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Historical Countryside Features
Cissbury Ring (602ft) (car park sign posted off the A24 at the northern end of Findon Valley) is a notable landmark and now belongs to the National Trust. Neolithic flint mines were on Cissbury between 3500 BC and 2500 BC and are the earliest in Britain. They can be seen as an undulating area of pits and mounds in the west part of the hill fort and also outside the south entrance. Most of the visible remains belong to the Iron Age hill fort, built c 250 BC. The hill fort defences consist of a massive rampart and ditch with a small counterscarp bank on the outer lip of the ditch. In Roman times farmers settled within Cissbury's derelict ramparts and in Saxon times there was a Cissbury Mint, but the site of this has not yet been discovered.
Highdown Hill (266ft) (Off the A259 Littlehampton Road) has some interesting archaeological finds; it has revealed early Iron Age earthworks and the sites of a Roman bath house and pagan Saxon cemetery. It is also the site for the Miller's Tomb - that of John Olliver - the eccentric Highdown Miller who slept with his coffin under the bed. He died in 1793. From the top of Highdown Hill on a clear day one can see the Isle of Wight, Selsey Bill, Chichester Cathedral, Arundel Castle, Brighton and Beachy Head.
This area also is home to Highdown Chalk Gardens, a unique garden created over 50 years to display plants in a chalk soil.
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