location

The land lies in the north of the borough of Worthing in West Sussex. To the north lies

, which is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

; to the west lies the Worthing suburb of

Findon Valley Findon Valley is a neighbourhood of Worthing, in the borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. It lies on the A24 road 2.9 miles (4.7 km) north of the town centre. The settlement of Findon Valley is named after the dry valley through the ...

and to the south lies Charmandean Lane in the Worthing suburb of Broadwater. Three golf courses lie to the south and were formerly part of the Worthing Downland Estate. Two golf courses are part of Worthing Golf Club and a further course forms part of Hill Barn Golf Club.

Ancient history

Plough disturbed sites at Mount Carvey and High Salvington remain a possible sites of

neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

flint mines. The downs north of Worthing held the greatest concentration of flint mines in neolithic Britain. The remains of a trackway that follows the ridge of Tenants Hill can be seen. It was in use from the early Iron Age to Roman periods (between around 800BC to 409AD). The trackway extends south to Charmandean Lane, which in Broadwater turns into a footpath known as the Quashetts, which becomes Worthing High Street and finally the Steyne before reaching the sea. It is likely that Worthing's Roman grid system of

centuriation Centuriation (in Latin ''centuriatio'' or, more usually, ''limitatio''), also known as Roman grid, was a method of land measurement used by the Romans. In many cases land divisions based on the survey formed a field system, often referred to in mode ...

would have been based on this ancient track. To the north the track extended to

and from there continued northwards to

Chanctonbury Ring Chanctonbury Ring is a prehistoric hill fort atop Chanctonbury Hill on the South Downs, on the border of the civil parishes of Washington and Wiston in the English county of West Sussex. A ridgeway, now part of the South Downs Way, runs along t ...

and into the

Weald The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It has three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the ...

. The track would have been used as a

droveway A drovers' road, drove ''roador droveway is a route for droving livestock on foot from one place to another, such as to market or between summer and winter pasture (see transhumance). Many drovers' roads were ancient routes of unknown age; oth ...

for the seasonal movement of livestock or

transhumance Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower vall ...

in the summer months into the forest of the Weald. One of the track's northern destinations would have been 'Little Broadwater', to the north of Broadwater and about north of Worthing seafront. This area, which includes the remains of Sedgwick Castle, remained an outlying part of the parish of Broadwater until its amalgamation with the parish of

Nuthurst Nuthurst is a village and civil parish in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England. The north of the parish borders Horsham town, with Nuthurst village south from the border. Within the parish is the estate and largely 19th-century country h ...

in 1877.

Modern history

Purchase in 1930s

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s large the Brighton and Eastbourne Corporations bought up large tracts of downland to protect them from development. It was at this period that concern about development also saw the formation of groups such as the Society of Sussex Downsmen (later the South Downs Society and now the Friends of the South Downs ). In the 1930s geographer

Vaughan Cornish Vaughan Cornish (22 December 1862 - 1 May 1948) was an English geographer. He was the son of the vicar of Debenham, Charles John Cornish (1834-1913) and Anne Charlotte Cornish (1831-1887). His brother was Charles John Cornish.G. R. Crone, �Corn ...

advocated a national park for the South Downs between the rivers Arun and Adur, believing that the eastern downs would be looked after by Brighton and Eastbourne Councils and the western downs were too wooded to be representative of the South Downs. At

Thakeham Thakeham's History Thakeham is a village and civil parish located north of the South Downs in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. The village is situated approximately 12 miles south-west of Horsham and 11 miles north of the sea-s ...

Rural District Council has approved considerable building of bungalows and this was seen as threatening the integrity of the Iron Age hillfort of Cissbury Ring. With the help of Worthing residents, the National Trust bought land at Cissbury Ring in 1925 to protect it from development. Worthing Corporation (the forerunner to present-day Worthing Borough Council) continued this trend around Worthing in the 1930s. Between 1933 and 1939, the Worthing Corporation purchased acres of open downland north of Worthing, mostly in the parish of Broadwater and at

High Salvington High Salvington is a neighbourhood of Worthing, in the borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. It is centred northwest of the town centre and is north of the A27. History Pre-history At the top of West Hill in High Salvington are remains o ...

