Читать книгу Walks in the South Downs National Park онлайн

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The knowledge of how to smelt iron had reached Britain prior to 500BC, but when Belgic tribes arrived sometime around 100BC, they used this knowledge to create a heavy wheeled plough with which they turned the downland soil, creating in the process lynchets (or field systems) whose rippled evidence can be seen today all along the Downs. The wheeled plough revolutionised agriculture to such an extent that it is said to have dominated the region until the arrival of the Romans in AD43.

Under Roman rule, Chichester (Noviomagus) became the regional capital, with the construction of Stane Street around AD70 being the major link, for both military and economic purposes, with London (Londinium) some 56 miles away. This was a major feat of engineering, for the road was metalled, had a camber, and climbed over the steep-sided Downs between Chichester and Pulborough. Sections of this road are still clearly visible across Bignor Hill, while an important estate was sited at the foot of the Downs outside Bignor village. In 1811 a mosaic of a dancing girl was unearthed here by a plough, prompting excavations which revealed the site of a large and luxurious fourth-century Roman villa. Farmsteads and country houses built around the same time have also been discovered along the foot of the Downs.