Westmeston

The Well and St Martin's

The well stands opposite St Martin's church, at the corner where Westmeston's conservation area begins. Harold Rowling MBE, the village historian, thought it probably late Bronze Age, and told a story about it, of trial by water — an account he closed by noting that "not all Westmeston inhabitants were above a little bit of thievery."

The nave and north doorway are Norman, twelfth-century, and the font is a cup of chalk clunch from the same period. Inside there is a Jacobean oak pulpit and a chancel that sits slightly askew. The timber porch has fabric the parish dates to nearly six hundred years old, and the three bells replaced predecessors cast in 1636, 1636 and 1712. A shingled turret and short spire carry above the roofline. The church is Grade II*-listed, and the Domesday surveyors, oddly, recorded no church here at all, though the nave they missed was already standing.

From Domesday to Ditchling

Those same surveyors valued the whole manor at six pounds in 1086, down from seven under Countess Gytha of Wessex in 1066. They counted six villagers and seventeen smallholders, and William of Warenne held the land. The parish today has around three hundred people.

No pub was verified in the village. For that, and for a café, post office and shops, Westmeston depends on Ditchling next door. The Bull, on the High Street there, cooks British food with seasonal produce — cyder-battered haddock, a beef burger built from short rib and brisket, a one-pot half chicken with mustard cream — and gets its eggs from Mac's Farm, laid less than a mile away. Dogs are welcome throughout. The White Horse Inn nearby has seven bedrooms, a beer garden with booth seating that catches the sun, and ales from Sussex and other counties.

Farm Shop and Open Downs

Closer to home, Middleton Common Farm Shop sits on Middleton Common Lane.

The reason to stay here, though, is the ground behind the village. Westmeston runs as a long, narrow parish — chalk downland to the south, wooded and arable Weald to the north — the land dropping from around eight hundred feet near Ditchling Beacon to about 325 feet, then undulating northward to around 220 feet. The Beacon, at 248 metres, is the highest point in East Sussex, with views to the sea one way and across the Weald the other. The Jubilee Pathway, a surfaced, traffic-free route begun for the Queen's Golden Jubilee by councillors Harold Rowling and Rob Mills, links Church Corner to the parish hall and joins the bostals into a circuit that reaches the South Downs Way. A stiffer National Trust history trail climbs past a parish boundary stone, the old Ditchling Lime Works quarries, dew ponds and prehistoric burial mounds; dogs are fine on leads.

Getting to Westmeston

Getting here, the B2116 runs east to west through the village, with Hassocks and Plumpton stations either side and Lewes seven miles off. Compass Travel's 167 Village Rider stops on Underhill Lane; check the current timetable before relying on it.

Village Under Wide Skies

Come evening, when the walkers have gone back down, Westmeston returns to what it mostly is: three hundred people, a church, a well, and a great deal of sky.