. In 1939 the Worthing Corporation purchased acres of land at High Salvington. This land adjoined another acres that were purchased around the same time. When land at High Salvington had been threatened with development, Worthing resident, the actress

Nancy Price Nancy Price, CBE (3 February 1880 – 31 March 1970), was an English actress on stage and screen, author and theatre director. Her acting career began in a repertory theatre company before progressing to the London stage, silent films, talkies and ...

, wrote to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' newspaper which raised money by public subscription which allowed the Worthing Corporation to purchase the land. Nancy Price raised almost £7,000, included donations from Caroline Kipling and

Ada Galsworthy Ada Nemesis Galsworthy (20 November 1864 – 29 May 1956) was an English editor, translator, writer and composer. She was married to Nobel Laureate for Literature John Galsworthy. Family and early life Ada Nemesis Pearson was born on 20 Novem ...

, the wives of Sussex-based novelists

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

and

John Galsworthy John Galsworthy (; 14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include ''The Forsyte Saga'' (1906–1921) and its sequels, ''A Modern Comedy'' and ''End of the Chapter''. He won the Nobel Prize i ...

. At the time of the transaction the Town Clerk of the Worthing Corporation stated, “Most of it is land over which the public is free to roam at will and which will remain undeveloped for ever. It is a tremendous and valuable lung in view of the continuous encroachment of bricks and mortar on all parts of the south coast.”

Open access designation in 2000s

Following the death of a tenant farmer in 2009, Worthing Borough Council proposed to sell-off the public land. On 14 November 2009 hundreds of people gathered on the downland to the north of Worthing to protest against the proposed sale of the land. Following the protests, the decision was taken on 3 December 2009 to be withdrawn from sale. On 29 November 2015 Worthing Borough Council dedicated the land at Mount Carvey and Tenants Hill as

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

land under the

Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (c. 37), known informally as the CRoW Act or "Right to Roam" Act is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament affecting England and Wales which came into force on 30 November 2000. Right to roam The Act imp ...

to be used in perpetuity for public access and enjoyment. The decision followed a six-year public campaign led a group called the Worthing Downlanders (formerly the Stop the Cissbury Sell Off group). Worthing Council agreed to long-term leases rather than selling freeholds on farm buildings and land.

Biodiversity

The site forms part of the North-east Worthing downs Biodiversity Opportunity Area. Tenants Hill forms part of the Tenants Hill and Reservoirs

Site of Nature Conservation Interest Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) and regionally important geological site (RIGS) are designations used by local authorities in the United Kingdom for sites of substantive local nature ...

(SNCI). Further SNCIs are located adjacent to the Worthing Downland Estate at the Cissbury Ring SNCI and the Worthing and Hill Barn Golf Courses SNCI. The land is lowland calcareous grassland. Species present include

slow-worm The slow worm (''Anguis fragilis'') is a reptile native to western Eurasia. It is also called a deaf adder, a slowworm, a blindworm, or regionally, a long-cripple and hazelworm. These legless lizards are also sometimes called common slowworms. Th ...

(''anguis fragilis''),

tree pipit The tree pipit (''Anthus trivialis'') is a small passerine bird which breeds across most of Europe and the Palearctic as far East as the East Siberian Mountains. It is a long-distance migrant moving in winter to Africa and southern Asia. The sc ...

(''anthus trivialis''),

dusky brocade ''Apamea remissa'', the dusky brocade, is a species of moth of the family Noctuidae. It is distributed throughout Europe and Turkey, ranging across the Palearctic realm to Siberia, Manchuria and Japan. It has also been reported from Alaska.Konon ...

(''apamea remissa''),

common toad The common toad, European toad, or in Anglophone parts of Europe, simply the toad (''Bufo bufo'', from Latin ''bufo'' "toad"), is a frog found throughout most of Europe (with the exception of Ireland, Iceland, and some Mediterranean islands), in ...

(''bufo bufo'') and adder (''vipera berus'').

Gallery

File:Tenants Hill - geograph.org.uk - 20015.jpg, Looking south-west to Tenants Hill File:Path ascending Mount Carvey - geograph.org.uk - 868845.jpg, Path ascending Mount Carvey from

File:Cattle_on_west_slopes_of_Lychpole_Hill_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1730774.jpg, View from Tenants Hill of cattle on west slopes of Lychpole Hill

Bibliography

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References

{{Worthing Geography of West Sussex Worthing