Overview

Ditchling is a small village with a huge cultural legacy, sitting at the foot of one of the highest, steepest-scarped hills in the South Downs, Ditchling Beacon. Architecturally speaking, it’s a gem, with over 40 listed buildings, none of which will come cheap if you fancy moving there: the average price for a detached house is a whopping £922,000, according to Rightmove. It’s a joy strolling around its pretty streets on a sunny day, particularly the picturesque East End Lane, though the centre of Ditching is built around a busy crossroads with far too much through traffic for comfort. The main attractions for the day-tripper are the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, and the village’s 12th-century church, St Margaret’s.

History

There was an Early Iron Age fort on the top of Ditchling Beacon (BC 900-340) with the earliest mention of a village down below – Dicelinga – recorded in AD 765. It is likely that the name refers to ‘the people of Dicel (or Dycell), a Saxon chief. Having gone through various spellings, including Dyccanlyngum and Dychenynge, the current form was settled on in the 17th century.

The village was granted to William de Warrene after the Norman Invasion, and was among the largest 20% of settlements in the Domesday Book of 1086, with 196 households, whose inhabitants mostly made a living from sheep and crop farming. In 1312 the village was granted an annual fair, which still runs, biennially, to this day (the next edition is in July 2026).

In 1907, the lettercutter and sculptor Eric Gill moved into the village with his apprentice Joseph Cribb, attracting more craftsmen to join him. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, in 1921 Gill (along with Hilary Pepler) was instrumental in setting up the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic on Ditchling Common, a mile from the village centre, and Ditchling gained a reputation as a centre for craftsmanship, which it retains to this day. Gill left for Wales in 1924, but the Guild continued until 1989.

In 1985 sisters Hilary and Jennifer Bourne set up the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft to preserve the village’s cultural heritage, in an old schoolhouse they had saved from demolition. In 2013 the museum underwent a £2.3 million refurbishment, and is now a major attraction, putting on regular shows celebrating artists with a connection to Ditchling, including, in recent years, the singer Vera Lynn, the author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, the museum’s founder Hilary Bourne and her partner Barbara Allen, the painter Frank Brangwyn and the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada.

Culture

The spectacular retrospective of works by the Polish textile artist Tadek Beutlich (much covered in ROSA #12) continues at Ditchling Museum until June 22, followed by its 40th anniversary show, It Takes a Village.

The museum is overlooked, from a grassy knoll, by St Margaret’s Church, which was founded in the late 12th century by Cluniac monks from Lewes Priory, on the site of a Saxon church. When we last visited it was packed with cheerful village elders enjoying a ‘Souper Saturday’ lunch, but we managed to negotiate our way through them to view some of the building’s interior highlights, which include a slab in the west aisle with the Lord’s Prayer cut by Joseph Cribb, and several medieval chalk heads protruding from Romanesque pillars. A stroll through the graveyard revealed the resting place of some of the village’s illustrious former inhabitants, including Vera Lynn (at the foot of a flagpole), Hilary Pepler, Donald Sinden, Edward Johnston and Joseph Cribb.

Cribb was responsible for the lettering and shaping of Ditchling’s war memorial, from a design by Eric Gill, erected in 1920 to commemorate the 20 villagers who were killed in the Great War. These included brothers Alfred and Arthur Mears, killed within three weeks of one another at Passchendaele. In 1946 a further 13 names were added. The memorial stands on a triangular traffic island in front of the museum, next to the village pond.

A stroll down The Twitten (off Lewes Road) takes you to the most peaceful spot in Ditchling, the garden of the Old Meeting House, built in 1730, its gateway flanked by two wise old yews. This is an active Unitarian Church, reflecting the non-conformist Protestant history of the village. It’s not to be mixed up with the rather dowdy, Quaker-run Friends Meeting House, previously an agricultural building, and, briefly in the early sixties, a nightclub named The Smuggler’s Snuff. There are no nightclubs in modern-day Ditchling, alas, but there is an active jazz club, with bimonthly performances in the Village Hall and the Old Meeting House.

Eating and drinking

As recently as the 1980s, Ditchling residents could do a sizable pub crawl round the five hostelries in the village: nowadays there are just two, both free houses, The Bull and the White Horse Inn. The former, on the crossroads, has virtually turned into a restaurant, and they pack in the crowds, especially on sunny days in the summer, when its large astroturfed beer garden soon fills up. Having said that, the food is good: on our last visit we enjoyed perfectly cooked chalk stream trout, and liver and bacon on a swede mash with a moat of gravy. The White Horse, opposite St Margaret’s Church, also serves good local food, but has retained more of a pubby feel. We recently popped in to see the Grand National, and won a fiver in the sweepstake, which warmed us to the place. There are also two cafés in the village. The Green Welly, formerly the village shop, is much used by passing cyclists fuelling up before attempting to climb ‘The Green Monster’ (Ditchling Beacon), which featured in the 1994 Tour de France. At The Nutmeg Tree tea room, known locally as ‘Dolly’s Pantry’, you are served toasted tea cakes, cream teas and abundant fry-ups by local teenage girls in frilly aprons. It’s all very 80s. There’s a chintzy room full of Vera Lynn memorabilia, and a notice on the wall proudly stating that Hilary Benn signed his approval of the South Downs National Park on the premises. There are no fewer than five vineyards surrounding the village, the nearest being Everflyht, on Beacon Road, which offers wine tastings. We can thoroughly recommend Artelium, in nearby Streat (half an hour’s walk away, along country paths), which has a fine tasting room that doubles as an art gallery, and serves great grub with glorious views. Black Dog Hill’s vineyard is sheltered by Ditchling Beacon: their wines are sold from a ‘cellar door’ shop on the village High Street.

Shopping

Two shops really stand out. Pruden and Smith, on the crossroads, is a very welcoming jewellers, selling both bespoke and ready-to-wear pieces, run by Anton Pruden and Rebecca Smith since 1988 in a building that previously housed the Ditchling Press. Anton is the grandson of Dunstan Pruden, who was a member of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic: you can see his original workbench, as well as being offered a tour of the workshop in the basement. Also worth a visit is the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft shop, which offers art books, jewellery and fashion items inspired by the museum’s collection (including Tadek Beutlich corn dolly-like sculptures) and tasteful cards and stationery.

Travel and accommodation

Ditchling is close to both the A23 and the A27, which accounts for its traffic problems, as many drivers use it as a cut-through. The village is poorly connected by public transport, with infrequent bus services from Brighton and Lewes. Hassocks train station is a mile and a half away. If you fancy making a weekend of it, both The Bull and the White Horse have rooms over their bar/restaurants, starting at £100 for a double. There are also plentiful bed & breakfast and Airbnb options: we’ve been recommended The Horseshoe or, for timber-beamed ceilings in a historic building, The Bank House.

Next issue: Shoreham