Devil's Dyke is a 100 metre deep V-shaped

dry valley A dry valley may develop on many kinds of permeable rock, such as limestone and chalk, or sandy terrains that do not regularly sustain surface water flow. Such valleys do not hold surface water because it sinks into the permeable bedrock. There ...

on the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

in southern England, north-west of

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. It is managed by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

, and is also part of the

Beeding Hill to Newtimber Hill Beeding Hill to Newtimber Hill is a biological and geological Downland Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) north of Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 2, and it includes Devil's Dyke Geological C ...

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. Devil's Dyke was a major local tourist attraction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is now a popular viewpoint and site for walking,

model aircraft A model aircraft is a small unmanned aircraft. Many are replicas of real aircraft. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Non-flying models are also termed static, display, or shelf models. Aircraft manufactur ...

flying and

hang gliding Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised foot-launched heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered ...

. The

South Downs Way The South Downs Way is a long distance footpath and bridleway running along the South Downs in southern England. It is one of 16 National Trails in England and Wales. The trail runs for from Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Susse ...

passes the site.

Geological history

The Dyke is formed in rocks of the

Chalk Group The Chalk Group (often just called the Chalk) is the lithostratigraphic unit (a certain number of rock strata) which contains the Upper Cretaceous limestone succession in southern and eastern England. The same or similar rock sequences occur acro ...

which originated as marine sediments during the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

period. It is a misconception common amongst local residents of Brighton that the valley was formed by some kind of glacial action, the myth of a 'glacier' being a misunderstanding of accounts such as this one from the ''Encyclopaedia of Brighton'' by Timothy Carder (1990):

"In reality the 300-foot-deep valley was carved by tremendous amounts of water running off the Downs during the last Ice Age when large amounts of snow thawed and the frozen chalk prevented any further absorption; erosion was aided by the freeze-thaw cycle and the valley was deepened by the 'sludging' of the saturated chalk.".

The Devil's Dyke V-shaped

is the result of solifluction and river

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

. More than fourteen thousand years ago, the area experienced an intensely cold

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...

(but not glacial conditions). Snowfields capped the South Downs. Permafrost conditions meant that the

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

was permanently frozen. In summer, the snowfields melted and saturated the top layer of soil, because the water could not permeate the frozen chalk underneath. Waterlogged material situated above the permafrost slid down the gradient, removing material by friction, exposing deeper layers of frozen chalk. When the

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

ended, the snowfields covering the South Downs melted, and rivers formed across Sussex. The Devil's Dyke valley was completed by one such river.

Geography

The hills surrounding the valley rise to 217 metres and offer views of the

, The Weald, and – on a clear day – the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Is ...

. It is the site of ramparts, all that remain of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

, and a pub. It is a popular local beauty spot for the Brighton and Hove area, being an easy journey of just a few miles.

History

Ancient history

Before and after the

, Devil's Dyke was used as a defensive site. This was probably because of its commanding view of the surrounding terrain, and also its steep edges surrounded by large expanses of flat land. In the Iron Age, Devil's Dyke was an important site. All the vegetation was scraped off the white chalk, leaving Devil's Dyke as an impressive monument to both attract and intimidate the populace.

Victorian times

In late Victorian times Devil's Dyke became a tourist attraction, complete with a fairground, two bandstands, an observatory and a camera obscura, all served by a branchline from Hove. During its heyday, Devil's Dyke was a huge attraction for the Victorians, with 30,000 people visiting on Whit Monday in 1893. * From 1887 to 1938 a single-track railway branch line operated from near

Aldrington Aldrington is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, previously part of the old borough of Hove. For centuries it was meadow land along the English Channel stretching west from the old village of Hove to the old mouth of the River Adur, an ...

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th ...

to The Dyke railway station, the current Dyke Farm location, to transport sightseers to the foot of the hill. * From 1894 to 1909 a cable car operated across the valley, covering a distance of 350 m, suspended 70 m above the valley floor. * From 1897 to 1909 the

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

funicular A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite ...

Steep Grade Railway rose 100 m from near

Poynings Poynings ( or ) is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The parish lies wholly with the South Downs National Park. To its south is Brighton and Hove, to its west is the Fulking parish, to its east is t ...

to the northern edge of the hillfort. Traces remain of all three ventures, including the remains of concrete pylon supports for the cable car system.

Current use

Devil's Dyke has also become a popular site for hang gliding and (more recently) paragliding.https://www.shgc.org.uk/files/siteguides/SHGC%20Sites%20Guide%202018a.pdf

Folklore

Local folklore explains the dyke as the work of

the Devil Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood ...

. The most popular form of the story begins with the conversion of the

Kingdom of Sussex la, Regnum Sussaxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the South Saxons , capital = , era = Heptarchy , status = Vassal of Wessex (686–726, 827–860)Vassal of Mercia (771–796) , governm ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

. Sussex was the last of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to embrace the new faith, and its conversion infuriated the Devil as he thereby lost his last stronghold in England. He therefore resolved to exterminate its inhabitants by digging a trench through the South Downs so that the sea would flood through and drown the people of the Sussex Weald. The hermit

Cuthman of Steyning Saint Cuthmann of Steyning (8th century), also spelt Cuthman, was an Anglo-Saxon hermit and church-builder. Life Birth In the biography of the saint in the ''Acta Sanctorum'' which was preserved at the Abbey of Fécamp in NormandyAfter the No ...

found out about the Devil's intentions and came up with a plan to stop him. He proposed a wager - if the Devil could complete the trench in a single night he could have Cuthman's soul, but if he failed then he would have to abandon the project and leave the people of Sussex alone for good. The Devil accepted the wager and began work that night, working his way southward from

toward the sea. The mounds of earth thrown up by his digging formed the nearby hills of

Chanctonbury Ring Chanctonbury Ring is a prehistoric hill fort atop Chanctonbury Hill on the South Downs, on the border of the civil parishes of Washington and Wiston in the English county of West Sussex. A ridgeway, now part of the South Downs Way, runs along ...

, Cissbury Ring, Mount Caburn and Firle Beacon, and the

in the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Ka ...

. At first Cuthman bided his time, but shortly after midnight he displayed a lit candle in his window while also startling a

cock Cock or cocks most commonly refers to: * Cock (bird) or rooster, a male of any bird species * Cock (slang), a slang term for the penis Cock or cocks may also refer to: Names * Cock (surname) * Cocks (surname) Places * Cocks Glacier, Ross ...

so that it would start crowing in alarm. The light and the sound of the cock crowing convinced the Devil that dawn was about to break, and thus that he had lost his wager with Cuthman. He therefore ran away in disgrace, leaving behind the unfinished trench henceforth known as Devil's Dyke. At the bottom of the Dyke are two humps, known as 'the Devil's Graves', under which the Devil and his wife are supposedly buried. Legend has it that if a person runs backwards seven times around these humps whilst holding their breath, the Devil will appear.

References

External links

National Trust Information on Devil's Dyke

The Devil's Dyke EXPLORED

''Country File'' video

Videos of paragliding etc. {{coord, 50.885, -0.205, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Landforms of West Sussex History of West Sussex Tourist attractions in West Sussex Areas of Brighton and Hove Ancient dikes English folklore Linear earthworks National Trust properties in West Sussex