Blustery Downs Walk from Upwaltham to Amberley - October 2025

It's been a while since Strictly Lady Lloyd and I have undertaken a walk. Given the busyness of everyone's lives, we booked one in several weeks ago for this weekend, but hadn't made a firm plan.
 
'Where shall we go?' she asked.

'It's been a while since we've been up on the Downs. I've missed it.'

It turns out that so had she, and so we found ourselves at a Cadence Cafe first thing this morning. I say 'found ourselves at' very casually, which fails to do justice to the catalogue of events which led to that particular set of circumstances.

First, it's worth reminding that the Cadence Cafe at Upwaltham was the scene of a near-divorce situation. Secondly, Chauffeur Gooda not only has to work on a Saturday himself, but also has to drive our daughter to work in the opposite direction. Thirdly, there are dogs to be walked before any driving is done. There was some muttering. So the task fell to Strictly Lord Lloyd who embraced the mission with greater enthusiasm.

We began at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Upwaltham, a slight deviation from the South Downs Way itself, and somewhere we attempted to visit on our first walk this way, but were put off by the busy road. 

Not so this time. It was worth the detour. An early 12th century Norman church, tiny, and Grade 1 listed, that has stood largely unchanged for the best part of 900 years. It has a distinctive appearance, whitewashed with a curved end, the result of the apsidal, semi-circular chancel, a shape that is rare in Sussex; there are only a handful of them still standing. It is sometimes described as the 'church in the field', was originally a drovers’ church and features in William Cobbett’s Rural Rides.

There was a sombre moment as we saw that the church commemorates two WWII tragedies on a plaque inside. In February 1944, a Lancaster bomber crashed into a nearby hill killing all eight on board. Then in 1945, tragedy struck again when an American Dakota also crashed nearby killing all seven on board. 

Back outside, we were blessed with beautiful blue skies for the first part of the walk proper, as we climbed up Burton Hill. Not only good weather, but benches! It's more than two years since we completed the South Downs Way for the first time and perhaps someone's been reading the blog posts, because there were new places to sit on this leg of the way. The first bench presented itself a couple of miles into the walk, at a picturesque stile on the edge of the Slindon estate with views towards the sea, just at the point where a short sit down and a granola bar was required. 

Unfortunately, Strictly Lady Lloyd failed on the granola bar provision - for the first time ever in our walking history, it has to be said! We had to make do with a vastly inferior flapjack but, not one to let a little detail like that get in the way of a good day's walking, it was quickly glossed over. Lest said, soonest mended, and all that.

The views were glorious, we put the world to rights as we walked, and everywhere was still lush and green. It didn't look too autumnal at all. It was windy, though. Shadows played over the downs as the clouds were blown across the sky.

We reached the crossing point on the A29 where the track begins to head down into Amberley, and one of my favourite views in Sussex. It's a place that I often drive through and have to be careful to concentrate on the road because the vista is so stunning.

As we continued our descent towards the village, we began to feel a little peckish. Lo and behold, another new bench appeared at exactly the right moment!

To finish the walk there were Shetland ponies grazing contentedly as we neared Amberley.

And we discussed the whole thing with our customary celebratory pint in the Bridge Inn. Cheers!