This website created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K. 

THE CISSBURY CAVES

Copyright Valerie Martin 2000

What splendid views of the Sussex countryside I can see from the summit of Cissbury Ring. The sea stretching to the southern horizon. To the north, the famous landmark that now looks sorry for itself from every vantage-point, Chanctonbury Ring. Before the Great Storm of 1987 it was a clump of magnificent beeches, ash and holm oaks in grand bouffant style. Cissbury Ring on the other hand as has never been able to boast magnificent trees on its rounded noble summit. Instead it is famous for Neolithic flint mines.

The Victorians brought the age of discovery to Cissbury Ring above Findon. Many explorers appeared in the village to toil up the hill and eagerly carry out excavations of the Neolithic flint mines (4,000-1,850 BC) on the windy summit. If we had climbed the hill in those days we might have been surprised to see so much energy put to use and the hard work in progress.

Mr J. Park Harrison M.A. arrived in Findon and took over the excavations on the hillside of Colonel A. H. Lane Fox (who was later known as Lieutenant-General A. H. Pitt Rivers), and worked on them from 1875 until 1878.

Following a fall of chalk rubble in a flint mine he was excavating during his first winter of 1875-76, he made an exciting discovery. He was exploring a neighbouring shaft near to the one Ernest Henry Willett had left in 1874. Following the collection of intricate galleries he came upon "windows" in the chalk walls of his own galleries that looked directly into those Willett had discovered a year or so earlier.

The walls bore marks of weathering and led to several subterranean "halls" — as he described them at the time. He explored further in October, 1876 and unearthed a perfect underground maze of winding galleries, some with "windows" to caves beyond. The underground caves were of surprisingly large dimensions and the following are his measurements for three of the them —

Presumably the height of the latter two were not appreciably different from the first he had found. Park Harrison decided that his caves had been used for habitation as a fireplace was also discovered.

In addition, he notice with some excitement at the time that there were scratchings (carvings?) executed on the chalk rock. He ran his hands over them in wonder. Two apparently deeper cuttings he deciphered to be written characters. It was later discovered that the most common were a series of criss-cross patterns. He was the first person to clap eyes on the handiwork since the mines had been abandoned many hundreds of years before. He noted that the artwork was usually executed close, or over, the entrances to the galleries from the shafts.

Other striking carvings were to come to light, this time on the wall of one of the galleries. These depicted two animals and were interpreted as drawings of a red deer and a short horned bull.

Park Harrison nicknamed his newly excavated area "Cave Pit". So famous had his discoveries become that prominent archæologists flocked to Cissbury to view his work; some rendered assistance. Park Harrison's efforts on the Cissbury hilltop were a thrilling conclusion to eleven years of extremely hard work culminating in important exploration and revelation.

Continue if you would like to read about the Skeleton Pit of Cissbury Ring.

 Back to Cissbury Ring Index

 Back to Main Index

This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created exclusively for documenting life in Findon.