Piddinghoe

The Fish Above the River

The golden fish weathervane caught Rudyard Kipling’s eye: "Where windy Piddinghoe’s begilded dolphin veers". Local tradition calls it a salmon trout. It turns above one of only three round church towers in East Sussex, on the west bank of the River Ouse between Lewes and Newhaven.

St John the Evangelist is the first thing you see and the thing worth climbing up from the water to look at. The circular west tower and the north nave arcade are twelfth-century; the chancel, north aisle and south arcade are early thirteenth-century, and Philip Currey rebuilt the south aisle and chapels in the 1880s. The spire is octagonal and shingled. A recent project costing £83,500 repaired three surviving bells and hung three more. It is Grade I listed and stands quietly above the river bend that the whole village clusters around.

From Clay Pit to River Paths

Below the church lies the pond, which was not always here. Until 1913 Piddinghoe made whiting and bricks, and from 1903 a clay pit fed material shipped upriver to Lewes for cement. When the digging stopped, the excavation filled with water. Newhaven & Seaford Sailing Club sails on it now and runs a cadet programme for ages eight to sixteen, with coaching, organised races and a path toward RYA certificates.

The river itself is tidal and fast. The Egrets Way, a walking and cycling route covering about seven miles between Newhaven and Lewes, passes close by and warns that people without local knowledge can be swept towards the sea or Lewes or stranded in mud. The Newhaven–Piddinghoe section is open following repairs; the separate link north from the village towards Chapel Barn remains proposed. The South Downs Way crosses the valley just north at Southease, beside the station.

Provisions and Older Trades

There is no pub in Piddinghoe now. The Royal Oak, purpose-built in 1892, was partly destroyed by fire in 1992 and rebuilt as a house; the village shop, post office and school have gone too. Piddinghoe Farm Shop on Lewes Road began selling game from the farm’s shoots and its own lamb before widening its range. In nearby Denton, the Flying Fish is a pub restaurant with a landscaped garden and seating for about 100 people. Newhaven Town station is a little over a mile away in a straight line, and the 123 bus links Piddinghoe with Newhaven and Lewes.

The village kept busy in older ways. Smuggling ran strong enough that people were said to "dig for moonshine", and a hiding place for contraband was once found behind a chimney at Halyards. A restored bottle-shaped brick kiln still stands in the grounds of Kiln Cottage, rebuilt in 1982 with its original materials.

A Treat Kept Alive

Little Edith's Treat is a children's outing paid for by a fund a grandmother set up in 1868, after her three-month-old granddaughter died, to be spent on what would have been Edith's birthday, 19 July. The fund still contributes to a village children's treat.