Litlington

The Pub and the Farm Brewery

The bar of the Plough & Harrow still wears the refit Tamplin's gave it in the 1950s: curved Formica-topped counters, barrel seats and a small snug that between them earned the pub a one-star listing on CAMRA's national inventory of heritage interiors. There is a real fire, a large garden, and a bar named the Mill House after a former owner's racehorse, which won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1963 and the Whitbread Gold Cup in 1967. The pub is also the Long Man Brewery tap, so five of its six hand pumps usually pour Long Man casks — Long Blonde, Best Bitter, Rising Giant and Old Man among them. Dogs get their own menu.

Long Man is brewed nearby, in a restored flint building at Church Farm. Duncan Ellis, who farms the surrounding land, and the drinks wholesaler Stephen Lees settled on the idea at a village party held for the royal wedding in April 2011; the first batch flowed the following March. The brewery grows 500 acres of barley around the site and draws its water from the chalk aquifer beneath it. Ellis puts the barley down to the soil: "I'm just feeding the worms. If you feed the worms, they'll look after the soil." The shop and tasting room sell the casks and bottles alongside cider, Sussex wine, gin and tasting flights, and you can book a tour.

Tea on the Victorian Lawns

For something without hops, the Litlington Tea Gardens are historic. Tables spread across two lawns dotted with small huts, and there is a plant nursery, a gift shop and a crystal shop besides. The gardens grew out of the Russell family's orchard and Victorian pleasure grounds, which by 1871 ran to silver-service meals, shaded arbours and a pavilion, with croquet, cricket, swings and fishing added over the years. Known for afternoon tea and cakes.

St Michael and Charles La Trobe

St Michael the Archangel's flint nave and chancel date from about 1150, under a shingled broach spire. Inside are shafted sedilia, a Perpendicular Easter Sepulchre and a font from the early 1500s that still shows the mason's chisel marks. The floor falls thirteen inches from east to west. In the churchyard lies Charles La Trobe, first Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, whom Washington Irving called "a man of a thousand occupations"; parishioners still hold a service by his grave on the first Sunday of December, with flowers sent each year from Melbourne.

The Cuckmere and the White Horse

The village is strung out just above the flood line on the eastern side of the Cuckmere Valley, chalk hills and sheep pasture rising on either side. Cut into one of those hills is the Litlington White Horse, carved in its present form in 1924, camouflaged during the war and re-cut in the early 1980s. The village sits on popular walking routes: the South Downs Way follows the river past the pub and the brewery, and the Alfriston-to-Seven Sisters route also comes through the village along the valley. Alfriston, with the thatched Clergy House the National Trust bought as its very first building in 1896, is about a mile off. Berwick and Seaford are the nearest stations; the community bus runs on Tuesdays and Fridays.

A Wartime Stall That Endured

In summer a produce stall still appears on Clapham Lane, a habit the village picked up in 1943 to fund parcels for its servicemen.