Fulking

Spring Water and the Chalk Scarp

At the bottom of Fulking's one steep street, water runs out of the chalk into a tiled fountain and ram house that stand much as they were built. In 1886 John Ruskin and the Brighton brewer Henry Willett backed a hydraulic-ram system to pump the spring water uphill to the houses; it worked until mains water arrived in 1951, and the pumps, reservoirs and fountain remain largely intact. Esther Meynell, writing in 1947, called it "one of the most glorious springs in Sussex, leaping out of the chalk with a shout."

The village sits tight under the curving chalk scarp, built of flint, cobbles, timber framing and thatch. The Street has been a conservation area since 1984.

A Pub at the Foot of the Downs

The Shepherd & Dog is a low-ceilinged country pub at the foot of the Downs, with bar tables, an annexed barn and a front terrace. It began as two or three cottages and had become a pub by the early 1800s, appearing under its present name in the 1841 census. Sheep were once washed in the stream outside, the likeliest source of the name, and the building was used to hide smuggled goods in a cavity whose location is now lost. Dogs are welcome throughout, and the taps carry beers from independent Sussex breweries that rotate seasonally.

Nearby Poynings has Rushfields, a farm shop, plant centre and café selling local fruit and vegetables, meat, eggs, cheese, handmade pies, ready meals and artisan bread. The café serves full English breakfasts, jacket potatoes, sandwiches and homemade soup.

Walking the High Ground

Walking is the main reason to be here. A two-mile circular from the pub climbs a bostal, the local word for a steep chalk track, onto the South Downs Way, passing a Victorian lime kiln, summer orchids and butterflies, and the remains of the old Fulking Isolation Hospital; allow an hour and a half to two hours. A longer four-mile route follows the contours with the Weald on one side and the sea on the other. About a mile off is Devil's Dyke, the longest, deepest and widest dry valley in Britain, its rim marked by Iron Age ramparts and the remains of a Victorian funfair. Two miles south of Henfield, Woods Mill is a Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve of wetland and woodland with a boardwalk and an all-weather path, open to assistance dogs only.

The Ancient Parish

The parish church stands not in Fulking but along the scarp at Edburton: St Andrew's, thirteenth-century and aisleless, with a fourteenth-century tower and an early lead font worked with scrolling and trefoiled arcading. It has long served as the ancient parish church for both villages; the Domesday surveyors set down Fulking, then Fochinges, as six households, two plough teams and a yearly value of two pounds ten shillings.

Arriving Without a Village Bus

A car is easiest, but bus-and-walk routes exist. The nearest stations, Portslade and Hassocks, are close as the crow flies but leave a long cross-country walk, and no bus reaches the village; the 77 from Brighton stops on the Downs; from there, a mile of the South Downs Way and a descent lead to Fulking. Above the houses, North Town Field has a children's playground.