Saddlescombe

The farmyard and the coombe

In the old cattle yard at Saddlescombe Farm, a caravan and an open-sided historic barn house the Wildflower Cafe on the South Downs Way. It serves homemade vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free food in a sheltered courtyard used by walkers and cyclists.

Saddlescombe is a tiny working-farm hamlet folded into a winding chalk coombe, with no shop or pub. Newtimber Hill surrounds it with chalk grassland and ancient woodland. Sheep were kept here for about three thousand years before the practice ended in the twentieth century; Camilla and Roly arrived as tenants in 2013 and became the first resident sheep farmers since 1942.

Wheel, well and farmhouse

The National Trust has owned the farm since 1995. Visitors can see the information barn and donkey wheel, while the remaining buildings support a working farm. The huge wooden wheel drew the hamlet's only reliable water from a well about fifty metres deep, turned for centuries by an animal walking inside it. Stan Hollingdale, who lived at the farm until his death in 2011, remembered it last working in the 1930s. Organised farm visits include grass-fed cattle, working sheepdogs Fly and Ted, and, when weather allows, a tractor-and-trailer ride.

Saddlescombe Farmhouse itself mixes a timber-framed sixteenth-century south wing with an eighteenth-century red-brick front. Martin Robinson took the tenancy in 1853; his daughter Maude later wrote up a farm childhood in *A South Down Farm in the 1860s*, when twelve oxen still did the heavy work and the family, being Quakers, built better cottages for their labourers.

Pub paths and high ground

Fulking's Shepherd & Dog is a mile away by footpath. It began as two or perhaps three cottages, appears under its present name in the 1841 census, and probably took its name from annual sheep washing in the stream outside. A mile and a half the other way, The Devil's Dyke is a country pub beside the hilltop viewpoint. The pub's menu includes king prawn cocktail, garlic mushrooms, beef lasagne and a mini double chocolate brownie.

Walking is the reason to stay. The 1.5-mile Saddlescombe Farm and Newtimber circuit is moderate, beginning with a short steep climb and crossing open grassland past a disused chalk quarry, a dew pond and views into the chalk valley. The three-mile Newtimber Hill route crosses chalk grassland and ancient woodland, where summer brings possible sightings of Adonis blue, chalkhill blue, dark-green fritillary and silver-spotted skipper. Bluebells and a lime tree thought to be a thousand years old fill the woods, while higher ground looks towards the sea, the Weald and Chanctonbury Ring.

Templars, parish and arrival

The estate has passed through a long line of hands, including the Knights Templar, who were given it in the 1220s and ran it as a preceptory, drawing profits from sheep and arable to fund the order. The Domesday surveyors had counted thirty-three households here. There is no church in the hamlet; the parish church, St John the Evangelist, stands in Newtimber.

There is no station either. Brighton and Hassocks are each five miles away, and there is no parking at the farm; use Summerdown, about a quarter-mile away via the South Downs Way, or take the weekend Breeze 77 bus to Devil's Dyke and walk east to the farm along the South Downs Way.

Bob in the courtyard

Back in the courtyard, a chicken named Bob works his way between the tables.