The Belloc Way
The Belloc Way is taking shape. The project is not yet finished, but there is an end in sight. We have now walked its full length for the first time. It was just under 100 miles and we did so over six days, averaging about 16.5 miles a day and walking Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday of the first…
South Downs Way Annual Walk
Archaeology tells us that the route along the South Downs Way (SDW) has been used by humans for thousands of years. It was favoured as a relatively safe way of traveling across West and East Sussex, avoiding the dangers of thick woodland and the large areas of lowland marshes that were then common across southern…
Be a Friend
Celebrating our Centenary this year, we have some exciting events planned as well as funding some projects that will make a real difference on the Downs. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our members for their continued support and invite all our new friends to join us today. Be a Friend of…
Celebrating Hilaire Belloc and The Four Men
The Centenary of the Friends of the South Downs coincides with 70 years since the death of Hilaire Belloc, one of Sussex’s greatest writers. So, staging two performances of Belloc’s beloved book The Four Men, now out of copyright, seems a perfect marriage of these two milestones, celebrating Hilaire Belloc and The Four Men. Belloc’s…
No Child Left Behind
One of the best ways we can safeguard the South Downs for the future is to encourage the interest of children in the hope that when they grow up, they will get to know and treasure the landscape and culture. We want to make sure that children have access to the countryside: no child left…
The Four Men
Hilaire Belloc was a prolific writer, who, over the course of fifty years, produced works of fiction, verse, political polemic, history, travelogue and religious tract. His book, The Path to Rome, is often cited as his most important work. But his renowned 1911 novel, The Four Men: A Farrago is a very different book. It…
Our Youngest Downlanders
“It is rather wonderful that some of our youngest downlanders have been able to celebrate the Centenary of the Friends of the South Downs, by marking out ‘100’ on the greensward of the Downs. Bury School, nestling, as it does in the heart of the South Downs, has worked with FSD on two of our…
New Immersive Walking Experience
An inspiring, new immersive walking experience that encourages visitors to discover new stories and reflections on Sussex’s iconic Heritage Coast has now officially launched. This summer, people walking along the beautiful chalk coastline from Seaford to Eastbourne will be able to tune in to 13 unique audio stories, each attached to a ‘listening point’ in…
Kipling and the Seven Sisters
No tender-hearted garden crowns, No bosomed woods adorn Our blunt, bow headed, whale backed downs But gnarled and writhen thorns Most readers will instantly recognise these lines from the poem Sussex by Rudyard Kipling. Few poems capture the spirit and the beauty of the Downs which he had come to love at the turn of…
A Year in the Life of the South Downs
The Friends of the South Downs are appealing to young people in Sussex and Hampshire to write about the South Downs, either as a short essay or a poem. Chris Hare, project manager for ‘South Downs for All,’ a project funded jointly by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Friends of the South Downs,…
News Updates
General news from the Friends of the South Downs
