Walk 31 : Glynde to Seaford

The best bet are the frequent buses from outside the suggested early tea place in Exceat - twice an hour to Eastbourne or twice an hour the other way to Seaford (the frequency is halved on Sundays).

Firle Place was the seat of Sir John Gage, who helped Henry VIII with the dissolution of the monasteries, despite retaining the old religion himself. The house and its park are still inhabited by his descendants, although from the walk route you can only see Firle Tower, a watchkeeper's residence.

The Church of St Peter, Firle, contains an alabaster effigy of Sir John Gage wearing his Order of the Garter and lying beside his wife Philippa. It also has a John Piper stained-glass window in warm colours, depicting Blake's Tree of Life.

Alfriston was once a Saxon settlement. In 1405, Henry IV granted the town the right to a marker, hence the old market square cross (though now without its crosspiece) which was supposed to help ensure honest and fair trading. (There is an interesting free exhibition about the village in the upper storey of Candy Cottage by the market square.) The narrow streets are lined with fourteenth and fifteenth-century houses. In the early 1800s smugglers would run contraband via Alfriston and Cuckmere Haven, with farmers driving their sheep to help cover the smugglers' tracks.

The Parish Church of St Andrew, Alfriston - known as the 'Cathedral of the South Downs' - was built about 1360, all at one time and with no later additions. But because there were no local squires and manors, the church is rather bare inside, with few memorials. It has a basin and ewer on the Sepulchre at the north side of the chancel that came from the Holy Land.

The Alfriston Clergy House tel 01323 870 001) was the first building to be acquired by the National Trust, in 1896, for £10 (which makes the £2.20 entrance fee seem rather steep). A Wealden hall house with thatched roof, it contains a medieval hall and has a cottage garden with some rare specimens. It is open from the beginning of April to the end of October until 5pm (closed Tuesday and Friday).

West Dean Church has probable Saxon elements, and next door to it is a medieval parsonage with a colourful garden. The parish priest from 1891 was the Revd George Lawrance, who believed in captive audiences - it is said that he used to lock the church door before delivering his sermons.

'The Living World' Natural History Exhibition tel 01323 870 100) has a barn full of tarantulas, butterflies, lizards etc. From mid-March to October 31st it is open 10am to 5pm daily. In winter it is open on weekends and during school holidays. Admission £2.95.

The chalky cliffs of the Seven Sisters developed under the sea, 70 to 100 million years ago - the chalk is mainly made up of microscopic fossils. Later the chalk cliffs dipped beneath the sea again and came up covered in silt and sand, still visible as the top layer. There are also layers of flint - flint being a supercooled liquid leached out of chalk to form globules.

The Martello Tower, on the front at Seaford, is the most westerly of a chain of 103 similar fortifications running from Aldeburgh on the east coast. It was built in 1806 against a threatened Napoleonic invasion and now houses the Seaford Museum of Local History.

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• Glynde to Seaford (PDF)

This walk was fully revised in : June-08

For the walk map, please see the Time Out Country Walks near London Volume 1

Fully revised in 2008 [details]

This text was taken from an older edition of the book, and is a little out of date. See the PDF for the updated version.