Madehurst

The Vineyard and Madehurst Lodge

The vineyard at THE PIG in the South Downs grows on a slope that used to be alpaca grazing. Robin Hutson planted it in 2020 — Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and a little Gamay on south-west-facing ground of chalk, clay and silt — in a block still named for the animals that had it first. It is the clearest sign of what has happened to Madehurst, a scattered downland hamlet of estate lanes and woods that now has its own wine.

THE PIG occupies Madehurst Lodge, an early-nineteenth-century L-shaped house with a glazed porch and a veranda, and it works as a country-house restaurant with rooms rather than a village local. The kitchen runs a 25 Mile Menu that changes with what is available: at various times it has offered Madehurst lamb rump with creamy polenta and minted red wine, South Downs venison and smoked-bacon faggot, Shoreham Harbour monkfish on the bone, "0 Mile" mushrooms on toast, and a broad-bean-and-feta hummus. What the kitchen cannot grow itself, it generally sources from within twenty-five miles. You can drink on the lawns above the vineyard without booking, and eat on the terrace when the weather allows.

Kitchen Garden and Medieval Church

Most of what reaches the plate comes from the walled kitchen garden behind the house. Old espalier apples line the walls; there are mature pear, apple and cherry trees, three polytunnels for peppers, tomatoes, leaves and herbs, a nuttery, a smokehouse and a mushroom house. One January visitor called the atmosphere "warm and jolly" and left remembering the staff by name.

The church, St Mary Magdalene, is the hamlet's other fixed point. Its low tower, with a pyramidal roof and heavy buttresses, went up around 1200; the round-headed west doorway survives from the 12th century, and Sir Thomas Jackson rebuilt much of the rest, adding the north aisle in 1864. Inside is a worn Morris & Co angel, designed by Edward Burne-Jones, all that survives of a Four Evangelists window of 1876. A bomb damaged the glass in 1944, and the original cartoons for the angel now hang in the church. The first record of the place is from 1140, when William de Caisnet gave it to Lewes Priory.

Walking the Downs

Walking is the reason to stay. The Great Down Loop is a signed four-mile circuit from the hotel, past the vineyard and kitchen garden and out to a broad grass field with views to the coast; the slightly longer Monarch's Way walk runs through Barkhale and Houghton woods before returning along Madehurst Road, muddy in places and shared with the occasional car. Further west, the Bignor Hill circular climbs to the South Downs Way for the longer views out over the ridges.

Dale Park's Lost Grandeur

Dale Park, up the lane, was once grander than any of this. Joseph Bonomi built its mansion in the 1780s; the glasshouses grew peaches, figs, grapes and orchids, and Queen Mary came to see them while George V convalesced at nearby Aldwick. The house was demolished in 1959 and replaced by something smaller. When money tightened, the estate turned to growing chrysanthemums for Covent Garden.

Lanes, Rail and Cricket

Arundel and its castle are four miles off, Amberley station a little under that, and the lanes in are narrow enough to slow you down. Down at the Madehurst Bowl the cricket club plays its summer fixtures — a club that started in 1923, folded twice over the decades, and came back for good in 1997, with a pavilion it finally opened in 2012.