Didling

The church that did not fall

St Andrew's stands on its own on the north slope of Didling Hill, a short way from the handful of houses it serves, and it has no electricity. Inside there is a rough tub-shaped font, benches from the fifteenth century, and a pulpit and communion rails from the seventeenth, under rendered flint walls with lancet windows. The nave runs straight into the chancel with no arch or screen between them, a plan almost unchanged since Alan de St George is thought to have founded the church around 1220. It is still called the Shepherds' Church, close by the old drovers' track that crossed the downs.

It has not always been kept this carefully. A bishop who came in 1687 found it "soe ruinous that it is like to fall." It did not fall.

Red tiles and a pub lane

Didling itself is a very small group of houses north of the church, red-tiled farm buildings set among sheep pasture and chalk. Christopher Somerville, who walked through, called it "mellow, red-tiled Didling." North of here the land opens into wide pastoral lowland; to the south, woods and cornfields fall away toward a hazy line of sea.

Didling has no pub of its own. At Hooksway, the Royal Oak is a sixteenth-century cottage beside a lane signed off the B2141, with log fires, a large garden, real ales and a dog-friendly welcome. David Jeffrey and Sarah Warner have run it since 1990. Local lore says a sheep rustler named William “Shagger” Shepherd was shot here around 1680 after taking refuge, and his ghost is said to remain.

Elsted cooking and Midhurst errands

The Elsted Inn is a warm, traditional South Downs country pub in a Victorian building at Elsted, under new management.

For meat, Midhurst is roughly three miles away in a straight line. Michael Courtney Butchers on North Street has more than fifty years of professional experience and sells meat boxes and pet food. Cowdray Farm Shop is an estate farm shop, butcher and deli in Midhurst. Midhurst also has a medieval Market Square, historic Tudor buildings and independent shops, plus squash and badminton at the Grange Centre and a public climbing wall at the college. Minor downland lanes lead into town; Petersfield is the nearest station, about six miles away as the crow flies. Book-a-Bus runs only within designated zones, with journeys booked ahead and designated pick-up points; a separate scheduled bus calls at Lower Elsted.

Barrows on the walking circuit

Most people come to Didling to walk. Somerville’s six-mile circuit climbs a flinty track through yew and beech on Philliswood Down, follows the South Downs Way past the Devil’s Jumps, descends Didling Hill to the church, crosses farmland to Treyford and returns via Mount Sinai and rolling barley fields. The barrow cemetery on Treyford Hill has five bell barrows in a north-east/south-west line with two bowl barrows alongside. Four mounds were dug into in the late nineteenth century and held cremations beneath layers of earth and flint. A separate 4.1-mile Elsted–Didling–Treyford outing recorded on 17 June 2026 noted nettles and indistinct path marking; it is a dated group account, not a waymarked visitor route.

Back to candlelight

Didling was its own civil parish until 1933; the church had shared a benefice with Treyford since 1535. Walkers coming down off Didling Hill finish at the candlelit church.