Country walk: Hat Hill
The River Lavant which at present is rippling under Chichester showing itself here and there among the shops and car-parks follows part of this walk too. It looks happier among the meadows and village streets of Singleton as it runs past the Wealden and Downland Open Air Museum and onwards to West Dean College.
To make a circular walk of 3.3 miles (5.2 kms) I need to follow the busy A286 along the river’s route which compensates for the traffic. The road has a proper pavement though. Street parking in Singleton is difficult but not impossible and The Partridge Inn can provide if you have refreshments there. No. 60 bus runs every half hour on the route between Chichester and Midhurst.
The Blessed Virgin Mary with its 17th century pilgrims’ graffiti scraped into the stone pillars, is a most pleasant flint church to visit.
I always read the 1744 marble memorial to MFH Thomas Johnson, one of the most famous huntsmen of Sussex, which sums up our brief life on the planet quite well. ‘Unpleasant truth – Death hunts us from our birth in view, and Men, like Foxes, take to Earth.’
There is a large female yew tree in the churchyard. She will be fertilised on by males from as far away as Kingley Vale three miles to the west as trillions of pollen particles are wind-blown on westerly winds. You’ll pass a gaggle of domestic geese in the meadows.
The Lavant is also a highway for migrating water rails travelling from Chichester Harbour northward to breeding grounds on Wealden ponds. I have found over the past 50 years three of these tiny birds killed by cars on the road here.
Pass the access with its avenue to the old railway station but take the next road on the right, that runs north through the woods to Colworth Down. Ash trees have been recently felled due to having been made unsafe from disease. But the wood has a fine flora of spring flowers such as sanicle, yellow archangel, bluebell and primrose. 40 species of birds breed here, and butterflies include the high forest species purple emperor, white admiral and silver-washed fritillary.
At the top of the hill and near the cottage, turn right on yellow arrow, and then another right to follow Puttocks Copse. The name is OE for buzzard or kite.
Fine views ahead of Levin Down, a nature reserve managed by Sussex Wildlife Trust, with a few remaining juniper bushes which once formed dense stands all over the Sussex Downs and whose aromatic berries were one of the component of ‘Mothers’ Ruin’, a horrid concoction of industrial alcohol, turpentine and vitriol (sulphuric acid) with which the poor and unfortunate attempted to get through the miseries of life.
Sheep graze Hat Hill to maintain its downland flora with its cowslips and bird’sfoot trefoil. The latter flower is that on which blue butterfly caterpillars feed.
Our footpath wanders back into the village and over the rambling brook.