Black Down Hill

County - West Sussex

Elevation – 280m

Date – 03/08/2021

Distance – 4km

Elevation climbed - 42m

When I first thought about the County Top challenge, it was on the basis that as I travel a lot with work there might be opportunities to nip up a Top as I pass it, chalking off the easy ones by whizzing up them and focusing efforts on the more mighty affairs.

The downside with this approach is that you don't get to appreciate the actual walk.

My walk up ("up") Black Down Hill extemporised that. I'd dropped my daughter in Farnham to go skateboarding and realised I had an afternoon, and a County Top was only half an hour away, so why not go and chalk it off?

I parked in the NT Car Park and jogged into the woods. One of the other reasons I'd wanted to do County Topping was to try and shed some of those cheeky lockdown pounds which had sneaked up on me. One of the side effects of lardiness is a bad back and accompanying sciatica; which had hit me hard on this day; the first km through the woods had me hopping like John Cleese as I tried to free up a tender hip.

It seems a lot of these Southern CTs have a lot of walking-through-woods in them

The well-marked paths snaked through the woods. Woods are great - this was a cracker, a mixed ancient woodland alive with birds, dragonflies and butterflies - but from the map I knew there was a big drop off to the left which I couldn't see for the trees.

On the flat top of the Down the trees cleared away to reveal a strangely primeval boggy landscape of tiny, dragonfly-filled ponds, with bracken, gorse and heather around.

Bog. I could imagine the odd dinosaur mooching around.

There was no real climbing involved - I wasn't aware I was ascending at all - and then suddenly the trees cleared by a sign telling me I was at the "Temple of the Winds" and the full majesty of the Rother valley lay ahead. Which I then largely failed to capture on the camera.

Views over the Weald, much loved by Alfred Lord Tennyson, who lived locally.

After a brief stop to admire the view, it was back through the heather to find the trig point marking the County Top; it's not on the main pathways through the area but there are some little routes carved through the sandy soil for dedicated Toppers to follow without destroying anything.

Another one ticked off

After that, it was just a gentle amble back through the woods, ruined slightly by my mother ringing and chatting inconsequentially as I tried to find my way without access to the map. Being aware I needed to race back to Farnham to collect Susie left me feeling I hadn't really explored the full opportunities of this stunning spot; I'd rushed the whole thing in less than an hour, whereas originally I'd planned a much longer walk. One to bear in mind for the future.