The South Downs, Hampshire
The South Downs is a diverse landscape of cities and towns, peaceful villages and beautiful, beautiful countryside, stretching from Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Sussex. Go and explore and you’ll find you can do almost anything you want to do; spend days in the town – apart from Winchester, there’s Brighton, Chichester, and Lewes, each with their own distinct character and heaps to see and do.
Attractions are plentiful away from the towns too; families can spend the day at Marwell Zoo or Winchester Science Centre and Planetarium, there are historic houses like Petworth, Hinton Ampner and Uppark, and ancient monuments like Bignor Roman Villa and Cissbury Ring, the second biggest hillfort in the country. If you want to know more about the unique heritage of the South Downs, you’ll find all you need to know at Weald and Downland Living Museum or Amberley Museum; if literature is your thing you can visit Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, Virginia Woolf’s haunts at Rodmell and Charleston, and Gilbert White’s House at Selborne.
But what the downs is really all about is that immense and spectacular landscape where you can walk and cycle, you can go horse riding, geocaching, fly fishing, clay pigeon shooting, even paragliding – its there for everyone. Enjoy the enormous rolling hills, the wide open heaths, the chalk grasslands, lush river valleys and ancient woodlands. Walk on the South Downs Way, go nature spotting at Woolmer Forest, Kingley Vale National Nature Reserve and Woolbeding Common; climb to Butser Hill, the highest point in the South Downs, and don’t be afraid to stay out after dark because the national park has International Dark Sky Reserve status. Wherever you go, whatever you do, make a day of it; take a picnic or stop off at one of the pubs, restaurants and tea rooms along the way. Fun and adventure await you; love the South Downs.
All information correct at the time of writing