Clayton Windmills

8th October

Weekends are busy and we’re squeezing walking around everything else. Today we are in Brighton catching up with both Hannah & David so we leave early, hoping to complete a walk on the Downs before lunch. Yet another outing for our National Trust Membership as we park up on Ditchling Beacon (£6 saved in car parking so far this year for £105 membership…I’m going to need to do a lot more parking to make this pay!).

We walk west as far as Burnhouse Bostall. We’ve walked here earlier in the year, only this time we turn directly north, descending from the Downs and join the Underhill Road as far as Clayton. The path back onto the Downs is steep and passes the Jack and Jill Windmills (disappointingly, Jack has no sails and Jill is being repaired). From there we pick our way across the Downs to Lower Standean before looping back to Ditchling Beacon. On our way we stumble upon a pheasant shoot (plenty of wax jackets and Range Rovers) and I relive a traumatic mountain biking team building event as we climb out onto Heathy Brow (4 years ago but memories are still raw). A short walk and yet David still arrives at Brighton Station before we complete our walk…6.3 miles. It’s taken us 2 1/4 hours.

(Starting coordinates N50° 54.043′ W0° 06.294′)