Country walk: Slindon

This walk of 1.8 miles (3kms) is around the National Trust’s famous beech forest at Slindon which made national news in 1987 when the hurricane flattened some of the gigantic trees on the night of October 16.

I have a barograph recording showing that the air pressure descended to 968 mbs at 0500 hours.

Thirty-three years alter you would hardly know there had been such a catastrophe here.

Remains of dead trees moulder harmlessly away under other towering trees in this lovely forest.

There is roadside parking on the minor road north-west of the village and several footpaths through the woods as shown on my map.

The name Slindon was Eslindone in the Domesday Book emanating from the Norwegian word Slein which meant gently sloping ground and the OE Dun meaning hill.

The land does rise gently to the north all the way up to Nore Wood on the hills near Eartham.

Have you heard of the Slindon treacle mines? This was a story which circulated in Victorian times, when several ‘reliable’ witnesses claimed to have filled their buckets with treacle oozing up from under the ground.

This attracted hundreds of people hoping for a free sugar handout from old Mother Earth.

What is very true however is that millions of years ago the sea was

135ft (41.5m) higher than it is today and that raised beach profile is still visible in places, especially in Slindon Woods where you can find flint pebbles worn smooth by that sea.

I have seen them on the western edge of the woods.

Then there is the fact that two hundred thousand years ago Paleolithic Man lived here hunting wild animals especially the gigantic fallow deer (Megaceros giganteus) which was twice the size of the present fallow deer.

Also hunted were the Aurocs, the wild cattle of the Mesolithic period.

The famous archaeologist Dr Curwen found eleven axe-heads in Slindon Woods dating from that distant time.

Walk south from the car-park in a wide left-hand circle.

This will take you along a minor road on the south-west segment of the village when you will be able to visit the forge village shop.

In the woods the trees you will see include yew trees, and you will be able to examine the red fruit which is sweet and sugary.

The centre pip is deadly poisonous if broken open as it contains the poison taxine that can kill animals including humans, horses, cattle and even some birds in an hour.

The fruit is a sort of coalescent fircone.

In medieval times there were sixteen deer parks surrounding Arundel, one of which was the enclosed park in Slindon.

Together with rabbits these were the main source of protein meat for the populous.

Walk back through the village along the road.

You will pass Slindon House, a one-time palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

St. Mary’s church has the only religious wooden effigy in Sussex: that of Sir Anthony St. Leger of 1539.